Looking forward to this.

Nowell looking promising

Interesting. I remember when there were rumours between Fred and Scotty not getting along.

If you’re tracing the devolution of the Raptors franchise, from their crowning championship achievement in 2019 to their latest bit of off-season hard luck, there’s at least one consistent through-line.

As it was with Kawhi Leonard, and Danny Green, and Serge Ibaka, and Marc Gasol, so it was with VanVleet. The Raptors lost each of them to free agency for what amounts to nothing. In the ongoing dismantling of what’s left of a championship team, the Raptors have received very little in return for some of their best players.

Non-paywalled link

In this episode of Open Gym, Toronto Raptors 13th overall pick on the 2023 Draft, Gradey Dick, is introduced.

Words can’t do justice to how thankful I am to the city that watched me grow from a young kid praying for a chance to a NBA CHAMPION, all-star, and a father of 3! I am forever indebted to the franchise that gave me a shot when no one else would. We built things together that can never be broken, and accomplished things that will stand forever. I went from the fans not knowing who I was, to fan favorite, to most hated 🤣 and I’m thankful for every second of it. To the city, franchise, and country that watched me grow every step of the way - THANK YOU🙏🏽❤️

Jalen McDaniels has agreed to a two-year, $9.3 million contract with the Toronto Raptors and will leave the 76ers in free agency, a league source confirmed to The Inquirer.

McDaniels’ length and athleticism, though, are coveted attributes in the modern NBA. He spent the first three-plus seasons of his NBA career with the Hornets, and was averaging career-highs in points (10.6), rebounds (4.8), assists (2.0) and steals (1.2) in his 56 games with Charlotte last season before being traded. He was a second-round draft pick in 2019.

After four and a half seasons as coach and general manager of the Sky, James Wade has accepted an assistant coaching job with the Toronto Raptors, the team announced Saturday. Wade’s final game for the Sky was Friday night’s win against the Sparks. Emre Vatansever will take over on an interim basis beginning with the Sky’s game against the Fever Sunday.

Anunoby told representatives during meetings with prospective agents, according to people familiar with the situation, that he was searching for greater ball-handling and playmaking duties in advance of his upcoming contract talks

Joining as an officer in the order is Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri.

Ujiri first joined the Raptors organization as an executive in 2008 before leaving to become the general manager of the Denver Nuggets in 2010. Born in Nigeria, he was the first African to hold a general manager position in U.S. professional sports.

Returning to the Raptors in 2013, Ujiri helped build the team that won the franchise's first NBA championship in 2019.

While he's mostly known for his work in professional basketball, Ujiri also launched the non-profit organization Giants of Africa, a youth basketball program. He is also known for being outspoken about anti-Black racism in Canada and the U.S.

The Toronto Raptors have re-signed centre Jakob Poeltl to a four-year, $80-million deal, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports.

Free agent point guard Fred VanVleet has agreed on a three-year, $130 million contract with the Houston Rockets, Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul and agent Erika Ruiz told ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski on Friday.

Guard Dennis Schroder has agreed to a two-year, $26 million deal with the Toronto Raptors, agent Mark Bartelstein told ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski on Friday.

Not sure I agree, but it’s a helpful article in its attempts to lay out the +s and -s of a largely unchanged roster.

I can’t say the prospect is making me want to keep my TSN and Sportsnet subscriptions.

Here’s the con that I just can’t see being avoided even with a new head coach.

The Raptors had players in radically different stages of their careers and they did not have a clear offensive hierarchy, which led to selfish play and frustration throughout the lineup.

Plus, there have been reports dating back several seasons that O.G. Anunoby wants a bigger offensive role, while Barnes is entering his third year and likely wants the same. Bringing back the same roster doesn’t exactly create a clear path for either of those two things to happen.

The Raptors can hope Rajakovic and his .5-second offensive system predicated on unselfish play and ball movement will lead to wins and keep everyone happy, but that is asking a lot of a first-time NBA head coach. After all, players now have certain financial incentives tied to making All-NBA teams and other accolades, giving them legitimate reasons to want to have the ball in their hands more and to take more shots.

Running it back with the same roster along with adding another offensive weapon in Dick does not seem like a good way to turn around the Raptors’ lacklustre chemistry and vibes from last season.

The 27-year-old center is expected to re-sign with Toronto for roughly $20 million annually, per Marc Stein. It’s believed he’ll be back with the Raptors regardless of Fred VanVleet’s future with the team.

The Raptors are not extending a qualifying offer to reserve point guard Dalano Banton, making him an unrestricted free agent this summer, per Blake Murphy of Sportsnet.

“My worst memory of Drake is in the middle of Game 7 of the playoffs, he sends me a picture of himself wearing Sixers shorts. He said, ‘I’m coming for you,'” former owner Michael Rubin recalled.

“As soon as I saw him in Sixers shorts, I said, ‘We’re losing this fucking game.’ That jinx-ass muthafucka,” he added, referencing the so-called “Drake Curse.” “Just put on these shorts and I knew it was a wrap.

“By the way, I’ve never seen someone FaceTime me more times and me ignore him more than after that game. He had no chill. We had just lost [to Kawhi’s shot] and he FaceTimed every two seconds. I just never picked up. I just went home depressed.”

All signs are now pointing to a team content to run it back.

If the Raptors do the expected, now, and bring back Fred VanVleet and re-sign Jakob Poeltl and don’t trade any of Pascal Siakam, O.G. Anunoby or Gary Trent Jr, the only other move of note this off-season will be a coaching switch. Out with Nick Nurse, who clearly no longer wanted to be here, and in with Darko Rajakovic, who couldn’t be happier in his new job.

Before the Golden State Warriors traded Jordan Poole to the Washington Wizards for Chris Paul, the team reportedly checked in with the Toronto Raptors about a swap for OG Anunoby. According to Tim Kawakami of The Athletic, the Raptors were not interested in such a deal.

With the NBA free agency moratorium opening on June 30, the Toronto Raptors plan to prioritize retaining point guard Fred VanVleet and centre Jakob Poeltl, according to TSN's Josh Lewenberg.

The Canadian men's basketball team has a new head coach, according to reports.

Jordi Fernandez, an associate head coach with the NBA's Sacramento Kings, will lead the Canadian men in their pursuit of a Olympic berth in Paris 2024, per ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski and The Associated Press.

What are people here thinking?

After a raft of reports a week or two ago that the Raptors front office was exasperating other teams with their trade efforts in the lead up to the draft, a makeover of the coaching staff, strong messages about a pivot back to an emphasis on development etc., were now hearing ‘nah, we’re good.’

The Raptors appear to be moving slightly closer towards “running it back,” a philosophy that is bent on the notion that the 48-win team from a year ago is in this roster somewhere. To further that end, Masai Ujiri and Bobby Webster have largely been shutting trade talk down despite ravenous interest in their heavy hitters around the league.

Is the Raptors front office so invested in Siakam that they are satisfied to attempt to cruise with what they had + Gradey Dick?

Welcome to the Lemmy home for the Toronto Raptors. I'm borrowing from the c/TorontoBlueJays pinned thread as I created this community for a similar reason.

This is a great place to continue the r/TorontoRaptors subreddit. I've reached out to the mods there to see if they wanted to migrate to Lemmy or even just come onboard as moderators since they have the experience and knowledge to keep the community going. I've yet to hear back, but I'm sure they are busy with all the stuff happening in the reddit world at the moment.

In the meantime, there's an opportunity to create and grow a Raptors community here alongside what exists.

If you want to help, please contribute interesting articles and links using some of the current threads as guidelines until we come up with clearer rules for those types of things.

And if you have ideas, tips, suggestions, please reach out.

If you want an easy way to make this space better, please comment or share the community with others.

A few things we'll need going forward:

• A way to create a bot to automatically post game-day threads. This is still months away from being needed, but better to be prepared for the season.

• A banner for the community. I didn't want to rip off the banner from the subreddit, so if anyone has the graphic skills, feel free to submit something.

Until then, let's enjoy the off-season. The coaching search may be finished, but we have the draft and free agency before Summer League gets under way!