Many associate BI and the Raptors with trades, but it's been a whole season since we made a single trade and that hasn't changed this offseason in terms of moving players. At a certain point you have to commit to a direction and invest in players you deem worthy and that takes patience. The starters are slightly different with E'Twaun Moore and after grooming Sexton to take over our starting PG spot we will move him to the starting lineup and move Joseph to starting SG where he can act as a secondary playmaker and focus on defending and scoring without the responsibly of running the show.
The depth chart is as follows:
Collin Sexton/Facundo Campazzo
Cory Joseph/Grant Riller
Mario Hezonja/Nuni Omot
Justin Patton/JT Thor/Yves Pons
Michael Young/Lennard Freeman
OK so let's take a look at the deal with Memphis.
TOR
SENDS
TOR '31 1st
Total $$$ Sent: 0
Memphis
22 Memphis Grizzlies - SF Nuni Omot
23 Memphis Grizzlies - PF JT Thor
38 Memphis Grizzlies - PG Grant Riller
53 Memphis Grizzlies - SF Yves Pons
Total $$$ Sent: 0
We are obviously taking a gamble and have one eye on the future and with Joseph expiring once it's time to resign Sexton and our 2nd rounders we also have an eye on our finances.
Let's break down the rookies:
Facundo Campazzo is probably the best pure PG in this class in terms of a traditional pass first guard who can make plays for others and keep the ball moving. He will take the helm of the second unit and use his dazzling ball handling and elite passing to give us a boost when our starting PG is rest.
Nuni Omot has fantastic size for a SF (6'9) and is already a near elite slasher who can hit the corner 3 and contribute defensively. His upside is solid and he'll find minutes behind Hezonja. He's definitely raw and I'm unclear how efficient he'll be from day one but he's a 3 position stud.
JT Thor is the prize of our draft class, he is already one of the best defenders in this class (the best from what I've seen but I could be wrong). If he can just be neutral on offense and get out of the way of our scorers and just focus on stls/blks and defense we have ourselves a 3rd big who should be good for 24-28 MPG out of the gate.
Yves Pons is a guy that can give us 5/5 on good efficiency given the minutes but we need to focus on getting his weight up over the next few seasons. He's a very strange player, a shooting guard with big man skills but he'll be a fun experiment and good value for where he was taken.
My favourite new addition to the Toronto Raptors is the one and only Grant Riller. I was seriously considering starting him at SG and feeding him starter minutes, he's that good at what he does best - scoring. He's not quite a 3 level scorer and he won't give you assists or rebounding but the 6'1 - 190 shooting guard has better then expected handles and is already a ready made contributor. I think he's going to shock the league as he's the main option on our 2nd unit. Don't be surprised if he ended up being a 14-18 PPG guy in his rookie season.
Riller is ready to burst on the season and show everyone he should have been a 1st rounder...
Of course all of the above still have training camp and could see boosts right away so we are very excited that we finally have a bench, our cap issues are a thing of the past (I believe we are around 75M currently), and we should be a playoff team with top 4 upside. Bringing back Hezonja was obviously a key part of this offseason as he is the catalyst that makes this preverbal ship run, but he should see a decrease in minutes and raw volume, although a nice uptick in efficiency would be nice.
In terms of strategy we'll run a ball movement offense as our starting 1-4 are all elite passers for their positions and we will not making huge changes from what worked for us last season.
