The Finals are over, the NBA Draft is on the docket tomorrow night, and free agency season is here. Teams are looking to improve, and that quest may not be any greater than at “We The North” and in DC.
The Toronto Raptors haven’t reached the Eastern Conference Finals since their NBA Finals Championship in 2019. That team was led by Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry, neither of whom is on the roster these days. The notable players left from the 2019 team are Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet, who turned 29 this year.
Siakam enters the last year of his contract next season before becoming an unrestricted free agent in the Summer of 2024. The two-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA player would have a sizable market (he ranked in the Top 30 in PPG last season). As for VanVleet, it was reported that he declined his player option for next season. It’s uncertain whether the small, aging point guard will have a future as a starter in Toronto or any other team in the league. One notable option for VanVleet is looking elsewhere for a role as a backup point guard on a contending team.
The Toronto Raptors recently hired Darko Rajakovic after firing Nick Nurse, the head coach who led the team to the 2019 championship. Rajakovic, formerly an assistant coach with the Memphis Grizzlies, brings a new voice to the Raptors locker room–and a new coach with a different roster and younger pieces give the organization time to develop.
Because Toronto struggles historically with getting free agents, I believe Toronto’s best bet is to build around younger players. That said, it appears that one of those players won’t figure in the Raptors’ future. ESPN reported that Jakob Poeltl doesn’t want to be on a team going through a rebuild, so the logical decision is to let the center look elsewhere. The remaining top players are OG Anunoby, Scottie Barnes, and Gary Trent Jr., who picked up his player option earlier this week.
Though the Raptors have only one pick in this year’s draft, history tells us never to underestimate players based on where they’re selected – even undrafted players.
Then there’s the Washington Wizards, a team that has not won an NBA championship since 1978 when they were the Washington Bullets. What can this team do to improve? Addition by subtraction seems to be the beginning. The team traded longtime veteran player Bradley Beal to the Phoenix Suns, where he’ll join forces with scoring machines, AKA Devin Booker and Kevin Durant. In exchange, the Wizards get Chris Paul, Landry Shamet, and future draft picks.
As for the remaining roster, the two best players–Kyle Kuzma and Kristaps Porzingis–have player options. Earlier this week. Kuzma declined his option and will become an unrestricted free agent. Porzingis has yet to decide what to do.
What should the club do? A remake is in order. But like Toronto’s situation, DC doesn’t have a history of attracting top-end free agents. So, the best route is the draft (the team has three picks in this year’s draft) and trading players to gain draft capital. That chess game will be in the hands of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, the company that oversees the Wizards. The company recently named Michael Winger as president of Monumental Basketball and hired Will Dawkins as the team’s general manager. Winger and Dawkins made their presence known by trading Beal, the first move among many that will be needed to improve.
Toronto and Washington have a lot of work to do to break a pattern of “thriving mediocrity.”
