The goal for any team in any off-season is to improve.
The Toronto Raptors are still in the early days of the build-up to their 2017-18 opener, but for the moment they are a worse team than the one that was swept aside so easily in the second round by the Cleveland Cavaliers earlier this spring.
Early Sunday morning it was reported by Yahoo’s Shams Charania that P.J. Tucker was going to accept a four-year deal with the Houston Rockets for $32 million.
Keeping Tucker was a priority for the Raptors, even though the fate of fellow free agents Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka were generating more buzz.
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Reports were that it was the veteran forward Tucker who was the first free agent Raptors president Masai Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster visited after the window opened at 12:01 a.m. ET Friday night.
According to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, Toronto didn’t fool around as they offered the 32-year-old role player a three-year deal worth $32-million – nearly double his previous salary and nearly three million a year more than the league’s mid-level exception – a salary slot available to most teams and a tool often used by teams looking to add veteran role players such as Tucker.
Still, on Sunday afternoon came word that the Raptors had reached an agreement with Serge Ibaka, wholike Tucker joined the Raptors at the trade deadline and helped provide the club with some defensive oomph after the all-star break.
Reaching a deal with Ibaka wasn’t a surprise but Toronto has to be pleased they only had to guarantee three years. However, the $65-million was a little more than they wanted to pay.
Getting Ibaka under contract is another sign that a deal with Kyle Lowry is likely inching closer given Ibaka and Lowry are both represented by Andy Miller. From the Raptors point of view it makes little sense to commit to Ibaka without being confident they were getting Lowry.
But losing Tucker hurts. The Raptors wanted him. He only played 24 games for Toronto after being acquired at the buzzer on trade deadline day from the Phoenix Suns for two second-round picks, but his impact was significant. He guarded the opposition’s most dangerous wing player, provided rebounding help over-and-above what a 6-foot-5 non-leaper would figure to, and was an obvious emotional catalyst on a team that too often and too easily slipped into casual mode. His 46-minute battle with LeBron James in Game 4 – while in a lost cause – was evidence of the kind of effort Tucker could be counted on to provide.
The Raptors were a better rebounding team with Tucker on the floor and a significantly better defensive team, with a rating of 101.8 with him on the floor compared to 109.1 without him, according to Basketball-Reference.com. The additions of Tucker and Ibaka at the trade deadline helped Toronto improve from the 16th-ranked defensive team in the league to No.4 after the all-star break, a big reason the Raptors went 18-7 down the stretch with Lowry out of the lineup for all but four games.
The Raptors capitulation to the Cavaliers aside, that showing coupled with the promise of a full training camp and regular season together was the encouragement Ujiri needed to try and keep a team that finished the regular season strongly, largely intact for 2017-18.
But Tucker’s exit throws a wrench into that plan. The Raptors’ offer was fair but Houston offered no state income tax, no winter and perhaps most importantly for a veteran who only tasted the playoffs for the first time this past April, the chance to chase a championship with the likes of James Harden and Chris Paul as the Rockets load up.
Replacing Tucker won’t be easy. As long as Toronto plans to bring back Lowry and Ibaka – and the latest indications remain that the Raptors are confident they will – they will be above the salary cap and very likely above the luxury tax, meaning they won’t have cap space to sign another free agent, although they will have their bi-annual exception (a maximum of $6.75-million for two years) and some version of the mid-level exception (a maximum of $46.2-million for five years), depending on how their salary picture shakes out.
But the reality is it’s unlikely they’ll find someone at those prices who can replicate not only Tucker’s defense, but his leadership and passion.
And given that Patrick Patterson and the Raptors seem to have mutually agreed to move on from one another – Patterson blew off his exit interview at season’s end and he was the only one of the Raptors four free agents that Ujiri didn’t schedule a visit with – Toronto once again has a Luis Scola-era hole in its front court.
The expectation is Ibaka will shift to centre, and given the potential tax penalties they could be facing, Toronto has been rumoured to be working to move some combination of Jonas Valanciunas, DeMarre Carroll or Cory Joseph. At the moment, the Raptors are looking at a payroll (without tax penalties) of about $130-million (assuming about $27-million per year for Lowry, as has been rumoured) or about $11-million over the luxury tax threshold.
One key for them is likely to get to about $120-million so they can still use the full mid-level exception to add talent without triggering the luxury tax.
There remain options on the market – JaMychal Green (Memphis) or Luc Mbah a Moute (Clippers) just to name two – but none would be perceived as an upgrade on Tucker.
The Raptors were hopeful they would improve in July, even if meant staying largely the same. They still might. But for now, with P.J. Tucker’s departure – and even with Ibaka’s return — they’ve got to backfill before they can build.
