The Toronto Raptors’ 2022-23 season has not gone the way team president Masai Ujiri or general manager Bobby Webster had envisioned.
The Raptors sit in 11th place in the Eastern Conference at 19-24 entering a Monday afternoon contest against the New York Knicks. Nick Nurse’s group hasn’t been at .500 since early December and Sportsnet’s Michael Grange wrote earlier this month, “it seems inevitable that changes will be coming” to the roster ahead of the league’s Feb. 9 trade deadline and that “the rest of the league is waiting anxiously.”
Recent comments from New Orleans Pelicans star shooting guard and National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) president CJ McCollum inferred certain members of the Raptors are unhappy with their current situation, which has fuelled trade speculation.
“I think they play extremely hard, but they got a lot of similar pieces and I think that's what they're going through right now,” McCollum said of the Raptors during a recent episode of his popular podcast. “They got a lot of big, strong, athletic wings. … I think in terms of what they need or what they're lacking, something's going to happen. I don't know what. There's rumblings about certain players on the team not being happy, and due to tampering I can't speak to that, but I think they're going to move someone at some point.”
It is unclear which specific players McCollum was potentially referencing.
The 31-year-old was elected president of the NBPA prior to the 2021-22 NBA season.
“I don't know what type of picks they have lined up, but something needs to change because they're way too talented to be struggling the way they've been struggling throughout the season,” McCollum added. “They got too many good pieces, they got too many guys who are not only impactful and quality NBA players on that team, but that would be impactful and quality players on other teams, and probably have larger roles depending on who they decided to move.”
