Raptors hoping affordable depth pays off

TORONTO — The Toronto Raptors are deeper. In the current NBA, that could very well mean better.

The Raptors completed the bulk of their off-season work in 24 hours after free agency opened on Monday.

Their splashiest move was signing centre Jakob Poeltl to a three-year contract extension that kicks in for the 2027-28 season. It will pay him $84.5 million through the 2029-30 season when Poeltl will be 34 and in his 14^th campaign.

But even that move was almost inevitable once the Raptors made clear that even if they were going to make a trade for Kevin Durant, for example, it would be to add him to a competitive roster that included the steady Austrian. They were not going to include Poeltl in a deal for Durant (or anyone other big fish) and then have to find not just one, but two quality bigs in a market with precious few of them.

There was logic to the thinking.

Toronto added some semblance of depth at the centre spot with the addition of Sandro Mamukelashvili, a 26-year-old entering his fifth NBA season who offers a lot the skills that Poeltl doesn’t — the ability to stretch the floor and attack closeouts, mainly. The Raptors hope Jonathan Mogbo can develop these traits over time.

So, with opening night somehow only three months away, the Raptors' potential lineup looks like this (projected starters in bold):

Centre/bigs: Jakob Poeltl, Collin Murray-Boyles, Jonathan Mogbo, Sandro Mamukelashvili, Ulrich Chomche (two-way contract), Colin Castleton (non-guaranteed).

Wings: Scottie Barnes, Brandon Ingram, RJ Barrett, Gradey Dick, Ochai Agbaji, Ja’Kobe Walter, Jamison Battle (contract guaranteed July 10), Garrett Temple, AJ Lawson (non-guaranteed).

Guards: Immanuel Quickley, Jamal Shead, Alijah Martin (not yet signed, but likely on a two-way deal to start the season), Chucky Hepburn (two-way contract),

If we’re optimistic, it’s a more competitive team than the Raptors put on the floor a year ago.

There is at least some depth at the centre spot: Shead has a year of experience under his belt and showed encouraging signs as a competent backup point guard and Ingram — providing he is healthy — should provide a significant injection of overall talent. A season from Quickley that is uninterrupted by thumb sprains, tail-bone bruises and torn elbow ligaments — a triple crown of fluky injuries that ruined the first half of his season — should enable the sixth-year guard to show the five-year, $175-million contract he signed in the summer of 2024 is representative of his worth. Imagine, say, 19 points and seven assists a game while shooting at or close to 40 per cent from three on decent volume? That would be nice.

And getting a year from Barnes where he can better integrate his alphabet soup of skills and continued progress from Barrett would provide more feel-good developments.

Whether it all comes to pass or not, who knows?

But the Raptors do seem to be on board with, or at least slightly ahead of the curve on the new trend in roster building that has proven successful when done right, and may become the norm as the effective hard cap created by the league’s first- and second-apron rules makes it more difficult and unwise to spend your way out of roster problems.

The two recent NBA finalists are proof, as both the Indiana Pacers and eventual champion Oklahoma City Thunder relied on rotations that ran 10 deep at different stages during the Finals. Previously, elite teams rarely played more than eight players in the post-season.

It’s both a product and a path to the kind of scrambling, high-pressure defensive style both teams relied on, and which the Raptors used so effectively in the second half of last season, when they posted the NBA’s third-best defensive rating (albeit against a historically weak schedule).

The Raptors are positioned to play that way even though they have some big-ticket players on their roster — Barnes, Ingram and Quickley will combine to earn $119.3 million, which sounds like a boatload of cash to civilian ears, but in NBA math represents about 70 per cent of the salary cap.

By comparison, the Pacers made the NBA Finals with their top three players (Tyrese Haliburton, Pascal Siakam and Myles Turner) earning about 74 per cent of the cap.

The Thunder, for what it’s worth, are a miracle of cap management and somehow won 68 games and a championship with their top three salaries — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Isaiah Hartenstein and Lu Dort — representing just 58 per cent of the cap, which has to be a record. Just for comparison, the Boston Celtics' top three salaries on their 2024 championship team represented 78 per cent of the cap, and that doesn’t include Jaylen Brown’s $31.8-million salary that year.

Now, mileage may vary when comparing the on-court production of Barnes, Ingram and Quickley to Haliburton, Siakam and Turner, or any of the other foundation pieces on the East’s other playoff contenders last season.

It’s the gigantic we’ll-see looming over the Raptors upcoming season. But it’s summer, and we’re being optimistic, so let’s say that the Toronto trio can at least approach it.

If that unfolds, the Raptors' real advantage across the rest of their lineup might be performance they can expect from some of their lower-priced players.

Barrett, who somehow just turned 25, posted a team-leading 21.1 points along with 6.3 rebounds and 5.4 assists, and up-ticked notably defensively last season. He accounts for just 17.9 per cent of the cap with his $29.6-million salary, which is less than an average starter makes in the NBA today.

Lol.

And while we can debate whether paying Poeltl $30.2 million when he’s 34 in 2030-31 will be a good investment — with the rising revenue projections it’s projected to be 15.4 per cent of the salary cap, so maybe? — there is no question he’s excellent value now. The $19.5 million he’ll be making this season and next takes up just 12.6 and 11.8 per cent of the cap, respectively.

And after that? The Raptors' investment in youth could pay off handsomely. They could — in theory — create a deep and high-energy second unit with eight players — the Agbaji to Mamukelashvili crowd — taking up 18 per cent of the cap in total.

Now, that might not matter very much if the likes of Shead, Dick, Mogbo and Murray-Boyles simply aren’t productive players.

But if they do prove to be able to punch above their salary-cap share, and the Raptors' starters are healthy and reasonably productive, it could represent Toronto’s path toward being competitive in a conference that is short on proven contenders outside of the Cavaliers and the Knicks, and where the best team — the Pacers — has lost its starting centre (Turner) in free agency and its best player (Haliburton) to injury.

Affordable depth isn’t a guaranteed formula for success, but it’s the one Toronto will be relying on.