Raptors Notebook: Where things stand after Ingram, Battle contracts

At least some of the intrigue has been taken out of the Toronto Raptors’ free agency watch come June 30.

The Raptors moved Tuesday to lock up recently acquired Brandon Ingram ahead of unrestricted free agency. The deal, first reported by ESPN, extends Ingram for three years beyond this season at a reported $120 million. It also provides a good deal of clarity to the Raptors front office and, barring a summer trade, some real roster certainty for 2025-26.

Let’s take a quick look at the deal for Ingram, as well as Jamison Battle’s new contract, and refresh where things stand.

Ingram’s contract

The average salary of $40 million comes in right around the number we’d worked with in our post-trade cap exercises.

On Ingram’s side, they would have held some leverage since Toronto just surrendered a first-round pick (and more) to acquire him, without a path to meaningful cap space if Ingram left as a free agent. Toronto could have countered that they were already Ingram’s most interested suitor in a cool trade market, and that the only teams with cap space to offer him more (without the assistance of a sign-and-trade deal) are rebuilding teams far from competing. A middle ground was fairly easy to find, it turns out.

The length of the deal probably helped the comfort level of both sides. If Ingram hit free agency, he could have sought a longer-term deal; the restrictions of an extension limit him to three years here. For the Raptors, that means there’s less back-end risk than a standard free-agent deal, especially important for a player with an injury history. Meanwhile, Ingram was able to negotiate the third year as a player option, giving him the chance to re-enter free agency at age 29 if all goes well. Again, the needs of both sides seemed to have aligned for a shorter framework.

Ingram’s deal will start at about $38.1 million in 2025-26 and climb to $40 million in 2026-27, with that player option for 2027-28 landing at $41.9 million.

That’s in contrast to a “flat” deal ($40 million each season) or a slightly frontloaded one. With the Raptors headed for a crunch under the luxury tax this summer, minimizing the immediate cap hit was important. Ingram’s deal basically gives him a six per cent raise on his prior contract, with a five per cent raise moving forward. Meanwhile, the cap is projected to keep rising by 10 percent, so Ingram is effectively costing slightly less of the cap/tax level moving forward.

Because this was an extension following a trade, this is the most the Raptors could backload a contract (five percent raise, rather than eight percent in free agency). Ingram’s maximum extension would have been three years and $144 million at the time of the trade and dropped to three years and $136.1 million after he waived his trade bonus as part of the deal. (Waiving the $2.1 million trade bonus helped the Raptors with tax flexibility for the remainder of this year; he obviously did just fine making that back on a new contract.) If Ingram had waited for free agency, he could have signed for more years and a higher annual salary, but obviously his camp thought this was a good enough deal to get that security now.

It's also worth noting that by getting an extension done early, Ingram and the Raptors' goals should be very aligned for the rest of his 2024-25. That may have always been the case, anyway, but it doesn’t hurt for him to know the team will have his 2025-26 interests in mind with his ankle recovery. Yesterday, I wrote about what I’ll be looking for when he does hit the floor with the Raptors.

Jamison Battle’s new deal

Thanks in part to Ingram waiving his trade bonus and the Raptors’ trades opening up roster spots, Battle was able to get a much-deserved standard NBA contract.

And wouldn’t you know it, the Raptors gave Battle basically exactly the deal we suggested the other day. Because the Raptors hadn’t used their mid-level exception, they were able to use a chunk of that to give Battle a three-year deal; if they didn’t have the mid-level, they would have been capped at this year plus next year.

It also allowed them to reward Battle with $1 million for the remainder of the season, more than double the minimum. That’s a great thing to do for a player with the space you have, and it probably also helped when negotiating team-friendly second and third years on the contract. Years two and three are both at the minimum, with a 50-percent guarantee for 2025-26 that becomes fully guaranteed on July 9. His 2026-27 year has nothing guaranteed but becomes fully guaranteed on June 30, making it operate similarly to a team option.

Battle, Jamal Shead, and Jonathan Mogbo now have very similar deals moving forward. Shead and Mogbo have fully guaranteed 2025-26 at the minimum and team options at the minimum for 2026-27. In other words, if the Raptors' 2024 draft class is as solid as it’s looked so far, the team will have inexpensive bench depth for a few seasons to come. All three players would also be restricted free agents in 2027.

Where things stand for the rest of 2024-25

The Raptors have $1.36 million left beneath the tax for this year and currently have an open roster spot.

That $1.36 million is more than enough for a rest-of-season signing or to try out a few different players on 10-day contracts before making a decision. Like with Battle, if they decide they like someone by the end of the year, there should still be room to give them a multi-year deal.

That number beneath the tax could also expand if they negotiate a buyout with PJ Tucker, who will not be reporting to the team. For Toronto, there’s not an immediate need for the roster spot, so they can play a bit of a game of chicken waiting to see if Tucker will leave money on the table to join another team. For Tucker, until that situation arises, he’s being paid — with money Miami gave Toronto in the trade — to stay home.

Orlando Robinson signing a two-way contract doesn’t have much effect here, and it’s only a rest-of-season two-way. He will have 19 days available to him to be on the active NBA roster, the prorated amount of the usual 50 days for the season.

As an aside, if the Raptors stay at 14 players on the roster instead of 15, their two-way days as a team will be capped. They’re at least a few weeks from that coming into play, and they can resolve it by filling their final roster spot.

Where things stand for this summer

With Ingram on the books at $38.1 million and Battle at $2.0 million, we have even greater clarity for the summer ahead.

The Raptors have $177.3 million committed to 11 players, with the luxury tax projected to land at $187.9 million

That means they’d have $10.6 million for their first-round pick plus the final three roster spots. The No. 5 overall pick will earn an estimated $9.1 million; the No. 1 pick will earn $13.8 million. A second-round pick (from Portland) will likely be another minimum contract, but the team might want Chris Boucher to stick around, too, or explore free agency using the bi-annual exception or, if they’re deeper into the tax, the taxpayer mid-level exception.

All of this is to say, it’s going to get very tight. The Raptors can just spend into the luxury tax, and things get easier. They can also stay above the luxury tax to start the year and make moves at the deadline to get beneath it, once they’ve seen how the pieces fit together. Whatever they decide, Ingram’s deal provides salary certainty and also the certainty that if they want to stay beneath the tax, there will be some tough decisions to be made.

We’ll take a closer look at those scenarios in June.