With a year under his belt in the pilot’s seat and the runway offered by a new five-year contract in his pocket, Toronto Raptors general manager (and newly minted executive vice president) Bobby Webster could be in for a busy few days as the NBA’s off-season transaction cycle hits peak velocity.
Some big moves have already come and gone. There was a time when even the notion of Giannis Antetokounmpo being available made the Raptors front office go deep into soul-searching mode, but this time around the two-time MVP departed Milwaukee for Miami without the Raptors ever getting in the mix.
That doesn’t mean that they weren’t or won’t be in the mix for other players. A couple league sources confirmed that the Raptors were interested in getting involved in talks with the Charlotte Hornets for mercurial point guard LaMelo Ball, a player Webster has always liked, which is one of the reasons he was intrigued by the Hornets’ top job before current Charlotte GM Jeff Peterson was hired in 2024.
The gap between Ball being reportedly available and him being traded to Minnesota for power forward Naz Reid on Thursday morning was less than 12 hours, and it’s not clear it was an auction the Raptors could have won. I don’t have any specific insight into what Toronto was offering, but a package around Immanuel Quickley, Gradey Dick and some draft picks seems like a reasonable outline.
You can see why the Raptors would have had interest: Ball’s ability to push the pace offensively and spread the floor to an extreme degree would both fit the way the Raptors want to play and create more breathing room for a team in need of some offensive punch.
But there are more big names out there, including Los Angeles Clippers star Kawhi Leonard, and Webster has signalled a few different times in his otherwise typically cryptic public comments that the Raptors are open to taking a swing on something, or someone.
“There is that internal growth (we are expecting),” he told me when we spoke after he got his contract extension. “And then you’re obviously gonna look at opportunities to not necessarily speed it up but maybe start to push some chips into the middle. And I think that’s probably what we’re sort of thinking about.”
Leonard would be a unique type of gamble.
There are mixed signals around the NBA on the subject of his availability and the possibility of him being moved, with reports circulating that the two-time Finals MVP would be open to reuniting with his former teams, San Antonio and Toronto, though the Houston Rockets could also be part of that mix, per one source.
One league source I spoke with said that the Clippers are absolutely not moving him, preferring to let the last year of his contract play out to preserve future flexibility, but still seeing Leonard, who turns 35 on Monday, as part of their future. Others say the opposite, maintaining that the relationship has run its course and that the Clippers largely would “like out of the Kawhi business” so much they aren’t thought to be driving a particularly hard bargain.
There is also the matter of the ongoing NBA investigation into whether the Clippers circumvented the salary-cap rules to sign Leonard to his current deal. Another wild card.
Leonard isn’t everyone’s flavour, even if he’s coming off an all-NBA season where he averaged 27.9 points, 6.4 rebounds and 1.9 steals per game while shooting 50.5 per cent from the floor and 38.7 per cent from the three-point line over 65 games. He has traditionally required accommodations in terms of outside training staff, personal coaches and a lot of leeway regarding his playing and practice schedule.
All of which has a place when he’s the best player on a championship contender —which he has proven to be over and over again. It’s a lot less palatable for a 14-year veteran who has averaged just 47 games in the seven seasons since he left the Raptors hours after the championship parade in 2019.
To be clear: no one from the Raptors front office has indicated to me they are pursuing Leonard, but the Raptors doubtlessly have more comfort with the Leonard experience than almost any other team in the NBA, so maybe they are willing to consider it, especially given the difficulties they may face keeping up in what promises to be a deeper and more competitive Eastern Conference next season.
Leonard has one year left on his deal at $50.3 million and will be looking for an extension. Would the Clippers be interested in a deal centred on Brandon Ingram, who has one guaranteed year left on his deal for $40 million with a 2027-28 player option for $42 million that he is expected to decline? Would a Raptors first-round pick get it over the line?
A less clickable but still important move the Raptors will need to sort out by the opening of the free-agency period Tuesday night is what they can do to retain breakout power forward Sandro Mamukelashvili.
The six-foot-nine Georgian is a versatile big who proved he could handle an elevated role in his first chance at regular rotation minutes, building a profile as one of the NBA’s better bench bigs as he averaged 11.2 points, 4.9 rebounds, 1.9 assists and nearly a steal while playing 21.9 minutes per game. Most important is that he shot 38.9 per cent from three on a decent volume of attempts — a premium skill on which the Raptors are already short.
Internally, the Raptors have budgeted a deal in the $10-million-per-year range, a number that they can get to if they find a taker for the last year of Dick’s contract. That would be a considerable raise for Mamukelashvili, who is expected to decline the $2.8-million player option on his contract by Monday’s deadline.
The problem is that bigs with his profile are highly valued, with multiple league sources expecting Mamukelashvili to have a robust market in free agency.
“I think he’s getting multiple years guaranteed at more than $10 million a year,” said one league source.
After years on the fringes of NBA rosters and coming off the bench last season, Mamukelashvili might be interested in a clearer path to starting as well. In a league where even rebuilding teams need to be competitive to stay out of the bottom three in the overall league standings — the so-called relegation zone where team’s lottery odds get worse rather than better as in the previous system — Mamukelashvili will have enough suitors to drive up his price.
The Raptors might have to jump through some hoops to match that deal and still stay under the luxury tax threshold.
And if they can’t get that deal done, do they pivot to Bucks centre Myles Turner? There are some indications that is possible.
There are a lot of possibilities between now and Canada Day. One of them is that the Raptors largely stand pat. But Webster’s first solo off-season is about to take flight.
