TORONTO — Before this year, the Toronto Raptors had acquired a player who was due a new contract in three consecutive trade seasons: Jakob Poeltl in February 2023, Immanuel Quickley in December 2023 and Brandon Ingram in February 2025.
There are two main reasons to acquire a player in that situation. First, if you do not have room to spend under the salary cap, the only way to acquire a player who is poised to earn more than the midlevel exception is to trade for him. Second, with his contractual situation pending, perhaps the acquisition cost — the draft picks and players needed to secure the trade — will be lower than at other times.
The criticism of such moves is that teams feel obliged to re-sign the players they acquire, losing negotiating leverage. And the Raptors did end up re-signing all three players, with Quickley and Ingram, in particular, given what immediately appeared to be player-friendly deals.
As a product of those contracts, the Raptors had a bloated cap sheet, with the 2026-27 commitments to Ingram, Quickley, Scottie Barnes and RJ Barrett representing nearly 87 percent of their projected salary cap. The Raptors re-signed Poeltl to a four-year deal with a player option for the last year back in July 2023, which meant he could have opted for free agency this summer. To avoid that, and ensure they had a starting-calibre centre, the Raptors gave Poeltl a three-year, $84 million extension in July so he would opt into the final year of the original deal at $19.5 million. In other words, it was yet another move that was necessitated by prior moves.
The Raptors stopped that trend at this trade deadline, and it was badly needed. In making two minor moves, which netted out to trading away Ochai Agbaji and two second-round picks for Golden State centre Trayce Jackson-Davis to get under the luxury tax line, the Raptors finally stopped chasing their own tail and let things breathe.
The Poeltl extension is the biggest reason the Raptors were hamstrung at this deadline. Since he has dealt with a back injury all season and hasn’t played for about six weeks, his extension looks especially bad right now. The Raptors couldn’t have known this at the time, but given the year Poeltl has had, there is no way he would have opted out of his current contract this coming July.
If he opted in (without the extension), Poeltl would have been much easier to trade in a big deal. With Poeltl due to make $29.4 million in 2028-29 and a light guarantee in the following season? Not so much.
The Raptors would have had to attach extra draft compensation in any deal that included Poeltl, and they couldn’t afford to do that. The Raptors were connected to every marquee big man available. Two of them moved: Jaren Jackson Jr. to the Utah Jazz, and Anthony Davis to the Washington Wizards. Both of those teams, as it happens, had extra first-round picks from previous trades. Those teams, then, could keep the majority of their own picks while acquiring those players. The Raptors have no additional first-round picks.
Accordingly, to get one of those big men, or the Sacramento Kings’ Domantas Sabonis, who was not traded, they would have had to deal from their own picks, move two starters (Poeltl and Barrett, probably) and perhaps pay a higher price than other teams because of Poeltl’s contract. Does that sound like good business? Do the Raptors, who entered Thursday night’s game against the Chicago Bulls with a 30-22 record but an unimpressive point differential and facing as difficult a remaining schedule as any team in the Eastern Conference, seem close enough to actual contention to justify that sort of move?
The LA Clippers trading Ivica Zubac to the Indiana Pacers was the surprise of the day. However, the Clippers are obviously trying to get rid of long-term obligations, which would have made a deal difficult. The Pacers, who can reasonably expect to be back in championship contention when Tyrese Haliburton comes back next season, can more comfortably send out their own draft picks.
Beyond that, overpaying for a traditional centre has made less sense as the season has gone on. Rookie Collin-Murray Boyles has been excellent and has increasingly shown that he has the strength to defend in the paint. His switchability with Barnes is so excellent on the defensive end that it overcomes some of the offensive issues involved with playing them together.
Why dip into your trove of picks and sell low on Poeltl to upgrade a spot that naturally limits how often the two versatile forwards can play together? They are better off hoping Poeltl can return to a semblance of health — coach Darko Rajaković said the Raptors “hope” he can play before the All-Star break — and feed Murray-Boyles all the minutes he can shoulder. Those picks would be better used in the service of gassing up the Raptors’ half-court offence, this team’s biggest weakness.
It is not that the Raptors won’t need a true centre — be it a healthy Poeltl or someone else — to compete in the playoffs. It is that they simply don’t have the picks, young players or financial flexibility to take multiple big swings in a trade. Jackson’s four-year, $205 million extension, which starts next season, would have essentially locked in the Raptors’ core.
At least at 26 and with some shooting chops, Jackson would have made stylistic and timeline sense. Sabonis is 29, while Davis will be 33 next month and is perpetually injured. Sabonis is owed $94.1 million over the next two seasons, while Davis is owed $121.3 million, including a player option, over the same span. Perhaps the latter would have accepted a contract extension that lowered his annual salary, but that only would have had the Raptors landing a centre who is older than Poeltl, paid more, and, potentially, paid for longer.
Oh, and Davis and Sabonis have combined to shoot 15-for-64 from 3 this season. The Raptors are already one of the worst shooting teams in the league. Zubac isn’t a shooter, either, but his affordable contract would have made that shortcoming more tolerable.
Not making a move now does not necessarily mean it will be easier to make an advantageous move this offseason. Even if Poeltl returns, there is no guarantee he will play well enough to remind people of his utility. Barrett’s contract will expire after next season, and Ingram’s, which includes a player option for 2027-28, could, too. Assuming the Raptors want to keep building around Barnes with like-aged and complementary players, there will be urgency to address both of their situations — with trades or contract extensions — so the Raptors don’t lose an important player for no return.
The Raptors needed to stop the cycle of making moves that react to prior moves, though. Barring any injuries, they will not be favoured in a first-round playoff series, assuming they play in one. This team could have used an addition bigger than Jackson-Davis.
But Barnes will now play important springtime games for the first time since his rookie year, and for the first time as the centrepiece of a team. The Raptors will get a proper view of how they hold up in high-stakes games. Maybe the disappointment the playoffs inevitably produce will cause a player who better fits the Raptors’ needs, timeline and cap sheet to become available.
At least the Raptors will have more information to guide their decision-making. If and when they make that next big roster alteration, at least they will have taken a breath to take stock of things and not unnecessarily punish themselves by reacting to the last big move they made.