Anthony Edwards<\/a>, who had 13 of his 30 points, five of his eight rebounds and all three of his steals in an electric seven-minute burst that led to Minnesota\u2019s 128-126 win.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe Raptors were excellent through the first three quarters against Minnesota and terrible in the fourth. Agbaji has been on the fringes of the rotation all season, so hard to say he would have been a difference maker.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You could lament that had he developed as the Raptors were hoping, as an athletic, six-foot-five wing, they would have had a proper-sized stopper to throw in Edwards\u2019s path when he got rolling. Maybe that would have mattered. Maybe not. Edwards in full fight is just that good.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s an amazing player,\u201d said Raptors forward Brandon Ingram, who scored 25 points on 12-of-22 shooting, with four assists. \u201cHow we guarded him in the whole game was something that we kind of needed in that fourth … he made the game a little bit harder for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Raptors made it a little harder on themselves, too. The T-Wolves\u2019 comeback started when Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic uncharacteristically had Scottie Barnes and Brandon Ingram \u2014 the Raptors\u2019 two offensive hubs \u2014 off the floor at the same time for just over two minutes early in the fourth, a stretch Minnesota won by just three points, but which seemed to give them some momentum.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rajakovic\u2019s explanation was that he was trying to preserve Barnes\u2019 minutes because he had played a longer stint in the first quarter when rookie Collin Murray-Boyles (13 points, four rebounds, three assists and two steals) picked up two quick fouls. Barnes played 37 minutes for the game; Ingram played 35. Toronto hosts Chicago on the second night of a back-to-back on Thursday, so perhaps that was in Rajakovic\u2019s mind also. T-Wolves head coach Chris Finch had Edwards on the floor for 38 minutes and Jaden McDaniels for 40.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the Raptors\u2019 biggest problem was that they turned the ball over five times in the fourth and shot just 8-of-20 from the floor and 2-of-8 from three. It was in sharp contrast to the first 36 minutes when the Raptors scored 104 points and shot 56.6 per cent from the floor and 13-of-25 from deep and turned it over just four times.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the third time in four games \u2014 their win over lowly Utah on Sunday the exception \u2014 that the Raptors have blown a decent lead with a messy quarter of basketball in the second half.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a tough time in the fourth, we got a little sloppy with the ball,\u201d said Sandro Mamukelashvili, who finished with 14 points on 10 shots in 31 minutes off the bench. \u201cThat\u2019s the main thing. When you have a lead, you control the game. We like to play fast, but same time (we can) slow it down and understand when to go and what not.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The loss dropped the Raptors’ record to 30-22 and dropped them to sixth place in the tightly packed Eastern Conference playoff standings. The T-Wolves improved to 32-20 and fifth in the West.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For the Raptors, it\u2019s unlikely any significant help will be available by the time the deadline passes on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There was hope that Agbaji was just that when he was acquired for the price \u2014 effectively \u2014 of the 29th\u00a0pick in the 2024 draft in a trade with Utah, which also netted them Kelly Olynyk.<\/p>\n
As a Raptor, Agbaji excelled in transition, was a passable defender willing to take on tough defensive assignments and shot 39.9 per cent from three last season, which seemed to bode well for a (then) 24-year-old with his athletic profile.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But that was last year. This year, Agbaji was a fourth-year player in need of a contract extension in a tough battle for minutes among a crowded Raptors wing rotation on the second unit. And while none of Ja\u2019Kobe Walter, Gradey Dick or Jamison Battle has exactly stolen the role, Agbaji shooting just 18 per cent from deep and not having any contractual commitments beyond this season always made him the most likely player to get traded.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the end, he was dealt to the Brooklyn Nets along with the Raptors\u2019 2032 second-round pick and an undisclosed amount of cash. It was a three-team deal in which the Raptors got Chris Paul and the Clippers got the rights to Nets prospect Vanja Marinkovic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The deal helps the Raptors get under the luxury tax, the Clippers open up a roster spot and save some tax money, and the Nets get paid for taking Agbaji into their cap space.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And while Toronto getting 20-year veteran and Hall-of-Fame-bound Paul seems cool, the reality is the legendary point guard, who had split with the Clippers early this season, will possibly be traded or, more likely, waived so he can sign with another team as a free agent and have a chance to finish what will be his last season with some dignity. Or not.\u00a0<\/p>\n
From the Raptors\u2019 point of view, the elaborate bit of salary-cap management meant that Agbaji was no longer part of their team, his locker already cleared out by the time they got to Scotiabank Arena for work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Otherwise, business as usual, if you\u2019re in the basketball business.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was definitely tough,\u201d said Gradey Dick (six points and four rebounds in 13 minutes), who followed Agbaji to the University of Kansas (literally: Dick inherited Agbaji\u2019s dorm room) and trained with him steadily at their shared alma mater the past two summers. \u201cHe\u2019s like a brother to me; our families love each other. It\u2019s just crazy how quick it can go: one day here, gone the next. But it just shows you the reality of the league.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raptors done?\u00a0Early this week, a Raptors insider predicted that the deadline would come and go with one deal done: a move to get under the luxury tax. With that complete, it\u2019s fair to wonder if they can get another deal executed \u2014 some size and shooting would be nice, or at least one of the two. The problem is that Agbaji\u2019s $6.4 million expiring deal was one of the few trade chips the Raptors had to put into a trade without carving out players from a rotation that doesn\u2019t run all that deep as it is. There is the possibility of a minor deal, presumably, but a big swing seems unlikely.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Giannis to Minnesota?\u00a0Speaking with those close to the situation with the Timberwolves, one of the teams reportedly pushing hard to acquire Antetokounmpo, the Milwaukee Bucks superstar, there seemed to be some skepticism about whether the Bucks are even going to trade their franchise icon mid-season or simply wait for summer. It\u2019s a potentially unsettling situation for Minnesota, given crucial pieces of their long-established core \u2014 Jaden McDaniels, Naz Ried, or Julius Randle among them \u2014 would likely have to be included in an Antetokounmpo trade to make the finances work. It\u2019s not an easy thing to have hanging over your head. \u201cIt\u2019s hard,\u201d said Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch. \u201cThe scale of some deals, you just can\u2019t get away from, so (as a coach) you just have to have a lot of empathy for the players.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Maybe don\u2019t shoot so well?\u00a0The loss to the Timberwolves was the Raptors\u2019 10th\u00a0game this season in which they made at least 15 threes, and their record in those games is now 4-6. The Raptors are 6-4 in the 10 games where they\u2019ve made eight threes or fewer. For the season, the Raptors average 11.5 made threes per game (24th\u00a0in the NBA) and shoot 34.3 per cent from deep (25th).\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 The business of professional basketball is a weird one at the best of times, but it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-454835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}