The Raptors were being backed into a corner, in part by their own doing and in part because the vagaries of NBA life.
So they made their second major trade in three weeks, sending Pascal Siakam to the Indiana Pacers for forwards Bruce Brown and Jordan Nwora, point guard Kira Lewis, two 2024 first-round picks and a 2026 first-round selection.
To create a roster spot needed to add three players while losing just one, Toronto waived centre Christian Koloko, who has yet to play this season, when the trade became official late Wednesday night.
What the Raptors received for Siakam, a franchise mainstay and the last significant link to the 2019 NBA championship team, does not seem like an awful lot. But they were not guaranteed to get anything for a two-time all-NBA selection and one of the top five or six players in franchise history in his coming free-agent summer. The deal became a de facto necessity.
Turning Siakam, the 29-year-old veteran who gave the Raptors more than seven years of consistent excellence, into three future draft picks and a trio of players who are unlikely to have any impact on the team’s fortunes hardly seems like an equitable transaction.
A great trade? Not by the stretch of anyone’s imagination.
A necessary trade? That’s a more appropriate description.
Mindful of Fred VanVleet bolting for nothing last summer and quite content to build a future around Scottie Barnes, Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett, team president Masai Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster went all in on the future at the expense of the present.
Two of the picks come this summer: Indiana’s and the worst of those owned by Utah, Houston, Oklahoma City or the Los Angeles Clippers. The other comes from Indiana in 2026.
While this year’s draft is not considered especially good or deep, the Raptors are at least involved in it now. They dealt their own first-round pick — top six protected — to the San Antonio Spurs for Jakob Poeltl but now have multiple firsts, likely both in the 20-27 range.
They could attach one of those picks to sweeten a transaction between now and the Feb. 8 trade deadline — Gary Trent Jr., his expiring contract and a pick might be a marketable package — and, at worst, add players to an increasingly young roster.
There is a sense around the league that the Raptors aren’t done, despite trading OG Anunoby and Siakam within a month of each other.
Ujiri and Webster have always operated from a position of stealth and no one should be surprised if they don’t have a further move or two in the works before the deadline.
There is a need for frontcourt depth and shooting remains a bit of an issue. At least now the front office has a few more marketable bits at its disposal.
But if they don’t do anything, they will go into the off-season not having to worry about watching high-profile free agents walk for nothing.
The Raptors might have gotten a better package for Siakam last summer or even at the trade deadline a year ago but they didn’t want to do a deal then. Siakam, though, was eyeing a monster deal that the Raptors didn’t want to necessarily pay a 29-year–old, so they did what they could.
If they hit with the extra draft picks and if Barnes, Quickley and Barrett continue to pop, it’ll be good deal. That’s not going to be known for years, though.
This was not at all about the three players coming back in the deal. Nwora was an afterthought in Indiana and Lewis played fewer than 10 minutes a game in the few games he played in New Orleans. Brown, who won a championship with the Denver Nuggets last season, was a productive starter for the Pacers this season but it’s hard to see Toronto picking up the $23-million option on his contract for next season.
Siakam, a two-time all-star and twice named to a post-season all-NBA team, is considered one of the best players in franchise history. He was named to the second all-NBA team in 2020 and third all-NBA team in 2022, one of only six players in franchise history to earn the end-of-season honour.
Siakam appeared in his 510th game with Toronto, passing Chris Bosh to move into fifth place on the all-time games played list. He’s in the top five in most significant offensive categories — points, minutes played, field goals both two- and three-point attempts — as well as defensive and total rebounds.
“Pascal is just a pure basketball junkie,” Raptors coach Darko Rajakovic said Wednesday night. ”He is the first one to show up in the gym, the last one to leave. He was always coachable, always professional since Day 1,
“I can only be thankful and grateful for all of his contributions to our team this season.”
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