Toronto Raptors: Why the team must re-sign Fred VanVleet in free agency

Re-signing Fred VanVleet for the 2021 offseason

The Raptors are in a tricky situation, we all know in the Raptors front office there’s a big whiteboard — and in the middle of that board, circled in red marker it says “Antetokounmpo.”

Giannis Antetokounmpo is the long-term goal for 2021, that’s a given — and this offseason (the calm before the storm) may be as important as 2021. There are three key pieces from the 2019 championship team on the market, Marc Gasol, Serge Ibaka, and Fred VanVleet.

Depending on if Gasol wants to return to Europe to play basketball or if Gasol and Ibaka would take a pay cut to play for a contender, the Toronto Raptors could be shelling out a lot of money to keep their current center rotation.

If they also tried to re-sign VanVleet back on decent money – that could be taking money out of the Giannis piggy bank sitting on Raptors president Masai Ujiri’s desk. Despite money concerns, VanVleet is already a great player, and not even in his prime yet. He’s the perfect kind of player for a championship team, he’s done it already.

VanVleet is the kind of teammate that should be an enticing reason to join the Raptors if you are a disgruntled star, a legitimate defender on the perimeter, and a guy you can go to if nothing on offense is working, plus he can make 3’s. The Raptors already a proven second star in Pascal Siakam pairing “x” free agent star with an egoless Van Vleet and All-Star Siakam would be a perfect situation for many 2021 free agents.

The example that comes to mind on what VanVleet’s best-case scenario would be the 2019-20 Miami Heat. The homegrown All-Star (Bam Adebayo/Siakam), the star free agent (Jimmy Butler/ ‘x’), and the hard-nosed point guard in Dragic/VanVleet.

The question is, how much is too much? The market suggests (according to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst) a Malcolm Brogdon-Esque contract. In the 2019 offseason, Brogdon got a four-year,  $85 million deal and landed with the Indiana Pacers via sign-and-trade from the Milwaukee Bucks.

Personally, I could see the Pistons or Knicks throwing him that type of deal at VanVleet but the Raptors will have to get close to $18-21 million per year. It depends on what VanVleet wants, the pros and cons of “bad team, lots of money” versus “less money but success” are real debates in player and agent discussions and it’s up to the teams to convince him one way or another.

Fred VanVleet should, and will get paid. This will be a turning pointing the Raptors franchise, to see if they might not go “all in” on a second title run, ironically similar to the Brogdon situation the Milwaukee Bucks faced a season ago.