After losing their star recruit Kawhi Leonard, the Toronto Raptors still had a really good 2019-20 season. Here are five roster moves they need to make.
The Toronto Raptors were the team most impacted by the long holdout of Kawhi Leonard during the last free agency period. They were unable to sign many players because they definitely wanted the two-time NBA champion back in the fold.
Unfortunately for the Raptors, Leonard decided to take his talents to the LA Clippers. This meant that the Raptors had to rely on the likes of Paskam Siakam, Kyle Lowry, Fred VanVleet, Norman Powell, and Serge Ibaka.
Fortunately for the Raptors, these players stepped up in a major way. They led the Raptors to the second spot in the Eastern Conference behind the Milwaukee Bucks who looked good until the NBA restart.
The Raptors started behind the eight-ball with Leonard holding out on them until his plans fell into place. However, the Raptors had absolutely no luck when it came to injuries throughout the season. Only Terrence Davis played all 72 games of the shortened season.
Of their top-line players, Siakam missed 12 games through injury, Lowry missed 14. Ibaka missed 17 games, VanVleet missed 18. Add to this Powell missed 20 and Marc Gasol missed 28 and you see that there was a massive injury toll for a team who was able to finish second.
This means, without adding any other games from any other player from the roster who was injured, the Raptors lost 109 games of their best rotation. This is a huge loss to overcome. A lot of credit must go to Nick Nurse for their seeding.
The Raptors have now got big decisions to make regarding their roster. They only have the 29th and 59th pick in the upcoming draft so there is little chance of restocking high-level talent there. Here are five roster moves the Raptors need to make.
5. Trade Stanley Johnson
After he spent three seasons with the Detroit Pistons, Stanley Johnson played a season with the New Orleans Pelicans. Then, he signed a two year deal with the Raptors last July and played his worst season of professional basketball to date.
Johnson only played 25 games for the Raptors, averaging just 2.4 points, 1.5 rebounds, and 0.8 assists in 6.0 minutes per game. To go along with the worst numbers of his career, Johnson had horrible shooting splits of .373/.292/.563.
The Raptors even assigned Johnson to the G League in January before recalling him the next day. However, Johnson was assigned back to the G League at the end of January until the hiatus due to COVID 19 in the middle of March.
STANLEY JOHNSON COMES UP CLUTCH. pic.twitter.com/IDHnpZla7F
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) August 13, 2020
The problem for Johnson is that he was unable to carve out any meaningful playing time with this roster, despite all of the injuries to key players. He was the fourth option behind OG Anunoby, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, and Patrick McCaw.
He is owed $3.8 million next season, which is a player option. He is not going to get anything like this money if he tries his luck on the open market. This is despite the lack of quality of available free agents in this class.
The Raptors could do a lot more with this money next season as they have to replace or re-sign a large number of players.