The Toronto Raptors are a team trying to thread a needle with a length of rope. Their championship roster from 2019 has slowly been falling apart, and rather than take the drastic action necessary they have tried to not trade their core players and hope they re-sign, all while not being good enough to contend.
Finally, it appears that the Raptors are ready to face at least a bar or two of the music. After losing Kawhi Leonard, Danny Green, Kyle Lowry and now Fred VanVleet in free agency, reports suggest that the Raptors are at least open to moving Pascal Siakam before he can leave in free agency next summer.
Could the Indiana Pacers trade for Pascal Siakam?
Enter the Indiana Pacers, one of the teams with reported interest in trading for Siakam. The Pacers are on the other end of the “middling” pool, looking to add pieces around their blue-chip young player in Tyrese Haliburton. After a summer that brought in Bruce Brown, Jabari Walker and Obi Toppin, could the Pacers push even more chips into the middle to add an All-NBA forward like Siakam?
The Raptors are notoriously hard to negotiate with, which probably helps to inform the lack of trades we mentioned before. Does a trade package from the Pacers move the needle for Toronto? Is it worth it for Indiana to add Siakam? Let’s look at what kind of trade would make this happen.
Laying out the Pascal Siakam trade
There are three major components to building a two-team trade for a star. First, does the money work? Pascal Siakam makes $37.8 million next season, and while the Pacers have a small amount of cap space still available, they can’t absorb Siakam’s contract; they need to send back matching salary for most of it.
Secondly, the team selling the star needs to get back enough value that they are incentivized to move him. The Raptors, for example, didn’t feel that they got enough back for VanVleet and elected to hold onto him; he walked anyway, leaving them with nothing, but it has to be worth their while to give up a top player.
Finally, does the “buying” team retain enough of its core pieces to compete with that player? If not, the deal isn’t worth it, as adding a star to a roster not ready to compete around him is pointless. Call this the “Carmelo Anthony corollary.”
Add all of those things up, and it will be difficult to work out a trade, even between a team in Toronto motivated to sell, and a team in Indiana motivated to buy. Yet difficult is not impossible, and this specific construction might strike the right balance with both sides:
The Raptors get some salary relief in this construction, as Indiana uses its remaining cap space to absorb the difference. They get their guy in Siakam, but don’t give up Tyrese Haliburton, Bruce Brown, Myles Turner or their last two lottery picks in Bennedict Mathurin and Jarace Walker. The Raptors get matching salary — including the sharpshooting Hield, valuable to Toronto whether or not they move him on to another team — and Andrew Nembhard, who proved himself a reliable guard ready to play right now. The first-round picks complete the deal.
Does this work for both sides? Let’s take a closer look.
Would the Raptors make this deal?
Pascal Siakam is on an expiring contract, and is extremely unlikely to extend that deal as part of a trade-and-extend move, which would limit the length and salary increase. That means that whoever is trading for Siakam is getting a rental they can’t extend for at least six months, and likely who will hit next summer as an unrestricted free agent.
That limits what the Raptors can get back for Siakam. Does that mean they won’t trade him at all? Perhaps, but they’ve been down this road before. Things seem to have progressed further than with Lowry or VanVleet, and that probably indicates there’s at least a whisper of a chance that the Raptors play ball.
If so, this is a perfectly reasonable return for Siakam. Buddy Hield’s shooting can help unlock their spacing-challenged frontcourt, and he can show rookie Jordan Hawkins the ropes of movement shooting in the NBA. He’s also valuable as a trade chip to be moved on in another deal. Daniel Theis is dead money but can bolster their center rotation.
The real centerpieces of the deal are Nembhard and the two picks. It’s likely that the rising sophomore never becomes more than a fifth-starter level of player, but after losing Fred VanVleet and Dalano Banton the Raptors could use just that sort of player. The two picks include one near (hopefully before Haliburton and the Pacers reach the height of their powers) and late (upside in case something unexpected happens).
This isn’t a slam dunk, and the Raptors will look for a better prospect to receive back. This may be the best they have, however, so it’s worth considering.
Grade: B
Would the Pacers make this deal?
Pascal Siakam is a winning player, a guy who has no egregious weaknesses and who plays hard and defends, making him a potential fit with any team. Even so, his shaky shooting makes him a much better fit on some teams than others, and the Pacers are one of those teams.
Siakam’s one of the league’s better transition players, with underrated passing ability and his patented spin move ready to send opposing defenders right out of the play. He and Jarace Walker share some stylistic similarities, but their passing will help them share the court together.
Siakam is also an excellent fit with Myles Turner, and against many frontcourts Siakam’s strength could let him match up with the opposing center, freeing Turner up to roam as a shot-blocker. Teams like the Boston Celtics have used this inversion to great effect in recent years.
Adding a player of Siakam’s caliber without sacrificing any of their key players is a win; the question therefore becomes whether they can expect Siakam to re-sign. If they get any indication that he would stick around, they should pull the trigger and add a former dinosaur to an up-and-coming group ready to cause chaos.
Grade: A-