Overreacting to vague pre-deadline subterfuge is what this time of year is all about. An insider says a thing, couched by a hundred other things, and the original thing is the only thing that gets captured in the thousand engagement farming social posts that get sent out in response. It’s the Transaction Industrial Complex at work in all its glory, if you wanna call it that.
This phenomenon made its way to Raptors internet on Tuesday, when Marc Stein, one of the more plugged in insiders going, made a vague allusion in his latest rumour round-up to the Toronto Raptors as a team to keep an eye on when it comes to oft-injured Pelicans wing Brandon Ingram, who’s basically this year’s version of Pascal Siakam on the trade market — a not-quite max-worthy very good player on an expiring deal whose team doesn’t seem motivated to keep him.
Because Stein’s work is paywalled, my hunch is most folks who saw the slew of “Raptors interested in Brandon Ingram” aggregation posts didn’t catch the full breadth of the reporting in the piece. If you did read the whole thing like a good content piggy should, the premise of Ingram to Toronto seems pretty thin.
This passage doesn’t exactly scream: “trade imminent.”
It remains to be seen whether the Raptors become more than that where Ingram is concerned, but the mere suggestion of potential Raptors interest is the most significant development in weeks when it comes to the New Orleans forward who earned his lone All-Star berth during the 2019-20 season interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.
Note the lack of a clear and declarative statement of the Raptors interest here. Words matter! And these words hardly suggest Toronto is hot pursuit of Ingram.
There’s some more, in which Stein outlines a couple strands of reporting we’ve already covered in this newsletter from Jake Fischer and Michael Grange over the last week or so.
Could that be Ingram?
This would be an easier determination to make if Ingram — who is in the final year of his current contract at $36 million — were healthy and showcasing himself at the moment. Yet it’s an open secret leaguewide that the Pelicans have been open to fielding trade pitches for the 27-year-old since before last June’s draft and then throughout a summer during which the Pelicans and Ingram found neither a trade partner nor common ground on a contract extension.
This portion just feels like straight inference from Stein — who to be clear, I think is generally one of the best insiders going, and who isn’t making things up by any means. But here, the “Could it be Ingram?” line feels like Stein merely attempting to connect the dots between Fischer and Grange’s reporting. At no point in this piece — which you should read in full for yourself, by the way! — does Stein say “the Toronto Raptors are interested in Brandon Ingram.” Kind of important!
And a relief, too.
While I am certainly a proponent of the Raptors keeping a weather eye on the trade market for chances to pounce and upgrade their talent pool, the real reason the Ingram thing doesn’t pass the smell test for me is that doesn’t really make a lick of sense for Toronto.
Just a year ago, this team balked at paying Pascal Siakam — a better and way more durable player than Ingram with a deep well of emotional equity tied up in the franchise. For them to turn around a year later and trade assets, however few, to acquire a player looking for something close to max money, whose fit with Scottie Barnes is dubious, who averages fewer than 60 games played per season as a pro, would be the head-scratchingest move this front office has pulled off to date. They’re not exactly light on those in recent years, either.
I totally buy that the Raptors are going to sniff around ways to upgrade via trade. It’s always been their M.O., and they’re one of just a handful of teams in the league with all their picks and more in the cupboard, on top of some movable mid-to-large sized contracts and young players to sweeten any offer.
Sure. Ingram, in a vacuum, is a better player than RJ Barrett — the most likely outgoing return in a not-gonna-happen deal for money and basketball fit reasons. But we don’t live in a vacuum, do we? We live in a restrictive financial environment, and the Raptors live in a reality where they need to be seeking ideal-fitting guys to pair next to Scottie Barnes. Ingram, with his reliance on the mid-range, suspect defense and health questions, doesn’t check enough boxes to make this kind of swing worth the risks and opportunity cost.
And while it’s been a strange few years for the front office, I think it’s fair to give them the benefit of the doubt that they’ve successfully wriggled free of the bad decision pretzel they found themselves wrapped up in between Summer 2022 and last February. All the other noise about them — that they’re likely to sell off expiring vets, or use their flexibility to help grease larger deals in exchange for bonus assets — suggests they’re operating like a normal team again. A trade for Ingram would squash that notion, and it’s why I just don’t buy it.
There will be a time for the Raptors get ambitious. And when they do, I reckon they’ll be aiming a lot higher than Brandon Ingram.
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Today on the podcast I chatted with Es Baraheni from The Athletic NBA Daily about the Raptors’ recently improved defense, Scottie Barnes’ All-Defense case and trade scuttlebutt. Enjoy!
