The unofficial start of trade season is here.
Dec. 15 marks the day that free agents who signed with their teams in the NBA offseason are officially eligible to be traded.
Per ESPN’s Bobby Marks, the Raptors have three players who are now trade-eligible: Garrett Temple, Jalen McDaniels and Dennis Schroder.
Temple is making $2.01 million over a one-year contract. He has played in only 16 minutes this season.
He’s been mainly a veteran presence for the Raptors. He’s unlikely to make an impact on the court at this stage of his career and if he’s traded he would likely be used as salary filler to make deal work.
Jalen McDaniels is making $4.6 million over a two-year contract. McDaniels has been in and out of the Raptors rotation as he’s struggled to find his footing with the team. He’s only averaging 2.1 points in 9.2 minutes a night in 15 games for Toronto. He’s 11th in total team minutes.
It doesn’t seem likely that a team will try to trade for McDaniels so it appears he will stay with the Raptors. The Raptors are McDaniels third stop in his young NBA career.
Lastly, Schroder becomes available to be traded and he is the most valuable option out of the three. Schroder has been playing some of the best basketball of his career and financially he’s making $26-million over the next two seasons so it’s a team friendly deal.
Schroder is averaging 15.4 points, 7.0 assists, and 3.0 rebounds. If the Raptors fully commit to a rebuild, they could trade Schroder. He would definitely be a serviceable backup point guard for a contender.
The Raptors have been rumored to get busy this trade season so we’ll see if Masai Ujiri and company finally pull a trigger on a trade.
Doc Rivers believes Toronto is headed for rebuild
Someone who believes that the Raptors will enter a rebuild and trade O.G. Anunoby and/or Pascal Siakam is Doc Rivers.
He was on The Bill Simmons Podcast and weighed in on Toronto’s current situation.
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