The Toronto Raptors got busy before the trade deadline.
The team made a series of moves to continue to restructure their roster.
One of the trades the Raptors made was sending Dennis Schroder and Thaddeus Young to the Brooklyn Nets for Spencer Dinwiddie.
Then the Raptors waived Dinwiddie in a corresponding move. The trade was simply made for the Raptors to dump salary.
Schroder still had one more year left on his current contract for $13 million so Toronto was able to shed that. Meanwhile, they took on Dinwiddie’s $18 million, but he is an unrestricted free agent in the summer. Therefore, his salary will come off the Raptors books after this season.
Toronto brought in Schroder after the team lost Fred VanVleet in free agency to the Houston Rockets. Toronto thought they were still going to be competitive, but that was not the case.
As the season slipped away, Toronto officially headed towards a rebuild by trading away O.G. Anunoby and Pascal Siakam.
Schroder did not fit the Raptors new timeline and was not going to be part of their long-term plans.
Also, according to Sportsnet’s Michael Grange, Schroder wasn’t thrilled about coming off the bench for a rebuilding team:
“Schroder wasn’t exactly thrilled with being relegated to the bench on a rebuilding team after coming to the Raptors in the off-season with high hopes of starting on and leading a playoff team.”
Ultimately this was the right move for the Raptors to trade Schroder and create more cap space. The Raptors can now prioritize playing their younger players like Gradey Dick for the rest of the season.
Schroder now heads to the Nets. This will be the seventh team Schroder will play for in his NBA career.
Raptors make trades official
Toronto was busy hours before the trade deadline by making a series of trades.
They made all of their moves official and will now carry out this version of the roster for the rest of the season.
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