Before Gary Trent Jr. buried a couple of three-pointers in a game for just the third time this month, snapping a rough streak of poor shooting, I was starting to wonder something that would have been laughable on media day: Is it possible that Trent might have to opt in to his contract with the Raptors for a bit north of $18 million. Trent had been coming off a career season when camp began and it seemed an ironclad certainty he’d opt-out to become an unrestricted free agent. Even a repeat of his 2021-22 would have been enough to guarantee a multi-year deal likely worth well over $20 million a year.
Especially with the NBA’s salary cap set to rise by $10 million.
But the worst shooting month since Trent became a regular and a major step back defensively at least made it a tiny bit plausible that he could wait a year before cashing in, betting on a bounce-back.
Trent’s been much better defensively lately and his seven steals over two games before he located his jump shot in Monday’s win over Cleveland indicated he’s getting back to being the player he was last year.
We’re only approaching the 25% mark of the season, so Trent’s decision is a long way off. Much can and will happen before he makes the call.
The hope for the Raptors is the Trent we’ve seen this past week is the one they’ll get the rest of the way. Even if that costs them some money and flexibility, should he re-sign.
It was interesting to see Nick Nurse bring Trent (and Scottie Barnes) off the bench. Barnes will be back with the first group soon, but we’ve argued here since training camp Trent should be the sixth man. He’d be great in that role and with so many forward options on his bench and so few viable guards, it would make Nurse’s life a lot easier. Especially when Precious Achiuwa returns. Once Otto Porter is back he makes sense because of his shooting. Both he and fill-in starter Thad Young are excellent on the boards, but Porter brings more to the table offensively because he’s a great shooter (though Young is a better passer).
Some more thoughts:
The most remarkable thing about Pascal Siakam’s performance was he stepped right in after a long layoff and basically was unstoppable. That’s really tough to do.
Quite interested to see if he can pull off an encore in New Orleans. The second game back is often a dud because you don’t have the same endorphins pumping through you the way you do right when you return to the court. You’re generally not as hyped up and your body might be letting you know the return was tough. So if Siakam is ridiculous again against the Pelicans, that might be even more impressive than what he did against Cleveland.
New Orleans is a fun team. Herb Jones will not make life easy on Siakam. Like O.G. Anunoby, Jones should have many all-defensive team selections in his future. Jose Alvarado vs. Fred VanVleet on defence could be the Spiderman meme come to life.
Would be interesting to see how many votes Anunoby would get for defensive player of the year if the voting happened this week. Any regular watchers of the Raptors know Anunoby is the deserving choice for the first quarter of the season. But if you don’t watch, do you know he guards the best players in the NBA every night, regardless of the position they play? Maybe, maybe not. What would help Anunoby is his placement atop the steals per game and total steals category and loose balls recovered and his second-place ranking in deflections per game and total deflections, along with his Top 5 ranking in defensive win shares. A tendency to miss games due to unconnected reasons is what held Anunoby back in the past from the recognition he deserves. That’s not the case this season. He’s the clear choice at this point, with apologies to Brook Lopez, Lu Dort, DeAnthony Melton and others.
It was a bit of a surprise when Jarrett Allen was named an all-star last season, but he’s an extremely impactful player. He drives winning like true all-stars should. Cleveland consistently looks far, far worse when the big man is sidelined as he was against Toronto. He’s really good and it remains bonkers that Brooklyn just tossed him away for so little just to make a separate deal for James Harden.
THREE STARS:
1 Pascal Siakam
2 O.G. Anunoby
3 Darius Garland
H.M.: Gary Trent, Thad Young, Evan Mobley
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