The Raptors are currently playing basketball. It is the middle of the season, game fifty of eighty two, and someone is drawing a sketch after every single game. I admire that kind of commitment because sometimes after a game I just want to sit in a dark room and think about why we traded for certain backup centers in 2011.
We are fifty games in and the math is starting to get weird. RJ Barrett has missed twenty three of those games, and the team is eleven and twelve without him. It makes sense because he goes to the rim, and going to the rim is generally better than not doing that. There is a lot of talk about staggering his minutes to balance the offense, which sounds like something you do with a ladder, but in basketball it just means playing him when the other good players are sitting down.
Big Men and Small Decisions
Goga Bitadze did not play for the Magic recently. This is an observation. He is a backup big who does not make a lot of money and has another year left on his contract. Some people think the Raptors should look into this because the asset cost might be low.
I remember when my uncle told me that you can never have too many big men, but he was talking about movers for his new couch. Still, the logic holds up in the Eastern Conference. If the Magic want to lower their tax bill, maybe Goga comes north. He stands in the paint and he exists, which are two things the Raptors often need.
The Mamu Problem
Then there is Sandro Mamukelashvili, who we mostly call Mamu because it is easier. He has a player option for two point eight million dollars. He will probably decline that, because everyone likes more money, and he has played well enough to deserve a few extra integers in his bank account.
The problem is something called non bird rights. It means we can only offer him one hundred and twenty percent of his current salary. It is a very specific rule that feels like it was designed by someone who enjoys middle management. If he wants more than that, things get complicated, and the Raptors salary cap starts to look like my garage during a winter thaw (massively cluttered and slightly damp).
To Trade or Not to Trade
Michael Grange is saying the Raptors should avoid a Giannis Antetokounmpo trade. It is a strange thing to think about, avoiding one of the greatest players to ever touch a basketball. But the cost would be everything. You would trade the house, the car, and the nice cutlery just to have a guy who might realize that Toronto is very cold in February.
We have seen too many leads vanish to worry about hypothetical superstars today. We focus on the sketches. We focus on the rim pressure of RJ Barrett. We wonder if Goga Bitadze likes the Eaton Centre. It is safer that way. We just keep spinning, much like a reserve forward in 2007 whose name I can no longer recall.