The Raptors shut down Immanuel Quickley and Scottie Barnes. Now, to avoid mediocrity

On Friday morning, minutes before the Toronto Raptors introduced their two rookies to the media, athleticShams Charania reported that the team has agreed to terms with Immanuel Quickley on a five-year, $175 million deal. Quickley was set to become a restricted free agent, but signing him allows the Raptors to approach the opening of free agency knowing how much cap space they will have before reaching the luxury tax limit.

Immanuel Quickley intends to sign a five-year, $175 million deal to return to the Toronto Raptors, a league source reports. @athletic @stadium, pic.twitter.com/JEPnOyY5H5

– Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) 28 June 2024

That’s certainly a lot of money – a lot more than I thought Quickly would get. Assuming a typical contract structure, his starting salary would be around $30 million. On the other hand, here is a list of point guards who will make more money than Quickley next season: Damian Lillard, Stephen Curry, Tyrese Haliburton, Trae Young, Fred VanVleet, LaMelo Ball, Kyrie Irving, Ja Morant, Darius Garland , Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Ben Simmons (!). Jamal Murray is reportedly close to a deal for an extension that would take him ahead of Quickley. Jalen Brunson is looking for a deal that will get done sooner rather than later. Both De’Aaron Fox and Derrick White are also eligible for extensions.

So, the Raptors are paying Quickley to be an average starting point guard and signed him from his age-25 season through his age-29 season. it is reasonable. Quickley has only spent half a season as the starting point guard, but those are the types of bets you make if you’re in the Raptors’ situation. You have to hope that your promising players can become very good players and beat their contracts at some point.

His contract is likely to increase by 8 percent per year, while the salary cap is likely to increase by 10 percent annually. This should take up less room for the year, as will Scotty Barnes’ maximum-value deal.

The danger is thinking that, because of this, these decisions have no impact – that it’s all dumb money, and the deals are free of consequences. In 2025-26, the Raptors will owe Barnes, Quickley and RJ Barrett approximately $99 million. This is approximately 63.8 percent of the projected limit for that season. By then, will Barnes become more than the average star the Raptors are paying him for? Can Quickley move into the All-Star conversation by being an average starting point guard? Was Barrett’s jump in efficiency at the end of last year real, and can he make a similar jump defensively?

The Raptors need some “yes” answers to avoid getting stuck with this core the same way they got stuck with previous cores of Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby and VanVleet. It’s not like the Raptors overpaid any of them and couldn’t build around them. Their contracts represented good value, so some offers they received for players while they were still on their deals. It’s just that none of those players ever outperformed their last deals as Raptors. Siakam struggled with his offensive efficiency as the No. 1 option, even as he improved his playmaking. Anunoby became an elite 3-and-D role player, but couldn’t produce himself. VanVleet was an average starting point guard, topping out at times if you look deeper into some advanced stats.

They kept true to their deals but did not violate them. With a failure on the player-development side down the roster, it wasn’t enough for the Raptors to make much of that mini-era.

With Barnes, Quickly and Barrett under contract for 2026-27 and beyond, that process begins again. Will that trio become more than the sum of its parts in a way the old core couldn’t? Will the Raptors make more of an impact on their draft picks and free-agency flyers than they have in the past five years?

Or, failing that, will the Raptors be bad (or lucky) enough these years to add more elite talent to the mix? At this point, it seems likely that none of Duke forward Cooper Flagg and incoming Rutgers teammates Arias Bailey and Dylan Harper, who are all college freshmen next season, will be the top picks this past draft and will be drafted into the NBA. Can be a fundamental player.

The Raptors may have gotten some lottery luck along the way, which is how they got Barnes. But they will enter next season with a chance to win more games than the Washington Wizards, Charlotte Hornets, Brooklyn Nets, Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls. We haven’t touched the Western Conference, which, admittedly, has fewer teams that care about winning games.

The fear is that, by locking up Barnes and Quickley, the Raptors are targeting a comfortable middle. Of course, the team will counter by saying that things looked similar with DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry. When you hit some developmental home runs, things change. You still need the people at the top to get together to do something else on their own.

notes

• According to my colleague John Hollinger, the Raptors have enough money to exercise Bruce Brown’s $23 million team option, use the second-round exception to sign Jonathan Mogbo and Jamal Sheed and still pay the luxury tax. Non-taxpayers are slightly lower with the exception of the middle level. Limit. Notably absent from that math: Gary Trent Jr., who made $18.56 million last season. The Raptors also have a guard-heavy roster, meaning it looks unlikely that they will be able to retain both Brown and Trent. The Raptors have to make a decision on Brown’s option by the end of the day Friday.

• Jacobe Walter (19th pick of the NBA draft) and Mogbo (31st pick) both met with the media on Friday. Walter said that Toronto reminded him of New York, and he was getting used to his new surroundings. Mogbo was as casual as I remember a newbie being in his initial meeting with the press. He referred to Barnes, whom he has known since he was a grade-schooler, as “Scott.” He told stories of being mistaken for Precious Achiuwa during his previous visits to Toronto. It seems he has a pretty good understanding of his journey, during which he grew to a height of 6 feet 6 inches, attended two junior colleges and two universities and finally burst onto the NBA radar this year.

“Probably the beginning of my last year at the University of San Francisco, when I finally earned that respect from my coaches (that’s when I knew I had a chance to make the NBA),” Mogbo said. “Coming from Missouri State, I got a lot of Had to prove something. Missouri State (mainly I played in) the short screen, (the) dunker spot, the screen-and-roll.

“There was a lot more to my game that people didn’t see. So when I got a chance to throw a backdoor pass, bring the ball up in transition, doing that opened my eyes a little bit. And I was like, ‘You know what? If I can get into this system I can do great things. And now I am here today.”

(Photo: Andy Lyons/Getty Images)