Part 9 of the offseason guides brings us to a couple of optimistic teams for the upcoming season in the Memphis Grizzlies and Toronto Raptors.
Toronto Raptors
The Raptors had an interesting season this past year, as they signed Immanuel Quickley to a 5-year, $175 million contract after the OG Anunoby trade and also signed RJ Barrett to a deal. They capped off the offseason by signing Scottie Barnes to a rookie max extension, and then ended up with the 9th overall pick in this year's draft after a disappointing season. Quickley, Barnes, and Barrett played a combined 285 total minutes together this past season due to various injuries, mainly Quickley, as he only played in 33 games this past season. However, they also had a -70 point differential in those minutes. Scottie Barnes was mainly allowed to explore his offensive versatility, to put it nicely, but that’s appropriate when you finish the season 30-52. 19/8/6 splits on 44/27 shooting splits isn’t the worst thing in the world, given the high volume. Barnes took a lot of threes and found himself alone on that end of the floor a lot of the time. However, that led to some nice progress from the rookies they drafted, including Shead, Walter, and Battle. Also, shoutout to Garrett Temple, who Charles Barkley can’t name on “What team he play for?”.
Financially, the Raptors are spending like a team that didn’t win 30 total games last season, as they are currently in the first apron and paying the luxury tax. The sneaky move is that Masai Ujiri resigned this past season as president of basketball operations right after the draft, and leaves the door open for management to go a different direction. It also feels like the Raptors have always had a good team, but couldn’t get the best out of the team. Now, after trading for Brandon Ingram and giving him a 3-year $120 million extension, including a player option, and giving center Jakob Poeltl a 4-year $104 million contract extension, it seems like the Raptors are going for it. They have Barrett, Quickley, Barnes, Ingram, and Poeltl now under contract for at least 2 years, complement them with a solid core of younger players, including Gradey Dick, Ochai Agbaji, and Ja’Kobe Walter. Overall, the Raptors are kind of fun, but the limited roster flexibility without proving to be a consistent playoff team is concerning. Past the previously mentioned rookies and second-year guys, I don’t love paying the tax to compete in the play-in, but with the Eastern Conference depleted at the top, any team should be willing to take a swing if possible. Draft asset-wise, the Raptors are in great shape; they own their first-round pick between 2026-2031 and just drafted a really solid player according to the spreadsheet warriors in Collin Murray-Boyles. I think the Raptors are in a solid position, but overall, they need the core of Barnes, Quickley, Ingram, and Barrett to pop and gel together.
From a player development perspective, the Raptors need some shooting around the core I just mentioned. They likely won’t play a ton of minutes together and will stagger a ton based on the rotations, head coach Darko Rajakovic, who has some fun press conferences, every now and then. I think he did a good job in helping the team find some type of defensive identity with a 113.6 defensive rating, which was 109.6 in March. I know March basketball isn’t sexy because many of the tanking teams at that point were in the tank, but the Raptors weren’t exactly healthy either. I think Barrett found some playmaking when Barnes was out and averaged 5.4 assist, a career-high, in an elevated ball handling role, how this adjusts when Quickley and Barnes are on the floor, I’m sure he’ll be in more of a slashing and driving role, but if they shot can come around, 35% on 5 attempts for 3 this year, then it’ll make the pairings work, overall the Raptors will need to lean more into a defensive identify if the shooting doesn't pop. Gradey Dick is another candidate for improvement that I’d like to see. He started the season being much better in attacking closeouts and finishing at the rim, but that tailed off more towards the end of the season, the catch-and-shoot numbers were good, 38.3% from 3, and large part of why he shot 35% from 3 was due to the pull-up shooting numbers, just 24% from 3 on 1.6 attempts, has shooting will need to provide spacing for others to operate. We’ll see if Brandon Ingram adjusts his game as he’s dipped into shooting more catch-and-shoot 3s, an area he has to be good at for the Raptors this season. Overall, the Raptors have a lot of really good players, but they’ll need to figure, spacing and rotations if they want to get back into the playoffs.
Memphis Grizzlies
The Grizzlies have been on quite the roller coaster in the past couple of seasons. The season before, they were injury-riddled and had Morant, Smart, and Bane play a minimal amount of games together, and the record reflected otherwise. Turn the page to this past season, and the Grizzlies had some more success in winning games, but that was swiftly turned away after another playoff exit before the Conference Finals. The beginning of the season panned out to be smoke and mirrors as the team jumped as high as the 2nd seed in the West and looked the part. Their new offense featured fewer pick-and-rolls in the NBA, and averaged the least amount of pick-and-rolls in the NBA as a whole, but production and tensions inside the team began to bubble and led the the dismissal of head coach Taylor Jenkins. A couple of lead assistants, who were instrumental in putting in the new offense, were also let go. This led to the spiraling of the Grizzlies and eventually the beat-down of the eventual NBA champions OKC Thunder, in 4 games in the first round of the playoffs. The Grizzlies retained interim head coach Tuomas Lisalo, a Finnish-native, in the same position. So what now for the Grizzlies?
Memphis opted for the route of cap flexibility at the beginning of free agency. They traded away Desmond Bane for 4 first-round picks from the Magic and re-sign Jaren Jackson Jr. to a 5-year $240 million renegotiation, they then resigned Santi Aldama to a 3-year $52 million extension, a deal I like, and brought in point guard Ty Jerome for a 3-year $28 million deal, another good value add for the roster. Throw in this year’s first-round pick, Cedric Coward, and the Grizzlies have a lot of depth. The front office has done a good job of restructuring the roster and giving it flexibility to go forward. The small rebuild and Bane trade partly was due to the Jaren Jackson Jr. extension. They also needed a salary to resign Santi Aldama, and they likely will have a decision to make on G.G. Jackson and Vince Williams, or go big star fishing in next year’s free agency, something that many of the franchises are gearing up towards. With the Bane trade, they now have 10 first-round picks from now until 2031. I like what the Grizzlies have done; it’s more of a bet on Ja Morant getting back to his peak form, which he showed a couple of seasons ago.
The player development aspect of it starts with Morant. The shooting and passing have taken a slight step back; he averaged his most turnovers per game this past season, but didn’t average a career-high in assists. The pick and roll section is where I’d like to see the improvements, overall. There are a couple of times where Morant jumps to find a pass, and I think the shift in the offense towards the end of the season with Lisalo showed promise for Morant. The offense under Jenkins saw Morant a little disconnected; it revolved around player and ball movement. Morant struggled greatly, but saw some nice momentum going into the end of the season with a higher volume in pick-and-rolls. G.G. Jackson and Vince Williams will be the next rookie extension candidates for the next offseason. Both need to stay healthy this season and figure out the roles on offense and defense as they did 2 seasons ago. Guards Jaylen Wells and Cedric Coward will see some time on the wings this season as well. Particularly Wells, after making the first-team all-rookie this past season. Improving as a point of attack defender and consistently handling the tougher matchups on a nightly basis will provide Memphis with the defensive wing they have always wanted. They even traded away two first-round picks in an attempt to get one in Marcus Smart. The Grizzlies are in an interesting spot right now. I don’t think the current team is as good as the team last season, and they got swept in the first round of the postseason. However, anything can happen with injuries and different players improving; hopefully, that will go the way of the Grizzlies for this upcoming season.
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