Raptors lock up Immanuel Quickley and Scottie Barnes. Now, to avoid mediocrity

TORONTO — The price shock will drive people crazy.

Friday morning, minutes before the Toronto Raptors introduced two of their rookies to the media, AthleticismShams Charania revealed that the team has agreed to sign Immanuel Quickley to a five-year, $175 million contract. Quickley was set to become a restricted free agent, but his signing allows the Raptors to enter free agency knowing exactly how much wiggle room they’ll have before hitting the luxury tax threshold.

Immanuel Quickley intends to sign a five-year, $175 million contract to return to the Toronto Raptors, according to a league source. @TheAthletic @Stadium. pic.twitter.com/JEPnOyY5H5

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 28, 2024

That’s certainly a lot of money – more than I thought Quickley would get. He will have a starting salary of around $30 million, assuming a typical contract structure. On the other hand, here is the list of point guards who will earn more money than Quickley next season: Damian Lillard, Stephan 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 reaching a deal for an extension that will take him beyond Quickley. Jalen Brunson is close to making a deal that will be voided sooner rather than later. De’Aaron Fox and Derrick White are also both eligible for extensions.

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

His contract will likely increase by 8% per year, while the salary cap is expected to increase by 10% per year. He’s expected to take up less space by the end of the year, as is Scottie Barnes’ max-value contract.

The danger is thinking that, as a result, these decisions have no impact — that this is all just dumb money and the deals are inconsequential. In 2025-26, the Raptors will owe about $99 million to Barnes, Quickley and RJ Barrett. That’s about 63.8 percent of the projected cap hit for this season. By then, will Barnes be more than the average star the Raptors are paying him to be? Can Quickley rise above the status of an average starting point guard and enter the All-Star conversation? Was Barrett’s efficiency gain late last year real, and can he make a similar leap defensively?

The Raptors need a few “yes” answers to avoid stalling with this core the same way they stalled with the previous core of Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, and VanVleet. It’s not that the Raptors overpaid any of them and couldn’t build around them. Their contracts represented good value, hence some of the offers they received for these players while they were still under contract. It’s just that none of these players ever dramatically outperformed their final contracts as a Raptors. Siakam struggled with his offensive efficiency as a No. 1 option, even as he improved his game. Anunoby became an elite 3-and-D player, but couldn’t create for himself. VanVleet was an average starting point guard, sometimes exceeding that if you looked deeper into some advanced stats.

They respected their commitments but did not transcend them. With the failure to develop players further down the roster, it wasn’t enough for the Raptors to make the most of this mini-era.

With Barnes, Quickley and Barrett under contract through 2026-27 and beyond, that process begins again. Will this trio become more than the sum of its parts in a way the old core couldn’t? Will the Raptors be able to get more out of their draft picks and players in free agency than they did in the previous five years?

Or, failing that, will the Raptors be bad (or lucky) enough one of these years to add more elite talent to the mix? At this point, it appears that one of Duke’s forwards Cooper Flagg and new Rutgers teammates Airious Bailey and Dylan Harper, all freshmen next season, would have been the top pick in this past draft and could be fundamental players in the NBA.

The Raptors may have some luck in the lottery, which landed them Barnes. But they will enter next season with a better chance of winning than the Washington Wizards, Charlotte Hornets, Brooklyn Nets, Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls. We haven’t touched on the Western Conference, which admittedly has fewer teams that are indifferent to winning.

The fear is that by locking up Barnes and Quickley, the Raptors are targeting the middle of the field. The team could surely counter by saying that’s what’s happening with DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry. When you hit a few developmental home runs, things change. You still need the guys at the top to come together to form something more than what they are on their own.

Remarks

• According to my colleague John Hollinger, the Raptors have enough money to exercise Bruce Brown’s $23 million team option, sign Jonathan Mogbo and Jamal Shead using the second-round exception and still have just under the mid-level non-taxpayer exception while still staying below the luxury tax threshold. Notably absent from those calculations: Gary Trent Jr., who made $18.56 million last season. The Raptors also have a guard-heavy roster, meaning it seems increasingly unlikely they’ll be able to retain both Brown and Trent. The Raptors must decide on Brown’s option by the end of the day Friday.

• Ja’Kobe Walter (the 19th pick in the NBA draft) and Mogbo (the 31st pick) met with the media Friday. Walter noted that Toronto reminded him of New York and that he was getting used to his new surroundings. Mogbo was as comfortable as I can remember any rookie being in his first meeting with the press. He referred to Barnes, whom he has known since elementary school, as “Scott.” He talked about being mistaken for Precious Achiuwa during his previous visits to Toronto. He also seemed to have a strong understanding of his journey, which saw him grow to 6-foot-6, attend two colleges and two universities before finally getting on the NBA radar this year.

“It was probably my senior year at UC San Francisco that I finally earned the respect of my coaches (that’s when I knew I had a chance to be in the NBA),” Mogbo said. “I had to prove a lot coming from Missouri State. Missouri State played me mostly short screens, the dunker spot, the screen-and-roll.

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

(Photo: Andy Lyons/Getty Images)