NBA Trade Rumors: 5 likely sellers heading into the trade deadline

Toronto Raptors

These last two teams are unlikely candidates to be sellers but have been heavily rumored in recent reports regarding the upcoming deadline. One of those two teams is the Toronto Raptors.

On paper, the Raptors don’t look like the type of team that would decide to tank halfway into a season.

Toronto has one of the most well-respected coaches in the league in Nick Nurse. They have two former All-Stars in Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet in the prime of their careers. They’ve got a ton of young talent in Scottie Barnes, Gary Trent Jr, OG Anunoby, Precious Achiuwa, and Christian Koloko and are just three games back of the eighth-seeded Indiana Pacers in the standings.

The Raptors have been one of the most successful franchises in the league over the past decade as they have made the playoffs in eight of the past nine seasons. This is by far the best stretch of success the franchise has ever seen. However, that success hasn’t shown its face much this season.

Toronto is currently 11th in the East. They are closer in the standings to the Orlando Magic, who own the third-worst record in the east, to the Cleveland Cavaliers who are fifth in the East, where the Raptors finished a season ago.

Since the start of December, the Raptors are 9-15. Just three of those nine wins were against teams with winning records, and two of them were against the same team: The New York Knicks.

Furthermore, Toronto is just 9-18 against teams above .500 this season.

Where other teams made moves this off-season to improve, the Raptors stood pat. As a result, teams that were above them last season furthered the distance between them, and the teams that were right below them have caught up and raced right by them in the standings.

As noted previously, the East has improved a great deal this season, but the Raptors are not a part of that improvement.

Having said all of that, there is still plenty of basketball left to be played. A winning streak could put the Raptors right back in the playoff picture.

Out of all the potential sellers at the trade deadline, the Raptors feel like the team is most likely to let the season ride and not make any drastic moves until the summer just based on their talent and recent history as opposed to the other teams on this list.

However, it might be in their future best interest to trade their valuable players.

As mentioned in the tweet above, a deal involving Annouby and/or Siakam could land Toronto a ton of draft capital. That’s not even taking into consideration what their other assets like Fred VanVleet, Gary Trent Jr, Thaddeus Young, Chris Boucher, and Otto Porter Jr could land them.

If things don’t turn around from now up until the deadline, the Raptors may decide to tear it all down and prepare for a better tomorrow. Right now, it looks like it might be heading in that direction because they are far from the perennial playoff team fans have come accustomed to seeing.