The Toronto Raptors are widely expected to reshuffle the deck at the trade deadline this year, and that could mean the exit of one particular player.
Veteran NBA reporter Marc Stein wrote this week in a Substack piece that Raptors guard Gary Trent Jr. is the most likely player on Toronto’s roster to be moved ahead of the Feb. 9 deadline. Stein adds that he personally thinks neither Pascal Siakam nor OG Anunoby is a candidate for a trade.
Meanwhile, Stein also says that teams around the league merely have “hope” that the Raptors will welcome trade pitches for Fred VanVleet, who will be an unrestricted free agent after the season.
After winning 48 games and landing a top-five seed last season, the Raptors have been lackluster this year at 22-27 (which is 12th in the East and below the play-in tournament zone). That has given rise to rumors that Toronto could be making wholesale changes to their roster at the trade deadline.
The 24-year-old sharpshooter Trent arrived in Toronto via a 2021 trade with the Portland Trail Blazers. While he is starting and getting a good amount of usage with the Raptors (averaging 18.6 points on 14.5 attempts a game this season), one of Trent’s former teammates recently seemed to indicate that Trent is unhappy in Toronto.
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