Raptors Explain Why Keeping Bruce Brown Was a Wise Decision

Maybe the market for Bruce Brown was a little overstated.

Look around the league for a moment. Coming into Thursday’s trade deadline, 11 teams owned 75% of the tradeable first-round picks, as ESPN’s Bobby Marks noted. Of the contending teams, only two Oklahoma City and New York have a surplus of first-round picks.

It’s why there were just two first-round picks traded Thursday, one by the Toronto Raptors to the Utah Jazz and another from Dallas who acquired PJ Washington from the Charlotte Hornets.

What was Toronto supposed to do with Brown?

The Raptors certainly scoured the market for a first-round pick. New York had interest in Brown and there were talks involving Brown for a first-round pick, but the Knicks found themselves a better deal, sending Quentin Grimes, Evan Fournier, Malachi Flynn, and two second-round picks to Detroit for Bojan Bogdanović and Alec Burks.

When New York pivoted, Toronto was stuck.

The Los Angeles Lakers weren’t going to put a first-round pick on the table. Milwaukee and Denver didn’t have equal salaries nor future picks to entice Toronto into a deal. Nobody came calling with enough to make a deal worth it.

“Had we gotten the offers we wanted for Bruce, if it hit our threshold, we would have done something,” Raptors general manager Bobby Webster said Thursday.

So, the Raptors opted to stand pat, figuring there’d be no harm in waiting until the summer when Brown’s contract optionality may interest teams with more first-round picks at their disposal. His $23 million team option gives Toronto the ability to keep him around next season or move him to someone looking to clear up cap space before free agency kicks off.

Now Brown can settle in.

He’d spent the past three weeks in trade deadline limbo with one foot seemingly out the door. That, the Raptors hope, will change now that Brown knows where he’s going to be at least for the remainder of the season.

This may not have been Toronto’s preferred choice heading into the deadline, but without a no-brainer deal to be done, this time holding steady made a lot more sense.