Report: Raptors likely to lose pair of linchpin players in free agency

Two current Toronto Raptors players may not be sticking around for the Dino Rajakovic era.

Veteran NBA reporter Marc Stein passed along this week on his Substack page that Raptors guards Fred VanVleet and Gary Trent Jr. look likelier than not to leave the team this offseason. VanVleet and Trent are both set to become unrestricted free agents later in the month.

The writing may already be on the wall for Trent, who has looked like the odd man out in Toronto for a while. But VanVleet, a lifelong, homegrown Raptor, would represent a more surprising departure, especially given that it recently sounded like he wanted to re-up with the team.

Both players are ballers. Trent, 24, is an offensive dynamo who can flirt with 20 points PPG on a solid helping of three-point makes. Meanwhile, the 29-year-old VanVleet, a All-Star in 2022, is even better as an exceptional all-around shot creator (19.3 points and 7.2 assists per-game last season).

VanVleet and Trent both seem likely to get a lot of bread on the open market this summer. If the crystal ball is correct here and that bread does not come from Toronto, perhaps it will come from a fitting opponent instead.