The Raptors are about to finesse the Kings...

Three-time All-Star just sent a message to the Sacramento Kings. Reports are coming out that he wants out of Sacramento and the Toronto Raptors are a team that nearly traded for him last year. Quote, quite frankly, Sabonis wants out of there and if they can move him, they would. That was Tim McMahon of the Hoop Collective and every trade you'll see on him today has the same name in it and it's RJ Barrett. Now I'm starting this video saying I do not want to trade RJ Barrett. I don't think that they have to. RJ Barrett is not in these trade talks for basketball reasons. Say what you want about all the floor spacing, the fit, all of this stuff. Overall, RJ Barrett has been fantastic for the Toronto Raptors right now and is one of the reasons the Raptors are able to stay in these games without Kawhi Leonard. But the reason you've seen him tossed into all these trades, all these hypotheticals, all these proposals is because of money. And there is a way around it. But let's start in Sacramento because we have to dive into this report regarding Domantas Sabonis. The team has started 0-6 to start off this season, and the reason they're losing is not because of Domas. He's putting up 16 points a game and 15.8 rebounds and 7.3 assists a night. And to quote Tim McMahon again, he went on and said, so he is not happy and it's a bad situation. Since last year's trade deadline, when the Raptors nearly pulled the trigger on a deal to acquire him, they've been shipping him since that point, as McMahon said that they went to Detroit over the summer and inquiring about acquiring Jalen Durant, but the Pistons weren't very interested. And Brian Windhorst came out and said that the Sacramento Kings are open to moving him, but it has to make sense for them. So even with Sabonis being frustrated, they're not going to give him away for free. The day before, Sean Devaney reported that Sabonis is not enthused about playing next to rookie Darius Acuff. And you don't have to look any further than the box score because Darius Acuff right now is taking 24 shots a game. Through six games, that's higher than the career average of anybody in NBA history. Elgin Baylor's career average was 23.8 and Michael Jordan's career average was 22.9. And to make matters worse, he's only hitting 39% of his shots. Sabonis is the veteran on this team. He's been in winning situations before and he's shooting 70% from the field and is only getting 9.2 shots a night. And the rookie takes more than two and a half times as many looks as Sabonis in these games. So you got an all-star big man running the offense and the ball is not coming back to him and that's the friction, right? Like the team is losing. The team has been a mess for years now at this point but now he's not even getting the basketball from his rookie guard. Now, one team source is trying to shut all this down, saying it could not be farther from the truth. And James said there is no beef. So the feelings part is disputed. But the shots total, the numbers out there in terms of what happening certainly is not. And Sabonis tried to shut down a bunch of trade rumors back in October. He came out and said, oh, it's all made up. It's all made up. It's all this. It's all that. But actions speak louder than words, and he changed agents this summer. He's on a team that hasn't been able to win a game this season, and Tim McMahon said they would move him if they could. He's also had some post-game press conferences talking about the Kings' need to move the ball more, get it back to Sabonis, pass it off, and get it back to him. He is frustrated right now. It is clear, no matter what team officials come out and say, and last season, the Toronto Raptors were one team that was trying to get him. Last February at the trade deadline, ESPN's Anthony Slater reported the Kings nearly traded Sabonis to the Raptors, and the package was built around R.J. Barrett. And this wasn't a one-week thing, something that almost popped up right before the trade deadline. This was something we were hearing for months, as Jake Fisher first linked Toronto to Sabonis back in December of 2025. By February, Sam Amick came out and called the Toronto Raptors a serious suitor, and then Mike Scotto reported the framework was R.J. Barrett and Ochai Agbaji. Slater also reported that Domantas Sabonis was interested in coming to Toronto, which is a very positive sign. But the reason that deal did not go through was because of Jakob Poeltl. No, it's not because the Raptors weren't willing to part ways with their current starting center. It was because no team wanted to pick up the three years $84 million left on his deal after this season. And the Toronto Raptors were unwilling to attach a future first round pick in order to get off of Jakob Poeltl. Remember that because this matters later. So the rumor went all the way around the league. Different teams have been interested in Sabonis, but now we are back to Toronto. And the version everyone is passing around this time is RJ Barrett, Jakob Poeltl, a 2027 first and a 2029 second for Sabonis. Obviously that first is a pick swap, but we'll get into that after. But the bigger question is why RJ Barrett is involved in all of these trade talks, because it's less about the player right now with this and more about the cap sheet. But before we get into the money and the RJ Barrett updates and why I still want him on this team, I do want to take a serious look at Sabonis because he's a really good basketball player. Sabonis is shooting 70% from the field this season and his true shooting is 74.9%, which is absolutely insane. Against Portland last month, he had 27 points, 19 rebounds, 10 assists on 10 of 13 shooting and the Kings still lost that game. Now look at Toronto Centre, a guy that was getting a lot of flak last week, had one good game and now was already injured. Poeltl still, in the games that he played, is only averaging 4.6 points a night and 5.8 rebounds. That's down from last year, where everyone was extremely disappointed in what Jakob Poeltl was providing for this team, where he averaged 10.7 points and 7 rebounds a game on 70% shooting, which is very, very solid. Now obviously it's a small sample size, but But Sabonis is basically averaging 16 rebounds a game. That's 10 more than Purtle every night so far this season. Obviously, the Raptors have struggled with rebounding. Sabonis is still a question mark as your defensive anchor at the center position, but would be great as a rebounder. Obviously, his offense is a huge step up, but the question for the Toronto Raptors is the price. So when the Raptors traded for Kawhi Leonard this off season, they ended up getting hard capped at the first apron. So at $209 million is the maximum that they can have out there on the roster. And it doesn't move at all, no matter how the season goes along. So right now, as the cap books are currently constructed, the Raptors have about $960,000 of room underneath it. So under a million bucks to actually put together trades and deal with right now and make the salaries match. At this current moment, Domantas Sabonis makes $45 million dollars this season. So to take him in, Toronto has to send out at least $44.5 million in the same trade. But here's the problem, take away the 5 biggest contracts on this team, and everybody else combined makes $27.5 million. So basically you can trade the bottom 9 guys on this Raptors roster and still not even being close to making a move to bring back Sabonis. So any Sabonis trade is going to have to include at least one of these four names. Kawhi Leonard, Scottie Barnes, Immanuel Quickley, or RJ Barrett. And right now, we are immediately shutting down any idea of trading Kawhi Leonard or Scottie Barnes to the Sacramento Kings. So get that out of your head if it popped in there. And RJ Barrett is the easy name on paper. He's on an expiring contract making $29.6 million this year. So a team like the Kings sees money coming off the books next summer. And obviously he's putting up good enough stats for the Kings that they just want some competent talent out there on the roster, but really they look at it as money coming off the books for Sacramento. And folks, if you're enjoying the Daily Toronto Raptors content and all the trade talks, the breakdowns, make sure you guys click that like button. Our highest like total so far this month, or at least in October, was 423 likes. And let's see if we can beat it out there in this vid. So before we land on anything, let's see if there's any way to make a deal happen with out, including RJ Barrett, Emmanuel quickly, one of these guys. And you can look at this one, you know, door one opens Jakob Poeltl plus every young player on the roster. So include Jacoby Walker, Jamal Shead, Callum Mary Bowles, Allen Graves and Trace Jackson-Davis. And that's 38.7 million. Like again, that's absolutely absurd. You'd never do that deal. Even if the money worked. So There's no real permutation to get around that right now. Now, I've seen some people try to argue about, hey, the Toronto Raptors actually have a trade exception. You know, you get deep into the cap rules and it's like, there's a route to make this happen because the Raptors end up getting a $6.38 million trade exception by dealing away Ochai Agbaji last year. But a trade exception cannot be stacked on top of other players' salaries in order to bring back a big contract. So adding that trade exception in does not help. Other names people are bringing up, Kyle Anderson, Jaden Bradley, and Elijah Martin can't be traded yet, as Martin is ineligible to be traded until January 15th. So every door closes the same way, and the money has to come from one of those two guards, RJ Barrett or Immanuel Quickley. So if it's going to be between RJ and Immanuel Quickley, I think anyone that's watched this channel knows the direction that I'm going to lean in. We can back it up by the numbers. RJ Barrett is second on the team in scoring at 19.8 points per night, and he's shooting 48% from the field. With him on the floor, Toronto's a plus 10.6 per 100 possessions. And people are taking notice. You've watched these games, it's clear. TSN came out and said that R.J. Barrett's getting to the rim as well as anybody in the NBA right now. And Raptors beat reporter Josh Lubenberg as he used the quote directly, not expendable, as R.J. Barrett's description. He's in a contract year, a season where the Toronto Raptors are trying to be extremely competitive. You know you're going to be without one of your top shot creators in Kawhi Leonard for a big chunk of this season. RJ Barrett fulfills a need, he's a guy that's looking to win, he's hungry, he's not a guy you'd trade away just for, you know, to fill up your books or making them clean in the future. So the offer I'm making to Sacramento is Immanuel Quickley, Jakob Poeltl, and a first, and maybe some other draft capital, whatever seconds you can sell, whatever those pieces that are out there, in order to bring back Domantas Sabonis. Immanuel Quickley makes $32.5 million, and Jakob Poeltl makes $19.5 million, so that's $52 million going out to Sacramento. If you count their bonuses and how it affects the apron, it ends up opening up about $9.5 million for the Raptors in terms of breathing room. Obviously, you'd be without your starting point guard in Emmanuel Quickley, but You know, you can probably make some other moves, you could see if you trust Jamal Shead, you could see if Scottie Barnes slots that spot, and you make Jacoby Walter a full-time starter, there's a lot of avenues the Toronto Raptors would be fine in this scenario. Obviously, Sabonis would be your starting center. And it should be noted as well, Sabonis averages 7.3 assists per game. He runs the offense from the elbow, so obviously, you need a point guard to come out and play and be effective and all that, but you can get a lot of that facilitating from your big man if you make this trade. But I know the comments have already been typed up, Ben, why on earth would the Kings make this trade? You're getting off of two bad contracts out there to Sacramento in return for a player that's actually pretty solid, even if he does want out from Sacramento. Well, this is where the discourse has really been ramping up out regarding the Sacramento Kings. The Toronto Raptors have that first round pick that they were unwilling to part with last trade deadline. And for as boisterous as the Kings have been about, hey, we need real value for Domantas Sabonis. If we're making a trade, we need real value back. The reality is this situation is getting extremely messy with the Sacramento Kings, and there's been no teams that are willing to give up a first in order to acquire Sabonis. So in order for their ownership, their GM, their decision makers out there in Sacramento to save face to their fan base and not let Sabonis walk for nothing or... sit his way, pout his way out of a season or anything like that and get back a first round pick, they're going to have to eat one or two bad contracts in order to make that happen. Obviously, the Kings play hardball. You don't necessarily have to go down this route, but I don't see a world where Domantas Sabonis is still on the Kings by this trade deadline. And the Kings don't really have any other avenues to acquire a first round pick. I've seen some people even argue the Raptors should be willing to give up two firsts to get off of IQ and Jakob Poeltl's contract. I think the Raptors will be able to negotiate their way to getting this deal done with just one first. Emmanuel Quickley isn't a horrible basketball player by any stretch of the imagination, even if his contract is big. Jakob Poeltl, his trade value is pretty much in the mud. But if you attach some seconds, if you attach maybe one of the lesser value young guys the Kings might be interested in, then you should be able to work out a deal. Then you can look at that starting five for the Toronto Raptors. Again, the default one people are going to jump to is Jamal Shead, RJ Barrett, Kawhi Leonard, Scottie Barnes, and Sabonis. As I said earlier, there are permutations with Scottie at the point, Jacoby Walter getting the start, CMB coming in. There's a lot of different things the Raptors could do with this. But I look at that lineup and I see a team that is very nasty and has really high upside. Of course, there are some significant risks while bringing in Sabonis. Just last year, he played 19 games. That's it. Dealing with injuries a lot, and he currently makes $48.6 million for next season as well. And again, this would be on Bobby Webster to really do well with his negotiations. Emmanuel quickly has three years left on his deal, and a team just drafted a point guard, Darius Acuff. They're going to want RJ Barrett's expiring contract over Emmanuel quickly for sure. The deadline is February 11th, so 101 days away. A lot can happen between now and then, but this situation might get messier by the day between Sabonis and the Sacramento Kings. And if it does, the Toronto Raptors get even more leverage. So again, I'm steadfast on not trading RJ Barrett, but I would like the Toronto Raptors to go get Sabonis if the price is right. He's a three-time all-star that wants out of his team. He plays a position of need. He spaces the floor. He facilitates. And even though he's not the most elite rim protector at the center position, he's a guy that will definitely help our rebounding and will impact the game in multiple areas. And again, the Raptors should not rush into this. Every game, the Kings lose. They lose more and more leverage. There's more and more frustration brewing between Sabonis and the front office. And the Raptors don't have to rush. Bobby Webster never rushes these types of things. You got a hundred days to negotiate and see how desperate this Sacramento team can get. And look, I get a lot of people saying, be urgent, trade RJ Barrett, deal him off. The Raptors have lost multiple games straight. They need to make this move happen now. They can't wait till February. But if you have patience, the Kings are a front office. You're able. to negotiate with and get the best of. It's happened a million times over in the past. And realistically, if there's one organization that can eat the big salaries the Toronto Raptors gave out to IQ and Jakob Poeltl, it is the Kings because there's not a lot of hope for them out there in the short term. If you get this deal right, trading IQ and Jakob Poeltl, bringing back a multi-time all-star player saves your cap problem, it saves your center problem, and it puts the Toronto Raptors in a position where I think it's a real contending team. You get more breathing room for the future to sign RJ Barrett to an extension. But overall, the biggest thing you need to take away from this is the Raptors are trying to be competitive this season and dealing away a guy that has been outside of Scottie Barnes, your most consistent player, is not usually the route to go down when you're trying to win more games. Let me know in the comment section who you'd rather give up for Domantas Sabonis, RJ Barrett or Emmanuel Quickly. Type R for RJ, type Q for Immanuel Quickley, and let me know your packages down below. If you want to break down some of the latest Toronto Raptors news, check out this video right here.