Raptors Give Multiple Updates... This Rumour is Insane

Tonight, the Toronto Raptors finally put out an update regarding Kawhi Leonard. His knee treatment is done, he starts the return to play process, and next comes an update in the following week. Which means he is not playing against the Denver Nuggets tomorrow, and he's going to miss a few more games. On the same day, the Toronto Raptors name has popped up as a potential destination for a guy that's elite on defense, he fits the Toronto Raptors mold for a lot of guards they've had in the system over the past few years, and he's a name that we've recently seen play against the Raptors. And that is Chris Dunn. The Clippers are predicted to move him by the trade deadline this season for a pretty significant asking price. And then a list went out of teams that could make this trade, and Toronto was on it with a very specific pick next to his name. Now, we are months away from the trade deadline, and we're going to see a bunch of rumors pop up over the coming months about different moves for this team. But I know after the Raptors-Clippers game, there are a lot of people talking about Chris Dunn and how he impressed Raptors fans with his performance and especially his defensive aggression. But there's a couple things about this rumor that don't add up a ton for me, and we'll dive into it in this video. But first, the most important thing that we are following on this channel and as Raptors fans, we're all looking What you got is the health of Kawhi Leonard, because with Kawhi and And it's happened with the Clippers, it happened with the first time he was with the Toronto Raptors. There are always a bunch of injury reports coming out, they're always fairly vague, and you have to read between the lines with what's actually going on. And the team has said that he completed treatment for his swelling in his left knee, and it did not say he's cleared, and it didn't give a return date. For those that are unfamiliar, this started in Minnesota on October 25th, when he felt discomfort in his left knee during warm-ups, and then he sat as a last-minute scratch. The team said that imaging showed no acute injury, and Shams reported that the MRI found no structural damage, but that he'd miss a period of weeks for the Toronto Raptors. And then Darko came out and said that there was no exact timeline. He was getting treatment outside of Toronto, and that Darko said he was responding well. Then tonight, we got our fourth update on this whole situation, that the treatment is done that he was having in California, and he started to ramp up his return to play protocol. Now, these are all weird names for different things, but the indication is that he's back with the team and working to ramp things back up to get back in the Raptors lineup. And of course, so far this season, Kawhi Leonard's played two games out of the Raptors. Seven, he had 23 points against the Chicago Bulls and then 16 in Washington. And then we didn't see him again. That's an average of 19.5 points a night, and he wasn't super efficient, he wasn't playing his usual standard of basketball, but the Raptors did win both of those games and Kawhi was a crucial part of it. But we haven't seen him since Game 3 out there in the warmup, so he's only played those two nights, and he will miss tomorrow's game against the Denver Nuggets as well. When this all started, Chris Haynes said he was hearing that 3-4 weeks was the expected timeline, but we'll see how it actually shakes out in the coming weeks. Next update is coming around next week, around when the Toronto Raptors play the Memphis Grizzlies, who have been absolutely hot to start off this season on November 10th. So the honest answer to all this is that he is getting closer to getting back on the court. There have been no setbacks, because a lot of times when there's these vague Kawhi Leonard injury updates, it ends up with, hey, there's been a setback, he's going to be out for longer. It's going to be another two weeks, it's going to be another month, and you keep getting these weird updates. The language that's coming out of this is very positive. They're moving in the right direction, but it's still known unknown when he'll be back on the court. So we'll keep you up to date with everything regarding this Kawhi Leonard situation, so make sure to hit that subscribe button. But what we've seen in the five games that Kawhi Leonard has missed has led to some of these rumors escalating regarding Chris Dunn and why some people are projecting him to the Toronto Raptors. With Kawhi Leonard on the court, this team looks like a completely different roster, especially on the defensive end. With Kawhi Leonard in the lineup, the Raptors are 2-0, and they gave up 97 points a game. Without him, the team is 2-3. They're giving up 117 points a night, and that's 20-point difference out there on the defensive end. Of course, the sample size, the level of competition, all these things are certainly a factor. But nonetheless, the Raptors are a much better defensive team with Kawhi on the court. And tomorrow in Denver, things get thinner. As Jakob Poeltl is questionable with that shoulder bursitis, Nate Biddle is still out with the fracture in his right foot, and the Denver Nuggets have Nikola Jokic, who is going to be a problem even if you had your regular center rotation. I know we might be looking too closely under the microscope for just 7 games sample size and Kawhi only played in 2 of them, but when you look at the on-off differential in terms of the defense, it is noticeable. Darko discussed how the Toronto Raptors missed Kawhi Leonard in the postgame against the Los Angeles Clippers, and when he was asked what they missed, he said everywhere. Defensively, offensively, the shot creation. They're missing Kawhi a ton in a bunch of different places. And here's the part people forget, especially at Kawhi Leonard's age. People sometimes write him off as a 35-year-old guy. He's not the DPOY player he was back in his prime, but Just last season, he had 122 steals and was sixth in the entire NBA. His on-ball pressure, his on-ball defense is still elite. Kawhi Leonard is still that menace on the defensive end. So when he sits, you don't just miss one of the best scorers in the NBA, but you miss one of the best defenders. And that brings us to one guy who took the ball away more than Kawhi Leonard did last year. Chris Dunn had 131 steals last season, and that's nine more than Kawhi Leonard. Only three players in the NBA had more. Kasey Walls, Dyson Daniels, and Asar Thompson. He knows exactly what Kawhi Leonard gives you, as they were teammates with the Los Angeles Clippers last year, where Dunn played all 82 games and Kawhi Leonard played 65. Per game, it holds up as well. Chris Dunn was averaging 1.6 steals a game, 7th amongst everyone who played at least 60 games. And this season, it's been even crazier for Chris Dunn, as he has 20 steals in 7 games. It's almost 3 a night. But the thing about Chris Dunn is you have to know what you're buying when you bring him in. It's not the scoring. By any stretch of the imagination, he's at 9 points a game, and he did have a solid one against the Toronto Raptors, but you're bringing in an absolute menace on the defensive end. Points against the Golden State Warriors on Sunday, and then he started the game against the Toronto Raptors and put in 12. But he's a steady vet, and there's a reason why he might be available. He's on a $5.7 million contract that expires this season. So he's 32 years old, right in the prime of his career, on a team that's 1-6, and that's exactly the type of player that usually gets moved at the deadline. So on paper, he's a defender who lives in passing lanes for a team that just lost one of its best defenders. So people are pointing to the Toronto Raptors as a potential fit. But there's a lot of specifics in this report that make it feel really, really weird. Here's where this rumor really came from. As a post from ESPN's Bobby Marks predicts the Clippers trade Chris Dunn for a first round pick and that Dunn, when he's then signed, he'll get a two-year $37 million extension with his new team. And then AP hoops. So the Raptors were named, and that extension is a lot of money, especially for a team that has a lot of money long-term on the books. $37 million over two years is $18.5 million a season, and that's more than three times what Chris Dunn makes right now. So the Raptors being amongst the teams that are getting linked to Chris Dunn as a potential trade suitor just doesn't really make any sense to me whatsoever, especially with what What they'd have to give up in order to... Give him that extension. Like, not only would you have to give up a first round pick, but you're also giving up the opportunity to pay guys like RJ Barrett, and you put yourself in a weird spot financially for future extensions like Jacoby Walter and longer down the line Colin Murray-Boyles. And then to make it even more messy, this is not a position of need for the Toronto Raptors. They have guys like Jamal Shead, Jacoby Walter, that are defensive first players. And they're younger, they have higher upside, and honestly, are better offensive players than Chris Dunn is right now. I know he looks solid against the Toronto Raptors in that game versus the Clippers. He's a hound defensively. He would fit right in with the style of play that Darko Rajakovic loves to run with the point of attack on defense is really just in the ball handlers grill every single possession trying to get the ball loose, just being a disruptor out there on the court. Chris Dunn would be a huge addition out there to this team's defense. And without a guy like Kawhi Leonard, it'd be super noticeable his impact on that end of the court. But that is not the direction the Toronto Raptors need to go in right now. They are looking more at, hey, shooters, hey, can we get some big pieces? Can we not pay another role player a ton of money in order to make this happen? We already extended Jamal Shead to be that type of player, that type of guard for the Toronto Raptors moving forward in the future. It does not make any sense to go after Chris Dunn with... You know, also attaching a first round pick, there are so many better directions to go in rather than offering that pick up for Dunn. And even the logistics of just making this trade happen, put the Toronto Raptors in even more of a bind. We have to remember the Toronto Raptors are hard capped right now. We brought it up on pretty well every trade video we've discussed that happened the summer when they took back more salary than they sent out in the Kawhi Leonard trade. They have $963,000 of room under the apron and Dunn makes 5.6 million. So if they were to bring him in, they'd have to send out at least $4.7 million. Not roughly, that is the minimum. Like, in theory, you could do that by sending out Kyle Anderson and James Battle, but... That just doesn't feel like a move that makes the Toronto Raptors better, especially with Jameson Battle's shooting. Like, it clears the cap amount by $24,000, but you're giving up an elite shooter, you're giving up a first-round pick, and you're giving up any flexibility that you'd have in order of extending RJ Barrett. And you'd also be forced into more moves. As two players are out for one player in, the Toronto Raptors are only carrying 14 players here right now, so they drop to 13 players after that trade. That $24,000 of extra room that they'd clear making this deal happen wouldn't be enough for them to sign a minimum contract player out there to their roster, so they would have to wait till later in the season when all these contracts get prorated and then they could sneak it under the cap. Also have to probably make another move to open up a little bit more salary. People are also always bringing up the Ochai Agbaji trade exception. And yes, Chris Dunn would fit inside of that. That's a $6.3 million trade exception. Chris Dunn's at that $5 million mark. But under the hard cap, it does not matter. The apron counts every dollar that's coming in, whether it's via a trade exception or not. And you are putting yourself in cap. By extending him to that type of contract in years where Kawhi Leonard, Scottie Barnes are getting raises, IQ, Jakob Poeltl are still on those big deals, and RJ Barrett is still unknown how much money he's going to make. The fit and style of Chris Dunn on the Toronto Raptors is definitely real, of course, no arguments about it, but he doesn't provide the direction, the skills that they want to go in, that they need to build off their current roster in, the three-point shooting, the shot creation, the scoring, all of these types of things, and then also the math in terms of getting him doesn't make any sense. So in my opinion, this is all just noise in regards to the Chris Dunn stuff. I know some people really like these defensive guards. I'm a big Jamal Murray fan. You know, in theory, I like Chris Dunn, that archetype of basketball player, but the Toronto Raptors do not need him, and if they do it, it's going to make a lot of things, a lot of other upgrades they need to make a lot harder, especially when you compound that with, yes, his contract is very good for this current season, but if you look forward in terms of what that extension would look like, it is very, very, very ugly. But nonetheless, we are going to get a lot more of these rumors as the months go along, as we see how this team is playing with and without Kawhi Leonard, because you need to have basically two rosters when Kawhi Leonard's on your team. You need to be able to be competent, keep your team afloat when Kawhi is resting, when he's out, when he's dealing with minor injuries and hopefully no big ones, knock on wood. And then you also need to have your team that makes sense around Kawhi Leonard during those high leverage moments during the playoffs, when you really want to go on your run. But let me know in the chat, do you think The Toronto Raptors should try to make something work out there for Chris Dunn, given his stylistic fit with Darko Rajaković's defense, or do you think that makes no sense whatsoever? Comment down below, type D for Dunn, type K for Kawhi, just for keeping this thing straight. And if you enjoy all this Raptors content, check out this video right here, where we break down some of the latest Toronto Raptors news.