Raptors’ Masai Ujiri got his fastball back in 2024-25

The following is part of Raptors Republic’s series of pieces reviewing the season for the Toronto Raptors. You can find all the pieces in the series here.

The first transaction the Toronto Raptors made in 2024-25 was a doozy.

On June 28, the Raptors offloaded Jalen McDaniels — not an NBA-quality player, and paid quite a bit — for Davion Mitchell, a solid second-round draft pick (Jamal Shead was later selected), Sasha Vezenkov, and Portland’s 2025 second-round pick. Vezenkov was also a salary dump, so the Raptors ultimately picked up three second-round picks out of nowhere.

Then the draft on July 4. Toronto had plenty of picks, though none that were too high. It didn’t stop the Raptors from picking up a huge number of promising players. Ujiri selected Ja’Kobe Walter 19th overall, and he grew and grew into quite a nifty player over the course of the season. Once his jumper started dropping, his cutting and defence really popped. He looks to be a useful rotation player going forward for Toronto. Then Toronto snatched Jonathan Mogbo 31st overall, Shead with the 45th pick (acquired from Sacramento), and bought the 57th pick from the Memphis Grizzlies to add Ulrich Chomche. He remains exceptionally promising. Ujiri added Jamison Battle as an undrafted free agent.

Stellar work. A number of potential future rotation players already added. Depth, shooting, leadership, defence. Positional versatility. Just great work in a draft in which Toronto didn’t have a lottery selection.

That was far from the end of the story of Ujiri’s season.

After Mitchell’s very solid start to the season, at the trade deadline Toronto flipped him to the Miami Heat for yet another second-round pick. (The McDaniels trade that keeps on giving.)

Then Toronto’s real shot at pre-agency. The Raptors traded Bruce Brown and Kelly Olynyk, as well as a distant second-round pick of their own, and next season’s first rounder acquired in the Pascal Siakam trade (likely a very late first-rounder) for Brandon Ingram. The trade is a risk, but it is a step forward. Toronto added much of what it was missing — shooting, self-creation, size, and more. At the price (low), Ujiri swung for the fences.

That’s a clean season for any NBA executive. Sure, Ujiri didn’t land Luka Doncic. But he offloaded either non-contributors or players with no future on the roster in McDaniels, Mitchell, Brown, and Olynyk, and he added assets in exchange for each of them. The Raptors built forward in 2024-25, no matter what happened on the court.

The 2024 draft was very strong. Perhaps there’s no future star, no Nikola Jokic or Giannis Antetokounmpo plucked from the depths of the mid-first or second round. But in every other way the draft deserves an ‘A’ grade. Running a team isn’t about guaranteeing anything, but about giving yourself as many chances as possible. Kicks at the can, bites at the apple, etc. And in Walter, Shead, Mogbo, Chomche, and Battle, Toronto has five real chances as contributors on a great team. It’s very unlikely none of them grow into plus players. Arguably, Walter is already ready for real minutes on a winning team. I imagine some of the others get there, too.

And the Ingram trade is likely good business. I’ll admit, my initial reaction to the trade was skepticism. Why would a rebuilding team want to add a winning player, especially one who operates in the same areas and plays the same position as the incumbent leader and star?

Then I drove deep, deep into the numbers and film, and I think Ingram will complement Barnes to a great extent. Yet more promising, I think he’ll help Quickley even more. And at the cost of an expiring player in Brown, Olynyk on a net-negative contract, and a late-first-round pick and future second-rounder, that’s a deal that’s almost impossible to reject.

Toronto of course re-signed Ingram, as well as Quickley, during the season, too. Both are exceptionally well paid, Quickley approximately $32 M next season and Ingram $38 M, but the moves keep Toronto below the first-apron line. Which means Toronto retains some flexibility, even if there isn’t any way to real cap space.

But Toronto has been operating without real cap space for a while. The team is not able to sign free agents, not upper-echelon ones, and so the Raptors have to operate at that competitive disadvantage. That’s another reason trading for Ingram before free agency, and re-signing him early, makes sense.

All in all, the season represented a return to form for Ujiri. Perhaps the Raptors didn’t turn the season into perfection — only a different bounce of the lottery balls could have done that — but in every other way he improved the roster. He made smart financial decisions, added extra talent, and gave Toronto more ways to add talent in the future.

That’s a return to form for a front office that in prior years had been heralded as one of the best in the league.

The post Raptors’ Masai Ujiri got his fastball back in 2024-25 first appeared on Raptors Republic.