I tried and failed to argue for the Raptors to trade for LaMelo Ball

I sat down to write a column about why the Toronto Raptors should trade for LaMelo Ball. I tried very hard to not write the column, fearing looking like an idiot. So I tried to delegate the responsibility to another Raptors Republic writer. No one was fool enough. (At least in written form.) So I had to take up the mantle myself.

And I couldn’t do it. I tried, and I came close to convincing myself. But I couldn’t do it. These are (my) stories. 

If the Raptors were going to trade for Ball, the logical deal would be to send out a point guard in Immanuel Quickley. To make the money work, RJ Barrett could be added. And then in return, the Charlotte Hornets could add Collin Sexton to the deal. (More on him later.) But that’s the best realistic deal I could come up with for Toronto. (Not that it matters for this piece, but given Ball’s injury history, I don’t think any picks would be involved.)

It is the job of the best front-office professionals to identify the best talent and acquire it when it is undervalued. Exhibit A: Kawhi Leonard, and a championship. And Ball is certainly talented, and he is indubitably undervalued at the moment. He is considered unserious, a carnival act, a Globetrotter. And that may well be true! I’m not contending that playing for a serious team (which the Raptors are at the moment, for the first time in years!) will automatically make Ball a serious player. It’s theoretically possible, but I have no way of knowing, and it would be silly to count on that.

The initial contention was that even this unserious Ball would still be exactly what Toronto needs. If he changes his ways, all the better. But this would be good enough. 

First, let’s start with what the Raptors need. What are the team’s weaknesses, relative to the best in the league? 

It turns out, not a whole lot! (And this, by the way, would be the single best argument against a Ball trade, and one that I couldn’t ultimately refute. We’ll get back to this point, but briefly: Everything is going right for the Raptors. So why change things right now? I can’t defeat that point. I would only humbly add, in the purpose of forwarding the structure of this piece, that this version of Toronto is not a championship contender, and one with Ball might be.)

Okay, back to the exercise. Toronto’s weakest point right now is rebounding. If you win the possession game and you win the efficiency game, you win the basketball game. The Raptors have been losing the possession game, and Ball would help turn that particular battle in their favour. And Ball is one of the best rebounding point guards in the league. He’s huge and long, so he can sky the trees, but he also tracks the ball so well that he can end up with balls that bounce funny or long. Meaning he accesses more possible rebounds than other players. As a result, he’s fourth in defensive rebounding rate among guards, and he’s eighth in defensive rebounding on/off differential among point guards. This is to say he’s not just grabbing rebounds, but he’s actually grabbing rebounds that his team wouldn’t without him. To that point: his adjusted rebound chance percentage (a long way of saying what percentage of rebounds he grabs when given the opportunity) is second among all guards, and he’s behind only Anthony Edwards. Scottie Barnes is listed as a guard! Ball is ahead of him so far this season!

Toronto lacks rebounding, especially from the guard spot. For a team that wants to throw hit-ahead passes, and to attack in transition after rebounds, having a guard rebound the ball is extra valuable. 

And this, to me, was the high-water mark of the argument in favour of trading for Ball. Ball may be an unserious basketball player, but these are winning and helpful contributions nonetheless. I’m not starting with the shooting or the passing or the jersey sales. Rebounding wins basketball games, and Ball is an extraordinary rebounder. 

In many ways, the exercise rolled downhill from here. If we’re talking professional, winning basketball, the next obvious talking point is defence. Here is where it all starts to unthread.

I actually don’t mind Ball’s defence. But his strengths are, in many ways, similar to the strengths of Quickley. He has active hands. (Both are averaging 1.4 steals per game on the season.) He’s long and, as said, rebounds very well. But he can fall asleep off the ball. He’s not consistent when guarding the ball. He can make coverage mistakes. And Ball has never, in his career, been a member of an above-average defensive team. Quickley, for his limitations, has been on an above-average defensive team in more seasons of his career than not. I know Quickley can fit into a solid defensive rotation. We’re seeing it right now in Toronto. I do not know that about Ball. 

Offensively, Ball does much that Toronto needs. He is an extraordinary creator, one of the best passers in the league, creating insanely high-value shots for his teammates. Layups. Open triples. Real passes. It’s not just fancy for the sake of being fancy. He’s second in the league in assist percentage this year. He creates for teammates off the dribble in a way that no Raptor currently can. 

And yet, Ball is an inefficient scorer. His career high in true shooting (56.1 percent), which came in 2023-24, has been worse than Quickley’s true shooting percentage in every season since his sophomore year. He is shooting 40.3 percent on drives and neither gets to the rim nor finishes when he is there. Meanwhile, Quickley and Barrett are both shooting over 50 percent on drives. Losing that — on a team that already lacks punch on its driving — would be potentially catastrophic. (That’s why I included Sexton in this theoretical deal. He is at least a high-volume, moderate-efficiency driver. He and Ball have won their minutes together for Charlotte by a solid margin while neither has won their minutes without the other.) 

The Raptors could survive the tradeoff in efficiency from Quickley to Ball. Ball creates such efficient looks for his teammates that his inefficiency doesn’t really matter. He is one player. He helps the other four so much that efficiency is actually in his favour. His offensive on/offs are legitimately hilarious when you look at them, at or around the 90th percentile virtually every season of his career. Despite him being a low-efficiency, high-turnover player, Charlotte makes a far higher percentage of its shots and turns the ball over far less when Ball is playing than when he is sitting. Add that to his rebounding, and he would help Toronto win both the possession battle and the efficiency war.

But the drives. For a team already starved on drives, losing Quickley and Barrett could be a death blow to what has been a remarkably buoyant offence. 

Not to mention the intangibles and team chemistry. The Raptors have a real summer camp vibe, with everyone loving everyone, and the team enjoying its time together. It’s impossible to say how much that matters, but I would argue it does. And there’s a risk that taking away two players who contribute massively to that environment, while adding a star who is arguably the most viral player in the NBA, especially when you consider the TikTok generation, could blow up some of what makes Toronto better than the sum of its parts. There is risk to this trade, both on and off the court. 

And that is if Ball even plays. This is the real pitfall. Ball hasn’t played in 50 games in a season since 2021-22. The only season of Quickley’s career in which he’s missed that mark was last year. Ball has already missed time this year. Quickley has not. To help a team on the court, you have to be on the court. 

Another question: If it all worked, how much better would the Raptors be? 

Let’s start with the ifs. If Ball is healthy, he is a star. Single-number metrics value him as one of the best players in the league this year. On a team led by wings, a star guard who creates easy shots for teammates is valuable. Maybe he’d even make layups when surrounded by good teammates. If he buys in and is serious, he would be a boost on the defensive end, too, especially due to his rebounding. If his shooting talent finally clicks, he could simulate much of what Quickley offers while providing far, far more on the offensive end in more varied ways. 

That’s a mountain of ifs. Let’s say they all hit. The Raptors would be … probably one of the best teams in the league. I doubt they’re competing with the Denver Nuggets or Oklahoma City Thunder, but competing for the first seed in the East wouldn’t be out of the question. Three stars — and Ball, Barnes, and Brandon Ingram are a legitimate Big Three — is nothing to scoff at, especially on a team with solid role players surrounding them. My guess is that Toronto wouldn’t be a championship team, but it would be right in the tier below that. 

But the risks of trading for Ball are, perhaps, far realer than the possible benefits. What if the ifs don’t hit? Even if Ball is better than Quickley, the potential pitfalls in trading for Ball — even knowing he’ll be on the court — are real. He requires more touches than Quickley, which could impact Barnes and Ingram. He’s probably a lesser defensive player. He is a less efficient scorer. He is a lesser off-ball player. Add in the fact that it’s unknown if he’ll even be on the court, and I simply can’t in good faith argue the Raptors trade for Ball. 

Ultimately, things are perfect for the Raptors right now. For the first time in years, Toronto is winning basketball games. I tried. I failed. Keep the band together. 

The post I tried and failed to argue for the Raptors to trade for LaMelo Ball first appeared on Raptors Republic.