Toronto Raptors: Grading each trade and keeping Kyle Lowry

The Toronto Raptors made three trades on NBA Trade Deadline Day and none of them involved Kyle Lowry.

There were many anxious moments throughout the day as many were monitoring the reports from Adrian Wojnarowski and Shams Charania. In the end, the Los Angeles Lakers, Philadelphia and Miami Heat weren’t willing to offer what the Masai Ujiri was looking for.

Instead, the team decided to move Norman Powell to the Portland Trail Blazers, followed by Matt Thomas to Utah Jazz then concluding the day trading Terence Davis to the Sacramento Kings. It was some tidy for Ujiri considering all the pressure on the front office to figure out Lowry’s situation.

There is no doubting that Lowry was highly sought after considering his experience and ability. At the same time, teams were definitely not willing to pay the high price and there’s no reason why Ujiri should have settled for less.

Sure it would have been nice to capitalize on Lowry’s trade value being at an all-time high, but Michael Grange of Sportsnet argues that by keeping him Toronto could be in a better position to capitalize. If Lowry ultimately decides he would like to move on to another team this off-season, the Raptors could do a sign-and-trade that could still land the team assets in return.

The fact that this was handled in a way that allowed Lowry to be a part of the process while also not holding the team back in a potential deal shows why it wasn’t that easy to pull the trigger on a deal. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the trades the team made impact the rest of the season and if we had to give a grade for the move, we’ll give it a B.  

Let’s take a look at the three trades that did happen and try to provide an early grade.