Two bad Raptors trades get worse with Koloko leaving Toronto

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Perhaps it is fitting that centre prospect Christian Koloko has opted not to return to the Toronto Raptors.

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The promising 7-foot-1 Cameroonian was sidelined for the entire 2023-24 season due to a blood clotting issue and had been working since on getting healthy and satisfying the NBA’s return to fitness requirements.

But instead of rejoining the franchise that drafted him 33rd overall in the 2022 NBA draft and played him in 58 games as a rookie, Koloko is signing with the Los Angeles Lakers, The Athletic first reported on Saturday.

The move ironically bookends perhaps the worst two trades of the Masai Ujiri/Bobby Webster era. The team ended up selling extremely low on two-time All-NBA forward Pascal Siakam last season, failing to get any high quality assets for one of the best players in franchise history after waiting too long to deal him. Toronto allowed the NBA’s new constricted financial landscape to drive down Siakam’s value, since there simply weren’t enough suitors willing to give Siakam a max contract down the line. To make matters worse, in order to complete that trade with the Indiana Pacers, the Raptors had to waive Koloko, who they had kept on the payroll all year despite Koloko not being allowed to play or practice with the club until the NBA’s Fitness-to-Play Panel cleared him. Ujiri had said at the time “that’s a very tough one for us because (he was) somebody we really believed in, somebody that I know has incredible talent, and we saw as a future on this team.”

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Toronto’s front office had remained high on the mobile big man and had said in April they were still “keeping tabs” on Koloko. Koloko’s agent had told Sports Illustrated this summer that the Raptors remained an option once Koloko was cleared to rejoin the NBA and reports had the team as a potential landing spot, with the Lakers winning out. The team had appeared to get lucky in landing Koloko after a small, but unsuccessful trade with San Antonio. Veteran Thad Young went north, along with a second round pick for a Top-14 protected first round selection and Goran Dragic’s contract. Instead of drafting 20th that year, the trade meant the Raptors had to wait until 33. While Koloko ended up being a strong choice (it can be argued only two other players taken in that year’s second round are better prospects than Koloko) before his medical issues arose, the team missed out on a number of quality players, some of them starters, like Andrew Nembhard, Walker Kessler, Christian Braun, Malaki Branham (who San Antonio selected), and Peyton Watson, by moving down.

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Young had some moments as a Raptor, contributing in brief stretches, including an outstanding performance in Game 4 of the playoff series in 2022 against Philadelphia, but didn’t provide the overall boost the Raptors had been hoping for when he was acquired. The team had then been desperate for help up front and would have been better off re-acquiring Jakob Poeltl from the Spurs then instead of a year later, even if the ask from the Spurs for Poeltl was higher at the time. Even a move for Derrick White, who cost Boston only a bit more than Young went for at the same time and ended up becoming a key piece of a title team, would have made a lot more sense.

Some of this is Monday morning quarterbacking as no front office gets everything right, but the Young deal was a reach and indicative of a flawed belief in what the Raptors had on the roster and were capable of, as was waiting to move out Siakam, in part to see if the existing core, minus free agent departee Fred VanVleet, had more to show.

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Maybe Koloko will explain his choice to go elsewhere (he attended high school at Sierra Canyon in L.A. a year before new teammate Bronny James so is familiar with the area and wrote Saturday “God’s timing is always the best” while retweeting news of his signing) and maybe this corner is overrating his potential, but this appears to be a miss for Toronto. But a fitting conclusion to a pair of unfortunate trade decisions. Toronto’s last chances to salvage more from those whiffs will come in the form of the first round pick Indiana still owes in 2026 (Top-4 protected) and from whatever Bruce Brown returns via trade this season.

@WolstatSun

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