The Raptors have a pretty clear replacement plan in the frontcourt, but it comes with a catch: Allen Graves has to shoot like the player they’re hoping he is.
That matters because Sandro Mamukelashvili filled a very specific need last season. He wasn’t just another big body.
He stretched the floor. He hit 38.9% of his 3.7 3-point attempts per game while playing the four or the five, and that gave Toronto a different look up front than anyone else on the roster could provide.
Then he left in free agency for the Lakers, and the Raptors had to start looking for someone who could offer the same kind of spacing.
Kyle Anderson brings some shooting history of his own, but not the same volume or gravity Mamukelashvili did. Graves is the more obvious candidate to step into that role, at least from a shooting-profile standpoint.
In college, he made 41.3% of his 2.6 3-point attempts per game, and that’s the trait that makes him so interesting here. The summer league was a promising first look, but NBA defenders are a different test entirely - faster, stronger, and far more experienced.
If Graves carries that shot into the league, his path to minutes could open quickly. If not, he’ll still have other ways to help, but Toronto would be missing the exact frontcourt spacer Mamukelashvili gave them a year ago.
That kind of shooting becomes even more important when you zoom out to the rest of the roster. Two non-spacers in the frontcourt can get cramped in a hurry in today’s NBA, especially when the rest of the lineup doesn’t bring a ton of perimeter shooting either. Mamukelashvili solved that problem because he could fit beside different combinations and do something neither Scottie Barnes, Jakob Poeltl, nor Collin Murray-Boyles could do from deep.
Without Graves becoming a trustworthy 3-point threat, the Raptors would be leaning on Immanuel Quickley, Kawhi Leonard - or Brandon Ingram if the trade isn’t completed before the season starts - Ja’Kobe Walter, Jamison Battle, and, hopefully, Alijah Martin to provide the shooting around Barnes. That’s not exactly a deep well.
But if Graves does hit shots, the picture changes fast. He’d fit much more naturally next to Barnes, Murray-Boyles, or Poeltl, and he could even help make a Barnes-Murray-Boyles-Graves defensive look viable, which would otherwise be too awkward offensively.
Graves was regarded as a disruptive defender in college, and even with some questions about his athleticism, the Raptors are hoping that translates too. If it does, and the shot comes with it, he might end up being an even cleaner fit than Mamukelashvili.
In Other News...
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For Toronto, the larger backdrop is the still-pending trade completion tied to Leonard, a reminder that this saga remains tangled up in old roster business even as the league digs into what happened behind the scenes. The conversations now under way are centered on Ballmer and his lawyers, and the focus appears to be less about a smoking gun than about how the Clippers owner handled oversight, leaving the biggest question hanging over what the NBA ultimately decides to do with the findings. [Read more 🡒]
Collin Murray-Boyles Could Change The Raptors Bench Conversation Fast
Collin Murray-Boyles is heading into his second season with a chance to reshape the Raptors bench picture almost immediately. Expected to handle a significant sixth man role, he could wind up leading a young second unit and giving Toronto something it has lacked for a while: a reserve who actually changes the tone of a game. For a team trying to sort out its rotation and build some real identity behind the starters, that kind of presence would matter well beyond the box score.
The bigger question is how far his rise can go if the offense follows. Murray-Boyles would need real growth on that end, and the Raptors would need to win enough for anyone to start talking about him in league-wide award terms. Toronto has not had a serious Sixth Man of the Year presence in years, so if Murray-Boyles does make that jump, it would be more than a bench storyline. It would signal a much more interesting version of the Raptors' depth chart. [Read more 🡒]
Raptors Award Buzz Means One Thing About This Teams Next Step
The Raptors are already being sized up for the kind of award chatter that tends to follow a team on the rise, with 2026-27 projections putting Darko Rajakovic, Scottie Barnes and Cam Murray-Boyles in the mix for major individual honors. For Toronto, that kind of buzz says as much about the direction of the program as it does about any one player, because those races usually hinge on team success, role clarity and how much a young core keeps growing together.
Rajakovics profile is the clearest sign that voters are starting to notice the bigger picture, while Barnes remains the kind of defensive force who can enter the Defensive Player of the Year conversation if the Raptors keep stacking wins. Murray-Boyles adds another layer because his potential sixth-man case depends on Toronto leaning into a deeper rotation and continuing to trust his impact off the bench, which is exactly the sort of next step the franchise has been building toward. [Read more 🡒]