The Raptors’ long search for a new landing spot for Gradey Dick has finally ended, and Toronto managed to turn the whole situation into the best possible outcome it could have hoped for.
Dick can basically be viewed as a salary throw-in in the Kawhi Leonard mega deal, but that doesn’t make his inclusion meaningless. With no other young talent in the trade besides him and Brandon Ingram serving as the main headliner, there’s at least a sliver of upside in Dick getting a fresh start with the Los Angeles Clippers.
That makes this latest turn feel a little easier to swallow for Toronto after what happened with its 2023 draft pick.
The Raptors were coming off a rough play-in loss to the Chicago Bulls in 2023 and were clearly moving toward something new. Fred VanVleet was allowed to leave in free agency, Nick Nurse was out as head coach, Darko Rajakovic was in, and Toronto had the 13th pick in the NBA Draft to try to find a young piece for the next stage.
On draft night, the Raptors targeted Kansas sharpshooter Gradey Dick. The hope was simple enough: he could become the team’s long-range weapon down the road.
Dick had a solid rookie year, and his second season offered even more promise. At one point early in the 2024-25 campaign, it looked like he was on track to become a rising young star.
That momentum didn’t last. Dick’s 2025-26 season went south quickly, filled with struggles and lapses, and he was eventually overtaken by a more trusted young swingman in Ja'Kobe Walter.
At the same time Dick was sliding into bust territory, another player from that 2023 draft class the Raptors passed on was surging. Keyonte George was becoming an important young piece for the Utah Jazz.
This past year, George averaged 23.6 points, 6.1 assists, 3.7 rebounds, and 1.1 steals for Utah, building on an already encouraging sophomore season. Even with those numbers coming for a struggling Jazz team, the contrast was hard to miss. Toronto missed on Dick, passed on George, and the whole thing looked like a scouting miss.
So yes, in hindsight, it remains a wasted lottery pick. But not every selection works out, and Toronto clearly believed in Dick even if he never delivered. In the end, if you’re going to move on from an expendable young player, there’s a certain irony in using that draft miss to help bring back the team’s golden goose.
In Other News...
Raptors May Have Quietly Turned Brandon Ingram Into A Front Office Masterclass
Torontos front office has spent the last year showing how quickly a big swing can turn into a bigger one. After bringing in Brandon Ingram at the 2025 trade deadline and committing to him with a three-year, $120 million extension, the Raptors looked as if they had found a long-term scoring answer to stabilize the roster and keep the post-Pascal Siakam era moving. Instead, Ingrams time in Toronto lasted just one season before he was moved again, and the latest twist has made the original deal feel less like a standalone move and more like one step in a much larger plan.
The sequence running from Siakam to Bruce Brown Jr. to Ingram and then to Kawhi Leonard is the part that makes this all stand out. Torontos path to getting Leonard back required patience, asset management and a willingness to keep reshuffling the deck even after making a major investment in Ingram, who had become a focal point of the roster. In hindsight, the Raptors may have used that short chapter with Ingram to position themselves for the reunion they wanted all along. [Read more 🡒]
Raptors Just Got A Worrying New Twist In Mamukelashvili Free Agency
Sandro Mamukelashvilis time on the Toronto Raptors books took another turn this week when he declined his $2.8 million player option, setting up an early path to 2026 NBA free agency. The move had the feel of a player testing a bigger market, and it comes after Mamukelashvili spent part of last season with Toronto following his earlier run in San Antonio.
The wrinkle for the Raptors is that interest around him does not appear to be limited to one lane, with the Los Angeles Lakers among the teams mentioned as potential suitors. For Toronto, that creates a familiar kind of offseason tension: a recent addition with room to grow, a decision point on the horizon and a market that could make keeping him far more complicated than it looked just a few weeks ago. [Read more 🡒]