Brandon Ingram’s time in Toronto ended up being more than a short stop. It became the move that helped set up the Raptors’ dream reunion with Kawhi Leonard.
The deal had been bubbling for days, and once it became official, Ingram was the headline piece going out alongside Gradey Dick. That closes the book on the brief Notorious B.I.3 era in Toronto, but it also leaves the Raptors with a strange and pretty fascinating trail of moves to look back on.
Toronto brought Ingram in at the 2025 trade deadline in a deal that sent Bruce Brown Jr., Kelly Olynyk, a 2026 first-round pick, and a 2031 second-round pick the other way. Not long after, the Raptors committed even further, handing him a three-year, $120 million extension to keep him in place for the foreseeable future.
At the time, it looked like the franchise was trying to build something real around Ingram and Scottie Barnes. Instead, Toronto jumped at the chance to reunite with Leonard and used Ingram’s salary - one that had already drawn backlash after his weak playoff showing - as part of the path to getting it done.
There’s also a neat little chain reaction inside all of this. Toronto effectively turned Pascal Siakam into Brandon Ingram into Kawhi Leonard. Bruce Brown was the salary piece in the Siakam deal, then became part of the package that brought in BI, and Ingram ultimately became the centerpiece going out in the Leonard move.
That’s a lot of dominoes falling the right way for one front office.
And when you step back, it’s hard not to see the Raptors as the clear winners of the Ingram gamble. They landed a player who was the first star, or at least fringe star, to openly want Toronto.
He gave them real offensive production, led the team in scoring, and got back to All-Star status. Then, after just one season, he was flipped for a more proven star with a higher ceiling.
However the postseason looked, Ingram did his part. Toronto got a productive offensive engine and, with him in the mix, finished 46-36 in the regular season. For a one-season run, that’s a pretty meaningful return.
In Other News...
Raptors Just Found A Painful Silver Lining In Their Draft Miss
Gradey Dick arrived in Toronto with the kind of shot-making upside that can make a draft night look smart in a hurry, and for a while there was reason to believe the Raptors had landed a useful part of their next core. But the longer view has been less flattering. His development stalled badly enough in the 2025-26 season that his role shrank, turning what once felt like a promising pick into a case study in how quickly a young players path can wobble.
Torontos bigger frustration is not just what happened with Dick, but what it missed while betting on him. Keyonte George, another 2023 draftee, has taken a far more meaningful leap and become a centerpiece type of player for Utah, which is the sort of comparison that lingers around a front office. Even after Dick moved on in the Kawhi Leonard deal, the Raptors are left weighing whether the real pain of the miss is the lost production, or the fact that a player they passed on is now the one looking like a long-term answer. [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 🡒]