Raptors Rumors: Toronto Saving Big Bite For Next Summer

The Toronto Raptors remain a tough team to beat and the immediate goal is to obviously gun for back-to-back NBA titles. Despite the departure of Kawhi Leonard, there are still big names such as Marc Gasol, Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka. While that could hold for the 2019-20 season, team president Masai Ujiri needs to look beyond that.

Gasol, Ibaka, and Lowry are three players who are in the final year of their deals with the Raptors. They account for about $84 million of the team's salary budget. Probably aware of this scenario, some teams feel that the 2018-19 NBA champions want to make sure they don't end up empty-handed. Unfortunately, the Raptors are not biting, Sean Devney of Heavy.com reported citing sources.

“Masai was always going to rebuild things around Siakam and OG (Anunoby) and the other young guys eventually. He’s going to have a ton of cap space. But he’s got to be able to get free agents to go there and it’s still a tough sell, getting guys to go to Canada. So they’ve got the ring, if they can get to the playoffs again, he has something more to sell when that cap space comes available,” he wrote.

Keeping some or all three next season remains unknown. Of the three, the Raptors are likely to stick with Lowry and Gasol at best. A reason for this is that there are potentially no big names they may be able to snag.

Anthony Davis will be a free agent in 2020 but likely re-signing with the Los Angeles Lakers. Draymond Green already inked an extension, leaving names like Gordon Hayward, DeMar Derozan and Otto Porter as the only guys to watch out for.

The Raptors may not feel it now but stand to lose all three stars if they are not careful. If Toronto does plan to rebuild around Siakam and Anunoby, finding young blood to reinforce them will be tricky. Aside from Gasol, Ibaka and Lowry, also in his last year is Fred VanVleet. In the end, Ujiri will have to do the numbers crunch to figure out who stays and who goes, Yahoo Sports Canada reported. For now, the focus is to repeat as NBA champions, a task that will not come easy.