Toronto Raptors star Pascal Siakam could be set aside by Masai Ujiri to make way for Scottie Barnes’ breakout NBA season.
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00:00 Scottie Barnes' hot start to the NBA season has once again called into question the Raptors
00:04 roster construction and if it maximizes the strengths of the young star.
00:09 But if the Raptors are going to build the roster around Scottie Barnes, does that roster
00:13 include Pascal Siakam?
00:15 Let's get into it.
00:17 Pascal Siakam's slow start to the NBA season coupled with the amazing hot start by Scottie
00:22 Barnes has called into question the future of the Raptors and if it does include Pascal
00:27 Siakam.
00:28 What is the best way to maximize the value of the player for this team and for this organization
00:34 going forward?
00:35 There's three different possible outcomes for Pascal Siakam by the end of the season.
00:39 We're going to discuss them a little bit later on in this video, but we also need to start
00:43 off with what have been the source of Pascal Siakam's struggles so far this season?
00:47 Has it been Siakam not playing well?
00:49 Has it been a newfound role by Darko Rijakovic where he's not really getting the most out
00:54 of the all NBA talent that he has at his disposal?
00:57 Well it's a little bit of both, but I think it mostly leans on the change in role here
01:00 for Siakam.
01:01 Darko has Siakam playing a completely different role to what he was doing last season.
01:05 Last year with Nick Nurse with a very isolation centric offense, Siakam was one of the most
01:09 drive heavy players in the NBA and found a lot of success doing so and the Raptors offense
01:13 as a whole found decent success with him doing that.
01:16 It felt like a lot of the time Siakam had to bail us out on the offensive end, especially
01:20 in the half court and this season we've gone with a completely different approach for Siakam
01:25 from an offensive standpoint.
01:26 He's finding himself on the weak side of the offense way, way more often than you would
01:31 see last season.
01:32 He's often having to be the floor spacer for this team.
01:35 There's such a lack of floor space that they're having Siakam do it in a lot of senses and
01:38 he's spacing the floor for the likes of Scottie Barnes, which you know, that's great.
01:42 Space the floor for Scottie Barnes.
01:43 He's playing amazingly, but also a lot of the times he's having to space the floor for
01:47 players like Dennis Schroeder as well and Dennis Schroeder has been great this season.
01:50 You see the scoring numbers have been good.
01:52 The assist numbers have been outstanding.
01:53 So you want to see a lot of the ball in Dennis Schroeder's hands, but you shouldn't really
01:56 have this team playing at the expense of the all NBA caliber player you have here.
02:01 It's a two-time all NBA player, most recently two seasons ago, and it's a two-time all-star,
02:05 most recently last season.
02:07 Clearly a very capable player here having to be used as this weak side floor spacer
02:12 or having to make a fake cut to the rim to take away a help defender that's on the guy
02:16 with the ball in his hands, which was normally Scottie Barnes or Dennis Schroeder as I mentioned.
02:21 So in the half court, his role has completely changed.
02:24 He's taking on way more threes than we've normally seen.
02:26 It almost feels as though half the time Siakam takes a shot in the half court, it's a three-pointer
02:32 and like 80% of the time he takes a shot in the half court, it's a jump shot in general.
02:36 The lack of floor space on this team has made it incredibly difficult for Siakam to find
02:40 any space on the inside, which makes him settle for a lot more jump shots.
02:44 Siakam is obviously at his most efficient when he's at the rim carving his way to the
02:47 rim, but when he's constantly getting double teamed because of the lack of floor spacing
02:51 on this team, that help defender.
02:54 He just has a much shorter role to the rim to help against Pascal Siakam because he doesn't
03:00 have to worry as much about the guy on the outside hitting that three-point shot.
03:03 So once again, floor spacing has hampered a little bit of the team, but it's also hampering
03:07 Pascal Siakam by a wide degree.
03:10 But you might be saying, "Well, if Siakam's struggling with the floor spacing, why isn't
03:13 Scottie Barnes struggling with the floor spacing?"
03:15 Well, Scottie Barnes right now is hitting 66% of his jumpers in this amazing start to
03:19 the season.
03:20 That's not really a sustainable brand of offense for Scottie Barnes.
03:23 Look, I think that efficiency-wise, he can still have an efficient season from jump shots
03:28 and that could be like mid to high 40s.
03:30 It's certainly not going to be 66% for the rest of the season as much as we want to hope
03:34 that is the case.
03:35 So the difference right now for the players is that Scottie Barnes is getting the ball
03:38 a lot more.
03:40 Siakam is providing a little bit of space to Scottie Barnes and the difference right
03:44 now is Scottie Barnes is hitting those jump shots, Pascal Siakam is not hitting those
03:48 jump shots.
03:49 But it's very clear the direction that Darko is taking this team at the moment so far this
03:53 season after seven games is that Scottie Barnes is the more primary focus for this team on
03:57 the offensive end.
03:58 So if that is going to be the case, you want to make this team about Scottie Barnes, you
04:04 might have to look to trading Pascal Siakam or discussing what the other options are for
04:08 the rest of the season.
04:09 So three different things, as I said, that you can do with Pascal Siakam.
04:12 The first one being, as I mentioned, trading him.
04:15 In the online discourse, this is the popular choice for Pascal Siakam.
04:17 I see so many people calling for Pascal Siakam to be traded.
04:21 Scottie Barnes and Pascal Siakam can't coexist in the same team.
04:23 I would say that's not necessarily true, but the way Darko is playing them right now, he
04:27 clearly may not think that they can coexist.
04:29 He wants Scottie Barnes to thrive a little bit more.
04:32 If that's the case, again, let's maximize Scottie Barnes.
04:35 Let's trade Siakam for some bench players.
04:36 Let's trade Siakam for a better bench.
04:38 Let's trade Siakam for some shooters.
04:40 All this makes sense, but who's going to cough up the assets right now for Siakam?
04:44 That's the biggest problem associated with trading him.
04:46 So you can say they need to trade him.
04:47 They should trade him all you want.
04:49 What are they going to trade him for?
04:50 That's the question, because you can't just take an awful return for Siakam for the sake
04:55 of giving Scottie Barnes even further room to grow, even further room to succeed.
05:00 That's not really the way forward for this team.
05:03 For a lot of it, you shouldn't just take a bad deal for the sake of that.
05:06 So what are your options actually going to be for Siakam?
05:09 I seriously wonder.
05:10 This player, after all, is on an expiring contract.
05:12 His statistics right now aren't flattering.
05:15 So even though I think they will improve and Darka will find a way to get him a little
05:18 bit more involved, he should at least, it might be difficult to find a trade partner
05:21 willing to cough up some really good assets for this team.
05:24 And in its current state, the way the team is, like, how good is this team going to be?
05:28 Do you really want to make a winning sort of trade with this one?
05:30 Or are you maybe looking to recoup some draft assets in this scenario?
05:34 How many teams are you willing to give up some draft assets for Pascal Siakam at this
05:37 present point?
05:38 How many can afford that contract of Pascal Siakam while giving away those draft assets?
05:43 All of these conversations make this trade complicated and likely give you a not so great
05:48 return for the player.
05:49 So you may have to go to your second option and go into the offseason and look to re-sign
05:53 Pascal Siakam.
05:54 There's been no conversation between Masai and Siakam as far as an extension goes.
05:58 But the reality is Siakam makes more money even if he stays with the Raptors as a free
06:03 agent than he would do if he signs an extension.
06:05 So we're beyond that extension point.
06:08 Siakam looks like he's going to be becoming a free agent.
06:10 So look to re-sign him to the team.
06:12 Siakam as of right now is a max contract caliber player.
06:16 Like even if he has a poor season in general, there's a lot to go by from his previous years
06:21 to suggest that he still will be a max contract player.
06:23 And hey, if you have pushback on that, you think Siakam is not a max contract caliber
06:27 player.
06:28 Sure.
06:29 But that's going to be his market value.
06:31 You may think, well, let him walk at that point.
06:33 But that's also not a really good situation to be in.
06:36 The max contract going his way gives you more time.
06:39 It buys you time.
06:40 I'm not saying it gives you the malicious intent to sign him just to trade him, but
06:43 it gives you more time, gives you more flexibility to decide what you want to do with the player,
06:48 how things are looking maybe next season, how things are looking for the rest of the
06:51 season.
06:52 Because after all, we still have 75 more games to go this season to see how things change
06:55 for the player, how things change for the team dynamic, and how Darkovic maybe tinkers
06:59 the lineups, tinkers the offense going forward.
07:02 Because if he starts to maximize the transition game a little bit more, that will definitely
07:05 cater to Pascal Siakam a lot more and improve his statistics.
07:09 So it gives you more time to make a decision.
07:11 Do you want to trade him?
07:12 Do you want to keep him?
07:13 But at the end of the day, if you do want to trade him, it probably increases his value
07:18 because you have more contract security associated with that trade.
07:22 I think that makes more sense for this team to do as well.
07:24 But obviously associated with trying to resign the player comes the third thing that could
07:28 happen.
07:29 That be Siakam walks away from the team for free.
07:31 Maybe the rest of the season he still doesn't like his role.
07:34 Maybe he's still being used as a floor spacer, still being used as a catch and shoot threat
07:37 from the outside, although not significantly threatening so far this season.
07:41 Look, we're asking Siakam to do a job that he's not really suited towards doing.
07:45 It's not really fair to make him do that, but the way the roster is constructed, Darko
07:50 is trying to make sacrifice in certain areas.
07:52 It feels like Siakam is sacrificing most out of all the players on this team.
07:56 Siakam may not enjoy that sacrifice and all of a sudden we're looking at Siakam joining
07:59 a completely new team in free agency.
08:01 That would obviously be the worst case scenario, but what would be the best case scenario?
08:05 Out of all three of these situations, Siakam walks for free, Siakam resigns with the team
08:09 or Siakam gets traded for something that's likely not a great return.
08:13 It feels as though none of those situations are winning situations.
08:17 It feels like all those are losing situations.
08:18 It feels like all those are bad situations for this team.
08:21 But the front office has allowed this asset management to get to this point where we're
08:25 in such a dire situation here where you had opportunities previously like, hey, if you
08:29 wanted to commit to Scottie Barnes, why weren't you moving Siakam off of an all-star season,
08:34 off of an all-NBA season?
08:35 Those conversations need to be had as well.
08:38 Like if your plan this season was to use Pascal Siakam as a weak side floor space in a lot
08:43 of ways, well, you probably should trade him in the off season when you knew that was going
08:47 to be the case and done more to maximize the roster than around Scottie Barnes.
08:52 So we're in this situation where there's three likely losing situations.
08:54 So what's the least losing, the most winning?
08:58 What's the least damaging out of all three of these scenarios?
09:01 I will remain on the boat right now.
09:04 Things could change with the deadline.
09:05 That trying to extend him, trying to resign him is the best way forward to buy you time.
09:10 I don't think that maximizing Scottie Barnes should come at the expense of taking a bad
09:15 trade for Siakam.
09:16 That's poor asset management.
09:18 I understand the risk associated with Siakam walking away from the team for free.
09:22 That would be a disaster situation.
09:24 But certainly the front office has to start feeling this thing out.
09:27 Feeling out what Siakam is looking for in the off season.
09:31 Feeling out if he does have a desire to go to a different team.
09:33 I don't know what's going on in the workings behind the scenes, but if you can get some
09:37 sort of a notion that he would like to remain with the team, I think extension/resigning
09:43 is the proper way forward.
09:44 I just don't see a viable trade candidate out there that's going to give us a, like,
09:49 we're going to get a losing return no matter what at this point, but how bad the losing
09:52 return is that going to be?
09:54 That is what really scares me.
09:55 So obviously everything is situational.
09:56 If you get a good trade, hey, all for it.
09:59 If you're not getting a good trade, well, I think that resigning is the best way forward
10:03 for this team.
10:04 But regardless, the front office is posing a spot where again, there is no winning situation
10:09 here.
10:10 How have we gotten to this point?
10:11 Once again, with a key possible for aiding with this team.
10:14 It's not just Siakam we have to worry about either.
10:16 It's OG and Inobu on expiring contract as well as Gary Trent Jr.
10:19 But in the case of Pascal Siakam, what do you think is the best way forward for this