Raptors set to sign Immanuel Quickley to mega-extension

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The Toronto Raptors unofficially locked up another key piece of the team’s core, point guard Immanuel Quickley, on Friday.

Quickley will sign a five-year deal with Toronto worth up to $175 million US, the Athletic’s Shams Charania first reported. The deal, which averages $35 million a season, likely will be officially completed after the Raptors take care of other business for salary cap reasons.

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Toronto previously agreed to a max contract extension with franchise player Scottie Barnes worth at least $225 million over five years, with incentives that could take it to as much as $270 million.

Quickley was acquired from the New York Knicks, along with RJ Barrett, who has three years and about $84 million remaining on his current deal.

Those three, with Gradey Dick and rookie Ja’Kobe Walter, give Toronto the makings of a young core in place.

Centre Jakob Poeltl has two years left on his deal, with a player option on a third year, but it’s unclear if he has a long-term future with the club since he turns 29 in October and this will be a multi-year rebuild/retool.

Quickley broke out in a starting role, averaging 18.6 points, 6.5 assists and 4.8 rebounds per game, shooting 39.5% on three-point attempts. He turned 25 earlier this month and still has untapped upside, but Toronto is betting on continued improvement with the deal, which is above market value (roughly $27 million a year) for starting NBA point guards.

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Keep in mind, though, that the salary cap is expected to rise significantly as a new broadcast rights deal kicks in, so both sides clearly factored that in with the deal.

Quickley previously had been used as an instant-offence scorer in New York and finished second in Sixth Man of the Year voting two seasons ago. But with Jalen Brunson established as an all-star starting point guard, New York and Quickley’s camp were unable to find a pathway to a new contract, which precipitated his deal to Toronto.

OG Anunoby, who went to New York along with Precious Achiuwa in the deal, just agreed to a deal with the Knicks worth up to $212.5 million over five years.

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Quickley made the ninth most pull-up three-pointers per game in the NBA after the all-star break, despite Barnes being injured for many of those contests, and shot 41.3% on those attempts, third among all high-volume shooters (at least 1.5 pull-up three-point attempts per game).

He also had an 18-assist game, two off Fred VanVleet’s franchise record.

In addition to Quickley, Barrett, Barnes, Dick, Poeltl, Kelly Olynyk, Chris Boucher and Ochai Agbaji, Toronto has newcomers Davion Mitchell and Sasha Vezenkov signed for 2024-25, with the trade to bring in the two from the Sacramento Kings becoming finalized on Friday. You can expect Walter to join that group, too, bringing the roster to 11 players.

Toronto added a 12th later Friday, when Bruce Brown’s $23=million option was picked up by the team. That leaves Gary Trent Jr., set to become an unrestricted free agent, as the main question mark.

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General manager Bobby Webster said Thursday that no decision had yet been made on Trent.

“Similar to Bruce, I think we want to get through (the draft),” Webster said, before alluding to the big new deals for Barnes and Quickley. “We’ll get to work on that. Absolutely thought about it, because, you know, the amount of money we have flexibility, all that but that’s the big task at hand for those two guys (Brown and Trent),”

“You want to be strategic about what’s tradeable, what’s not tradeable. We have some big contracts coming up in the future, so it’ll just have to be something that makes sense for everyone.”

The No. 31 selection, Jonathan Mogbo, likely will be signed to a standard NBA contract (perhaps the new second-round exception) or a two-way. The same can be said for No. 45 pick Jamal Shead, while No. 57 Ulrich Comche is a long-term project that probably gets a two-way deal.

Javon Freeman-Liberty and D.J. Carton from last year’s team still have fans in the organization and it’s possible that free agents Jordan Nwora and Garrett Temple could return too, depending on how things play out after the Brown, Trent and other free-agent scenarios, as well as trade talks, play out

Toronto will have some version of the mid-level exception available to use in free agency, plus it still has part of the trade exception created in the Pascal Siakam deal with the Indiana Pacers.

A team can have 15 players on the roster, plus three more on two-way contracts.

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