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NBA insider believes Raptors' Bruce Brown will have busy trade market

Adam Laskaris
Adam Laskaris
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Nov 28 2024, 10:31 pm
NBA insider believes Raptors' Bruce Brown will have busy trade market
Nick Turchiaro/USA TODAY Sports

For at least one player on the Toronto Raptors, the possibility of finding a new home has to be lingering over his head.

But despite constant trade rumours, Toronto’s Bruce Brown remains part of the team.

Brown averaged 9.6 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.7 assists in 34 games for the Raptors last season, after coming over from Indiana as part of the Pascal Siakam deal. A key piece of the Denver Nuggets’ 2023 title-winning team, Brown was expected to be on the move again ahead of last season’s trade deadline, but the team exercised a contract option of his to remain this season.

Though he’s yet to play this season due to injury, Brown told reporters last week he’s hoping to stick with the Raptors despite the constant rumours.

“I don’t know if y’all noticed, but last year I didn’t look really engaged or [have much] energy I had with other teams because I was playing on one leg,” Brown said last Saturday. “I want that to be addressed: I know a lot of fans didn’t think I played with a lot of energy, and I didn’t want to be here — that’s on social media — but I do want to be here, I do want to play with these guys, it’s a great bunch of guys, great coaches, great organization, but I was literally playing on one leg. It was tough for me mentally, I couldn’t move the way I wanted, play defence the way I wanted, so it was tough.”

But that hasn’t stopped the trade rumours. Speaking to Sportsnet 590’s Blake Murphy and Matt Bonner earlier this week, NBA insider Jake Fischer discussed Brown’s possibility of hitting the trade market and included examples of at least one failed trade partner from a season ago.

However, Fischer stated that the new NBA CBA has been difficult for players in Brown’s contract range — he’s making $23 million this season — due to new rules around a second salary tax apron that limits certain teams’ trade options based on how much they are spending on their current roster’s salaries.

“The Milwaukee Bucks, for example, were absolutely calling about Bruce Brown last year, but now the Bucks can’t aggregate salaries to get to Bruce Brown’s number unless they’re sending out an anchor their defence, like Brook Lopez,” Fischer said.

While he didn’t directly link the Golden State Warriors to Toronto, Fischer also posited them as a team that could have interest in Brown.

“I’m not like, reporting that Golden State has called Toronto, but like, the Warriors loved  DeAnthony Melton for the exact type of things that Bruce Brown, when healthy does… Is he someone that now becomes on their radar because Melton’s hurt? Like, that’s a fit. Personally, I haven’t checked that on either side yet if that could come to fruition soon. But there will be options for [Brown’s trade market] as well, I guess what I’m trying to say.”

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