The Toronto Raptors are shopping Andrea Bargnani around right now. Hard. Like they did last summer. They’d pretty much take a pump to inflate basketballs in return, so long as it doesn’t have a worse contract (hello Carlos Boozer). But the results are pretty much the same — everyone has seen Bargnani play, they know he can shoot threes (usually) but not much else, and nobody really wants to take on the two years and $22.2 million he is owed after this season.
Which means while the Raptors will keep trying heading into Thursday’s NBA trade deadline to find a new home for Bargnani but that likely will wait until next summer, reports Doug Smith at the Toronto Sun.
Sorry Raptors fans.
This may be a quieter than normal trade deadline because teams are leery to take on salary with the increased luxury tax penalties kicking in next summer. And with all the money Bargnani is owed — and the limited production teams would get for that — nobody is all that interested.
I think this summer we will see bigger moves — Bargnani, maybe Pau Gasol, there will be other bigger names — but right now it feels like none of that will get done in the short term. Which means Bargnani will stay put. For now.
