Turkoglu coming to Toronto would cripple the Franchise for YEARS

So the NBA playoffs are FINALLY over and Kobe Bryant and his band of Lakers are champions…sigh what a world we live in. Several second and third tier stars established themselves have set a niche for their market this off-season (Martin Gorat, Trevor Ariza) and the apple of everyone’s eye Hedo Turkoglu.

I'm hear to proclaim the truth the Toronto Raptors DO NOT need to sign Hedo in the off-season. Turkoglu is a nice player, in fact I am one of the parties that believe that he should sign back with the Orlando Magic. He’s also one of the unfortunate parties that have to fight for scraps this off-season.  

So why wouldn’t he work in Toronto? Very simple. What does he bring that Bargnani doesn’t bring? Oh your comment is that they play different positions? Okay, lets look at if from another angle.

Here is Toronto’s Current Starting Five

C- Bargnani

PF- Bosh

SF – Unknown

SG- Unknown

PG – Calerdon

The reason that the SF, and SG positions are ‘unknowns’ is because there are free agents at those positions that normally would be in our starting lineup. Plus if we did that it would take most of the fun out of this.

So let’s assume the cap will be at $58 Million as some speculate it will be. The Raptors also decide not to re-sign Marion, rescind their rights to Joey Graham & Anthony Parker, and Carlos Delfino decides that he doesn’t want to come back until next year (you never know).

This will give the Raptors approximately 9.2 Million to spend on a free agent(s). So let’s add Turkoglu to the Raptors for lets say four years/40 Million with escalating salaries starting at nine Million (the likely lowest he’ll go). Here’s the Raptors starting lineup afterward

C-Bargnani

PF- Bosh

SF- Turkoglu

SG- Unknown

PG- Calderon

Clear problem: there is no one to play SG, and only 200k is left. It also doesn’t help that a Rookie free-agent starts at 457,588 and only goes up as the player has more experience. Maybe your thinking 'there is an answer on the current roster'. Sure let’s look at that.

Currently Quincy Douby is the only player on the roster whose natural position is SG, so a logical course of action is to attempt to play Turkoglu at SG, slide Bargnani over to SF (definitely not his best position) and take one of the bench players (Patrick O'Bryant) and play him at Center. So now the starting five looks like this:

C- Patrick O'Bryant

PF-Bosh

SF-Bargnani

SG-Turkoglu

PG- Calerdon

So it’s pretty clear that this couldn’t work. Why? Whose coming off the bench?  Nathan Jawai, Kris Humphries, Roko Ukic, Marcus Banks, and Douby? That group doesn't exactly show up when you look at the term ‘strong bench’ in the NBA dictionary.

So maybe you’re sitting there saying ‘we could trade someone and get some payroll flexibility?’ Okay so who do you trade assuming that you’ve already gone ahead and signed Turkoglu. Calderon? Bosh? Bargnani? It is very apparent that Colangelo would prefer to build around those three players, than trade one of them away.

Sadly it would appear that the Raptors maybe stuck with some combination of Marion, Delfino, Graham, or Parker in order to have the requisite depth and veteran presence required to field a decent team this year. Help is not on the horizon. Free agency will not help us this year.

        Don’t agree with me? Sound off in the comment section.