Lou Williams Trade Paying Early Dividends for Toronto Raptors

The Toronto Raptors made a fairly low-key trade last June, sending veteran swingman John Salmons to the Atlanta Hawks for guard Lou Williams and center Lucas “Bebe” Nogueira.

Atlanta made the trade in order to clear the $5.45 million owed to Williams during the 2014-2015 season off the books. The fact that the 28-year-old hadn’t looked the same during the 2013-2014 season after coming off ACL surgery likely also served as motivation for the Hawks to commit to the deal. Shortly after the trade, Atlanta waived Salmons, per The Associated Press (via ESPN.com).

For the Raptors, the mantra during the offseason was continuation. The team re-signed Kyle Lowry, Patrick Patterson and Greivis Vasquez in an attempt to bring back the same team that had won the Atlantic Division title with a 48-34 record the previous season. This is mainly why new acquisitions such as Williams didn’t receive a whole lot of attention heading into the new season.

Fast-forward to November. The Raptors are currently first in the Eastern Conference with a 12-2 record. The team is also tied with the Memphis Grizzlies for the best record in the NBA.

Williams has been a key part of Toronto’s early-season dominance. Coming off the bench, the South Gwinnett High School product is averaging 13.6 points on 44 percent shooting (39.6 three-point field-goal percentage) in 19.6 minutes of play. That ranks him third on the team in points per game behind Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan.

Living up to his billing as a scorer, Williams has also shown an ability to get to the line on a consistent basis. He has averaged 4.5 free-throw attempts per game and is shooting 82.5 percent from the charity stripe.

Williams’ production has helped boost a bench that struggled to score last season. According to Hoopsstats.com, Toronto’s bench ranked 27th in the NBA in points scored and had a minus-1.7 bench point differential last season. This season, the Raptors’ bench is ranked seventh in points scored and has a 13.1 bench point differential.

Following a stretch of games from November 17-23 where he averaged 23.7 points a game and had a career-high 36 points against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Williams was named the Eastern Conference player of the week, per Doug Smith of the Toronto Star. He became just the sixth Raptor in franchise history to receive the honor.

If Williams—who will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season—keeps playing at this pace, it will be interesting to see what his future with the Raptors will be.

For now, though, it looks like Toronto is reaping the benefits of its trade with the Hawks. And that’s based on Williams’ play alone, as the promising 22-year-old rookie Nogueira hasn’t regularly cracked the Raptors rotation this season.

The 34-year-old Salmons is now a member of the New Orleans Pelicans, where he’s averaging 0.8 points per game in 7.7 minutes of action.

All stats are from Basketball-Reference.com.