Do you remember where you were the day the Toronto Raptors signed Jalen McDaniels?
No?
Me neither. And for good reason. McDaniels time in Toronto was something worth forgetting. It’s funny though, because it definitely didn’t start that way, in fact there was a lot of excitement when he signed. As the older brother of Timberwolves forward Jaden McDaniels, Jalen possessed a lot of the same tools in his size and versatility, the Raptors front office’s favourite word. In the 2022-23 season, McDaniels averaged 9.4 points and 4.3 rebounds while shooting a career-worst (at the time) 33.2% from deep for the Charlotte Hornets and Philadelphia 76ers. The signing was a solid bet on his ability to space the floor as a rangy forward, especially if he could get anywhere close to the 38% three point rate he shot the season before.
During the 2023 offseason when the Raptors signed him, they were a team in flux. They had just come off a 41-41 season and an embarassing loss in the play-in game to the Chicago Bulls that is infamously known as the ‘Diar DeRozan game’ due to Demar DeRozan’s daughter screaming incredibly loud every time the Raptors shot free throws. The team shot 18-36 from the line that game, and lost by four points.
At that point it was becoming clear that the team was unsuccesfully threading the needle in between the past ‘Bench Mob’ era starring Fred VanVleet, Pascal Siakam, and OG Anunoby and the future that Scottie Barnes represented. This was yet another reason why adding McDaniels made a lot of sense, as Raptors Republic’s Louis Zatzman pointed out at the time:
If Toronto makes further moves to emphasize roster balance, instead of finding minutes for so many forwards, then McDaniels could go from a luxury to a necessity — he’d be a capable, cheap replacement for any of Toronto’s higher-cost forwards.
Samson Folk was also quite keen on the addition:
He’s been a positive on the defensive end of the floor basically since he stepped into the league, and should fit well on that end of the floor for the Raptors. The swing skill for him is if the 3-point shot normalizes, as it’s seen giant swings from good to bad from season to season. We’ll see.
A pretty tidy piece of business, in my opinion. Excited to see him on the court next year.
I didn’t pick these quotes to pick on Louis or Samson because they were wrong, in fact, quite the opposite. I wanted to remind everyone that at the time, this move was viewed quite favorably by most. I wasn’t writing then, but I was also enthusiastic about the idea, ‘if only he could be a fraction of his brother‘ I thought. That sentiment didn’t last long, and by the end of the season McDaniels had fallen out of favour with the fans and coaching staff alike. He played just 50 games, and his minutes dwindled significantly over the season, likely due to the fact that he shot just 16.9% from three and provided nothing else positive. When Raptors Republic did their end of season reviews, McDaniels received an ‘F’ from Louis:
Everything I thought might work failed to translate. He shot 32 percent on shots out of drives. As stated, he was the worst 3-point shooter in the league. He offered less rim protection than Gary Trent jr. (allowing a higher efficiency converted on shots within six feet when listed as the primary shot defender). And he didn’t really get to play center, but when he did, the Raptors were significantly worse than when he was playing another position.
It just didn’t work. Even when he played his best, it didn’t matter. In McDaniels’ 20 highest-efficiency scoring games, the Raptors went 2-18. They were 1-9 in the 10 highest-scoring games. Even in the 18 games in which he won his minutes or at least broke even, the Raptors went 3-15. There was, more or less, little to be redeemed in the relationship between team and player.
It’s why it’s nothing short of astounding that the Raptors traded McDaniels (just eight days after this scathing review) to the Sacramento Kings for Davion Mitchell, Sasah Vezenkov, the draft-rights to Jamal Shead, and a 2025 second round pick that became Alijah Martin. It was both a Masai Ujiri masterclass and yet another Sacramento blunder, though they did have their reasons. The Kings were looking to get under the luxury tax and clear a roster spot, which helped them sign-and-trade for DeRozan, though in the end that was irrelevant as Vezenkov agreed to leave his entire contract on the table to leave the NBA and return home overseas.
The Raptors kept Mitchell for just half a season before trading him to the Miami Heat in exchange for P.J. Tucker and a second round pick, but that half a season was incredibly impactful. Shead gives a ton of credit to Mitchell for his early development in the league.
The Raptors waived Tucker, and they used that second round pick this past trade deadline to acquire Trayce Jackson-Davis from the Golden State Warriors.
For those keeping score, that means the Raptors traded a guy who was astoundingly awful, took on no additional salary, gained three currently rostered players (two who have shown promise), and had half a season of Mitchell mentorship for Shead.
Now that’s a pretty tidy piece of business.