Good morning. Special Sunday morning newsletter on account of A TRADE. Let’s basketball.

The Basket of Apples; Paul Cézanne; 1890-94

NBA trades don’t happen in December … until they do! The dam finally broke on the Toronto Raptors’ rumoured teardown, but not in the way you’d think. Toronto dealt O.G. Anunoby, Malachi Flynn and Precious Achiuwa to the New York Knicks for known Canadian R.J. Barrett, Immanuel Quickley and a future second-round pick.

The rumours had been that the Raptors were seeking multiple firsts for Anunoby, who will be a free agent this summer. Instead, Toronto took on two starter-caliber players. So what’s that say about where the Raptors go next? If you’re tanking, you don’t trade one player for two of similar quality. That said, Barrett (23) and Quickley (24) are both younger than Anunoby (26), and might be better long-term fits with the center of the Raptors’ universe (Scottie Barnes, 22). So what’s that mean for Pascal Siakam (29)?

I think it means that the Raptors are not actively planning to bottom out this year or next. As has been noted, Toronto owes the Spurs a top-6 protected pick from the increasingly strange Jakob Poeltl trade. The Raptors currently have the seventh worst record in the NBA, which is a worst-case scenario when it comes to the Spurs’ pick: Toronto is not going to be bad enough to keep their own pick, and doesn’t appear good enough to escape the lottery, making the value of the pick less painful.

It’d have been easier to bottom out had Anunoby been traded for paper assets. Barrett, however you feel about his potential, is a legitimate NBA rotation player at minimum. He’s been a starter for a playoff team whose best players were fringe All-Star level. Advanced metrics almost universally dislike him. But he’s going to slot into Anunoby’s minutes better than someone off the waiver wire or the Raptors’ bench would.

Quickley is much less divisive, and is instantly the Raptors’ best guard, even if he comes off the bench. Toronto’s braintrust is obviously comfortable paying him what it will take in restricted free agency to keep IQ around — it will be much less than whatever the Knicks have agreed to pay O.G. — and, as with Barrett, IQ’s mere presence will keep the Raptors more competitive than they would have been with empty contract and draft equity.

This all tells me that the Raptors are going to make a run for the playoffs — they are only two games out of No. 10 and six games out of No. 6 — and that tells me that whatever we think we know about Siakam’s future actually remains a mystery...