Does this trade make sense for the Toronto Raptors?

Trading Fred VanVleet does not set the Raptors up for success, but by leveraging him, they can not only get younger as a team, but add more overall assets.

Acquiring Tomas Satoransky is more of a “one-year loan” type of deal since he is in the final year of his contract, but Markkanen, the 38th pick and both the future first-round pick and pick swap give the Raptors more opportunities to expand on their young core. 

Toronto wants to bring back Gary Trent Jr. and with OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam being 23 and 27 respectively, they already have a young core already in place. Adding a highly talented player with the 4th overall pick this year gives them another young talent, as does acquiring Lauri Markkanen in a sign-and-trade. 

While he is not a true center, Markkanen could easily be the Raptors’ center, with Chris Boucher being a “change of pace” guy off-the-bench, because of his ability to knock down shots from the perimeter.

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Serge Ibaka and Marc Gasol made a living being big guys who can shoot from the perimeter with the Raptors, which is exactly the kind of role Markkanen will hold with them.

If the Raptors want to get younger, then this trade with the Bulls definitely makes sense, but it would leave them very thin in their backcourt. Kyle Lowry is a free agent and there is no guarantee that they could bring Gary Trent Jr. back, which would leave Malachi Flynn as the only true guard on the Raptors’ roster. 

Although they get a fair amount of value in return, trading Fred VanVleet does not seem to be in the plans of Toronto. They want him to be their key backcourt contributor moving forward and it seems much more likely that they would be willing to move on from Siakam before VanVleet given his value to them on both ends of the court.