How much money will Raptors offer Chris Boucher?
The Raptors have to make a decision on whether they want to bring back Chris Boucher. Amit Mann and Yasmin Duale discuss his value to Toronto and what kind of deal management will offer him. Listen to the full episode on the 'Raptors Over Everything' podcast feed or watch on YouTube.
Video Transcript
AMIT MANN: Final question for you-- should the Raptors bring back Chris Boucher, who's bound to get a raise?
YASMIN DUALE: Yeah, if it's reasonable money. But I don't think he's going to be up for reasonable money. I feel like someone's going to make an unreasonable offer for him, and kind of take us out of the race.
AMIT MANN: Well, what's unreasonable-- what's unreasonable? What do you think?
YASMIN DUALE: What's he making currently--
AMIT MANN: What would be a-- what's a good contract?
YASMIN DUALE: --was it $4 million?
AMIT MANN: $7 million.
YASMIN DUALE: Per year?
AMIT MANN: Yeah.
YASMIN DUALE: Oh, OK. I would not want to see more than $13 million, I think.
AMIT MANN: OK, yeah, I got you.
YASMIN DUALE: But double that? I don't think anything-- anything more, you wish him well.
AMIT MANN: Yeah.
YASMIN DUALE: You know, I'll be so happy for him. But yeah, I would love to keep him, though.
AMIT MANN: Me, too.
YASMIN DUALE: He-- he's been, like, such a-- yeah, he's been one of the bright spots of the season. And he maintained it in the postseason, too. He was a-- Boucher was great.
AMIT MANN: Yeah, he was one of their best players in Game 6, if not, like, their best player.
YASMIN DUALE: Yeah, he really was. He's been fantastic.
AMIT MANN: Yeah, yeah.
YASMIN DUALE: And he's shown that he can keep it up in the toughest moments, so--
AMIT MANN: Yeah, I look at him, and the price that came to mind for me was 12, 13 as well. Because I was looking at some other players who were making around that range-- Kelly Olynyk, Robert Covington, Josh Richardson kind of players who-- I guess, like, they're serviceable. They're good at their roles. They can help you on both ends of the court to some degree. They're reliable. And I think Chris Boucher is exactly that.
YASMIN DUALE: Yeah.
AMIT MANN: I look at-- you think of, like, the epitome of what the Raptors are, and what they want from a role player, Chris Boucher does kind of all of it, like transition, offensive rebounding, 3-point shooting, defensive versatility, tough. Like, that is what the Raptors want. He is exactly what the Raptors want as a role player.
And I don't think it's that easy to find players like that because even the players I just mentioned, like, you could put little kinks that, oh, maybe this guy doesn't do that. Well, actually, Josh-- or Kelly Olynyk would actually be terrific on the Raptors. But the other guys, you could poke holes in how they would fit with Toronto for different reasons.
But Chris Boucher, like, he is the guy. He is exactly what they need. And you bring in-- you have him around $13 million or so, you're still OK when it comes to the cap. I'm not sure what's going to be happening with Thad Young. I imagine they want to bring him back.
YASMIN DUALE: Yeah, I hope so.
AMIT MANN: He was making-- yeah, he was making $14 million last year. You know, you kind of cut that in half to-- or $10 million. Maybe you're going to add a little bit more money to Chris, who knows? But I think those are two players that you definitely want to see back with the Raptors because they can just really help them get a solid bench.
And to Chris's credit, I mean, he accepted that things had to be different for him, that he wasn't going to be the guy, necessarily. And he started to thrive in his own right--
YASMIN DUALE: Oh, yeah.
AMIT MANN: --in his own role.
YASMIN DUALE: Fix everything.
AMIT MANN: Yeah, and that mentality switch where you've got to be like, all right, so these are the four things I'm going to do. I want to do seven, but these are the four, and I'm just going to kill it-- like, that is a very hard transition for a lot of players to make. And he did it. And again, hard to find players who will do that.
YASMIN DUALE: Yeah.
AMIT MANN: So that just about does it for us. Yasmin, thank you so much for joining me. Closing thoughts?
YASMIN DUALE: Closing thoughts-- hmm. Yeah, I think this chat has just kind of solidified for me that they're not going to do anything too major. If anything, they're probably going to be looking to retain their guys--
AMIT MANN: Yeah.
YASMIN DUALE: --and draft well, with the second round, so--
AMIT MANN: Mm-hmm.
YASMIN DUALE: --and maybe find some undrafted gems, too. So I feel like, yeah, it would be more of a case of just retaining the team as much as possible more so than any sweeping changes. Because I feel like this season was about as perfect as you could have expected--
AMIT MANN: Seriously, yeah.
YASMIN DUALE: --heading into it. From drafting to development throughout the year--
AMIT MANN: Yeah.
YASMIN DUALE: --to the postseason ongoings, I feel like everything went about as well as you could have hoped for. So--
AMIT MANN: No question.
YASMIN DUALE: --I wouldn't be surprised if the Raptors' main priority is just to keep things as is.
AMIT MANN: How tall do you think that player is going to be who they draft? 6' 8"? 6' 9"? Huh? Bets?
YASMIN DUALE: Yeah, no. He's 6' 8" on the dot, not even 6' 9".
AMIT MANN: Exactly.
YASMIN DUALE: And they're going to try and put him at center.
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AMIT MANN: No question.
YASMIN DUALE: Pretty rough.
AMIT MANN: Correct. Poor rook, he's going to go through it in his first year. All right, Yasmin, thanks so much. Thanks for listening, everyone. Have a great day.
