Toronto Raptors & Indiana Pacers reportedly engaged in Pascal Siakam talks; what does it all mean?

Toronto Raptors & Indiana Pacers reportedly engaged in Pascal Siakam talks; what does it all mean?

On your Wednesday episode of lock on Raptors Pascal SE AUM the Indiana Pacers sham tania’s latest reporting suggest that might be where things are headed we’ll dig into the latest reporting the potential return and why it might just be time to rip off the freaking Band-Aid you are locked on Raptors your

Daily Toronto Raptors podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day hey what’s going on and welcome to another episode of Locked on Raptors part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day it is Wednesday January the 17th and I’m your host Sean

Woodley I’ve been covering the Toronto Raptors now for 10 seasons on various platforms you can find all my work over on that website at Woodley Shan you can find the show on Instagram at lockon Raptors and of course you can always join us in the lockon Raptors Discord

Server the link is in the description of the podcast it’s free to join and we’ love to see you join us in there it’s a great little time hanging out talking ball among Pals and little sickos just like you who can’t get enough of the trade machine and the ongoing

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You place a $5 bet visit fanduel.com logdon to get started and we will get started digging in to the latest reporting about Pascal cakam and the Indiana Pacers which last night came down in an athletic piece from sham terania and look I I think that in the absence of anything something felt like

Everything when it comes to Pascal reporting it’s been so long since there’s been anything new it’s all been sort of rehashed reports and the same six versions of Pacers or Kings or Hawks trades being circulated around and there hasn’t been any tangible real reporting on the Pascal situation really since the

Ogn and Obi trade when w reported that the Raptors were still going to be pursuing trade options with Pascal SE yakum since then it’s all just been kind of subterfuge and leaks and uh nothing terribly substantial until Sean trania last night dropped the piece over the athletic suggesting that the Raptors and

Pacers are quote unquote actively engaged in talks on Pascal zakum a deal is not done but they’ve reportedly gotten pretty far along with proposals swapped back and forth Michael Grange came in after that report dropped suggesting that uh you know he doesn’t think anything is imminent based on what

He’s hearing of course Michael Graber plugged into the Toronto Raptors he also said who knows anything can happen they obviously have been a sort of fit all along with the Pascal SE yakum Indiana Pacers talks you know like there’s nothing surprising about this being a thing we’ll get into the sort of General

Malay I feel around this bloody basketball team right now with his ongoing Sword of Damocles hanging over the entire Enterprise we will get into a couple listener questions at the end of the show as well but let’s just kind of dig into the reporting here off the top

Um you know actively engaged in talks can mean a lot of things right shout out to our pal Pascal propaganda over on that website Who noted that the last time Shams terania used the phrase actively engaged in talks in reference to the Toronto Raptors it was regarding a potential Andre Drummond trade back

During the Tampa Bay season uh so of course you know things can fall apart but obviously the Pacers have always been the team right basically all season long after the Hawks stuff fell apart in the summer by all reports that the Pacers have just kind of lined up as the

Team that makes sense they’re a team that has a burgeoning superstar maybe just already a pure superstar in tyres halberton might be ready to kind of go hit go time on this thing with a roster that’s pretty lean on Wing talent and defensive Acumen and scoring punch I

Guess outside and creation punch outside of Tyrese halberton Pascal seum has always made sense as a long-term four on that team and as someone who has long fantasized about the potential Partnership of Pascal SE yakum Miles Turner front Court of course in Toronto in my wildest fantasies I think the sort

Of concept of pairing halberton with a front Court of Turner and SE aam is pretty compelling that has been the case all season long they’re also a team that has all their picks intact they have another pick right now that has like some weird protection Vortex going on

Where it’s like the worst pick of the Clippers maybe the Bucks the Jazz and the or like the best I might be the best of them either way there’s like all these like middling that the Rockets are in there somewhere middling to good teams it becomes the worst or best of

One of those teams picks whatever we’ll we’ll figure out the protections on whatever picks get traded if picks get traded uh but the Pacers have all their picks they have that extra pick they got an extra second or two kicking around as well and of course they have a slew of

Interesting young players there’s jarus Walker there’s Andrew nart there’s Ben Maan there’s uh you know Obi toppen if you know that’s your your fancy Isaiah Jackson Ben Shepard like there’s a lot of dudes on this team Aaron neith who to me is like the guy that the Raptors

Really got to be targeting here but we’ll get into the return in a sec here the Pacers have always seemed like the team though and it’s not surprising that it’s maybe gotten to this point I still think odds are this probably goes to the deadline just because the Raptors are

Clearly canvasing to try to get the best deal they can they seem pretty hellbent on moving SE yakum at this point there’s been no inclination of any kind of you know extension talks you know much to my shagrin of course but it just does feel like it’s kind of trending this way I

Don’t know if I totally by the reported return that sham terania kicked around in his piece though at least not in full right the concept he passed along was Bruce Brown three first round picks and salary filler uh salary filler can mean a lot of things there’s buddy heel

There’s Jaylen Smith there’s Obi top and there’s all sorts of guys on that team who could be quote unquote salary filler um I really wish we didn’t refer to potential human beings being being moved as salary filler but you know that is how this whole garbage thing works

Whatever um you know Bruce Brown on his own you know I love Bruce Brown I was a pretty big acolyte of those Denver Nuggets last season I’m always an accolite of the Denver Nuggets because Nicole yic is the most fun thing to ever happen to basketball but that’s besides

The point right now Bruce Brown really nice piece on those teams maybe a little overextended on these Pacers on this Pacers Squad this year obviously makes a lot of money he got the bag the championship bag as he should have I don’t know if his next contract is going

To pay him 20 plus million bucks a year it’s been a little bit of an up and down year shooting wise for him but he’s kind of like a Swiss Arby knife type dude right doesn’t do anything super well but does a lot of things pretty well he has

Has of course have like masqueraded has masqueraded as like a small ball five in the past playing on those KD Kyrie Nets teams where they just had no big men and he did a pretty good job just kind of operating from the middle of the floor

He closed games in the NBA finals for the NBA champions uh last season as well filling in sometimes for Michael Porter Jr in those lineups he’s just like a nice interesting player player who I think fits on a Scotty Barnes basketball team no doubt um you know the future of

Him kind of brings his own uncertainty right because he has this sort of Bizarro Mutual option contract uh where I would imagine the Raptors just pick it up and if you trade him by next year’s deadline you trade him by next year’s deadline but I think it’s worth a look

To see if Bruce Brown who’s only 27 could be an interesting fit as a role player on a Scotty Barnes team you got to have role players you got to have Smart role players and Bruce Brown is certainly that it’s the picks that really kind of make me wonder if this

Whole thing passes the smell test because the Raptors it’s been kind of telegraphed by their actions and the reporting that’s come out and the trade they just made with ogn and Noby that they are valuing players over picks young players they can insert into the whole thing right now with Scotty Barnes

And say all right it’s go time let’s do this thing we have a roster around you that can grow around you over the next handful of years here quickly and Barrett obviously fit that description and a lot of those Pacers guys whether it’s maen whether it’s jarus Walker

Whether it’s Andrew neh hard on down the list fit that description as well and all along it’s felt like those types of players would be the priority in a return for Pascal cakam of course you know you can’t dictate the market and maybe the market says that picks are

Going to be they have to be the way they go here but I’m holding on for at least a little bit to you know sort of really dive into my true feelings on a pick heavy package for Pascal until we see what else is involved in the return and

Who that quote unquote salary filler is is it a Ben Maan is it a jerus walker if that’s the case then hey maybe you can look and squint and see a deal that makes some sense but if all they end up doing is trading Pascal SE yakum for

Bruce Brown who again brings his own sort of contract uncertainty with him and a handful of picks like those aren’t going to be good picks the Pacers presumably will be very good or at least pretty good with at Tyrese halberton Pascal SE yakum Duo uh you

Know SE yak’s had a whole lot of success in his career playing with point guards of the ilk of tyres halberton and Tyrese halberton might be the best dut he’s played with period you know and end stage Kyle Larry obviously fantastic but Tyrese halton’s doing Steve Nash stuff just making everybody better at

Basketball around him you would assume that team will be at minimum like a you know top six team in the Eastern Conference for for a little while here you’re not getting great picks there you’re kind of banking on middle of the first round draft picks yielding you

Long-term pieces which is just I don’t know if the Raptors have the patience or the luxury of patience with Scotty Barnes already going into year four to wait for picks in the middle rounds to to sort of turn into real players two three four years down the line we’ll see

I I’m if that’s the return I’ll be pretty disappointed when the option to just extend Pascal SE yakum or trade him in the summer was there all along and I I don’t know man I I I think uh this has chance to be kind of a mess there’s also

A chance that they get a good deal here and it makes you feel okay about what they have cooking going forward but I think we got to hold on off any sort of judgment on what the full picture is here because we don’t know the full picture we’ve seen Bruce Brown three

Picks salary filler things can change actively engaged in talks does not mean a deal is close or imminent or whatever we’ll see but H you know gotta say didn’t leave me sort of bursting with joy thinking about the idea of Bruce Brown and picks coming back for Pascal freaking SE yakum because Pascal

Freaking SE yakum is a really great basketball player who I continue to maintain fits with this group that they have have currently in tow and the option has always been there to just extend him and keep him around even if it’s just to trade him later and they

Have not taken that option and it’s led to kind of a miserable existence for the Toronto Raptors and the fan base and just the viewing experience over the last little while which is what I want to get into next you know of course I I express like disappointment non plusd at

The idea of Bruce Brown and picks as a return I also had another feeling when this report dropped last night I’ll get into what that feeling was coming up in just one second but first Today’s Show is brought to you by eBay Motors passion drive and patience what brings home the winning

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Much for hanging out here to today as we dissect the latest in Pascal SE yakum rumor mongering and as I mentioned you know disappointment little bit sort of me it’s kind of how I felt looking at the potential return reported by Shams last night again plenty to be ironed out

There plenty of potential for the return to be much more substantial than Bruce Brown and some picks but there was another feeling I had when that thing came down last night the sort of notion that we might be inching towards a conclusion here and that feeling relief relief that this might

Just be over and I’m saying this as someone who is a died in the wool Pascal SE yakum dude I really love Pascal SE yakum as a player I love his story I love the very unique Arc that his career has taken that almost every single season of his career has been different

In some way shape or form interesting in some way shape or form there’s been ups there’s been Downs he’s been a fantastic Toronto Raptor he’s going to go down as a top five Raptor of all time and I will go down swinging and sort of dying on

The hill that the Toronto Raptors would be better off just keeping that very good basketball player around to grow and play with this Scotty Barnes Emanuel quickley RJ Barrett version of the basketball team but like I said relief was one of the first feelings that came

To mind at the idea that this might be moving towards some sort of closure how is this fun for anyone right like I know we love to be little trade machine sickos and get on the fanso machine and make all of our little fun trades and

Share them around this can’t be fun for anyone who actually like likes basketball who likes the Toronto Raptors who wants to see the Toronto Raptors move in some kind of Direction how is this fun for Darko rakovich who is trying to instill a program in his first

Year with new arrivals and he has no idea like who is going to be around those new arrivals outside of Scotty Barnes really going forward here like how is this fun for him how is this fun for Pascal cakam playing an entire season with a sword hanging over his

Head having done nothing but be like an exemplary professional while the team like publicly and loudly sort of pushes him out the door refusing to offer him an extension after you know a couple years removed from Messi jiri on a mic saying you go to war with that guy

That’s a dude I go to war with that’s my guy Pascal SE yakum baby he’s my guy obviously mess just says stuff right how is this fun for like any fan right like this can’t be fun there’s been it’s been really hard to like find the emotional

Investment in the last two seasons right there’s been just uncertainty hanging over this team for two full seasons now with fragmented seasons and like fractured storylines that don’t get to finish because guys get moved and the constant sort of wondering and worrying of who’s going to be on this team next

How are they going to do this thing how are they going to wriggle out of this corner they’ve painted themselves into to me like the joy of an NBA season is found in watching sort of a full chapter of a story play out over six to eight

Months like I’m a big believer that like no NBA season is indicative of like any sort of bigger Grand thing like it all part of a bigger story there are you know story lines in the NBA take six seven eight nine years to play out in a

Lot of cases and we’ve been kind of robbed of the joy of watching a team night to night feeling out the Cadence of a season where you have all the excitement at the start of the year then you have the feeling out process of what’s working what’s not then you get

Into the sort of dog days of the Season where you can look ahead and sort of all right how can they Tinker on the margins here like that’s the fun trade machine sh stuff it’s O like can we trade trade for a a nice stretch four come off the

Bench or something like that that’s the the most fun version of trade Machining not big giant cataclysmic shifts in your team’s makeup that stuff is not indicative of a healthy Enterprise we’ve been robbed of just sort of again the sort of joy of watching a season play

Out knowing who your guys are going to be hitching Your Wagon to your guys and getting them to getting to watch them play it out figure it out over the course of a six month NBA season and into the postseason and we just haven’t had that the last couple years and look

I am someone who I preach patience I think we get too eager to move on from things that aren’t working in the moment and don’t get you know don’t think enough about how things could work out given a little bit more time to breathe I think I’m certainly not someone who

Thinks like doing trades equals good team management I think that’s a pretty ridiculous way to look at things and I think there’s a lot of value in just retaining good basketball players being competitive you know building from the middle to me always going to be better than building from the bottom up because

There’s just so much risk and uncertainty and just a lack of guarantees when you build from nothing when you have good players on your team you know you have good players on your team at the very least and you can parlay that into greater success the

Raptors ex an example of this in the last decade or so you know as much as I’m a Believer at all of those things at some point you kind of get over the Event Horizon and you when you’re running a basketball team a business an office like you’re you’re running a

School project like all of the stakeholders involved should have some sort of clarity on where things are heading and that just does not exist has not existed for the Raptors over the last two seasons it’s been baffling and it’s been joyless it has sapped the enjoyment out of watching a thing that

Is ostensibly here to give us joy and the indecision the lack of Direction look they bailed eles out with the OG trade great I think you know being patient not taking a poo poo platter of mid picks from the Grizzlies great call but the sort of amalgamation of all of

These different like Avenues of uncertainty OG Pascal Fred Van vet last year yaka purle what’s gonna happen Gary Trent Jr Nick nurse last year like is he gonna be around like all this stuff has just built up to make this not a fun Enterprise not an interesting Enterprise

Even we don’t you can’t be interested you don’t know what the team is we don’t know what the team is going to be it’s hard to get invested and like that’s on the front office for their longstanding indecision if they didn’t want Pascal SE yakum on this basketball team coming

Into this year they should have just traded him in the summer or if they wanted to eventually trade him for better value they should have read the market known that things are not going to get better than they were in the summer as he gets closer to free agency

In the middle of the season when it’s harder to trade for guys they should have just said you know what we’re not seeing seeing a market here let’s just extend them and figure it out later and they didn’t do either of those things they took it into the season and had

This big cloud hanging over the team once again and the cloud has just you know you live in Southern Ontario a lot of you it’s been cloudy for like the last two months non-stop with no sun that makes you bummed out it sucks having a cloud hanging over things it

Saps your Vitamin D it it saps your joy it saps the ability to enjoy watching a basketball team go through the typical ups and downs of a season it’s been fractured it’s been fragmented it’s been just nonlinear and we like linear we like narrative we like arcs and whether

You want to admit it or not like that’s what we get into this for we don’t get into it for the cat minations and the cat minutia we watch because uh we want to see our guys go and win some games and then remember the things those guys

Did and there’s just been no canvas whatsoever for remembering what the guys did over these last couple Seasons it’s been this sad in between Purgatory totally just like loose hanging threads all over the place and I just kind of want it to be over back to the relief

Point the idea of Pascal seum getting traded bums me out to no end but I also just want them to rip the freaking bandaid off and just do it like do it this week man like don’t string this out to the deadline we’ve already had eight

Games of this sort of Bizarro in between land where the teams actually looked pretty good yeah three and five record not withstanding they’ve looked pretty good and interesting the fit’s been there and yet it doesn’t mean anything because it’s pretty clear that this is not going to be the team they have going

Forward if this was if they committed to Pascal after the OG trade and just said you know what let’s roll with this let’s see what we got for the next 18 months at least you could get on board you could buy into the sort of 2013 14 Vibes

Of it all and wow this is the change that we needed this is the shuffling of the deck chairs new faces new fits everything and the front off off has continued to just let the Pascal thing play out publicly haven’t said anything from their end haven’t talked to Pascal

Ghosted Pascal all summer for all the reports that are out there and it’s left it to the point where I just want it to be over just trade him to the Pacers man just get it over with you’re not going to get a great package anyway rip the

Band-Aid off and actually like give this team some chance of playing a compelling final 41 games like give it some Runway to grow and build with the same group of guys and have it be something resembling what we tune into this thing for because right now it’s not that right now it is

Uncertainty it is loose ends it is just a joyless basketball watching experience and the front office has to own that man like this is an entertainment product and the sort of lack of decision lack of Direction whatever you want to call it it has totally sapped the stuff that’s

Supposed to make this fun rant over I’ll be relieved when it’s over it seems to be where it’s heading I don’t agree with it but just like I’ll be able to breathe and just kind of you know just move on with our lives man like it’s it’s enough

It’s enough of the uncertainty just get some basketball players build around Scotty Barnes and do the thing if that’s what you want to do just get it done we’ll come back got a couple listener questions we’ll get to we got a pascal one we got a couple ones that are not

Pascal related to kind of ease ease into the end of the show in a less depressing fashion we’ll do that coming up in just one sec Today’s Show is sponsored by better help this time of year we’re all kind of doing those resolutions we’re trying to change ourselves instead of just

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On sports today 247 And subscribe all right let’s uh round it out we got a couple listener questions to get to to round out Today’s Show thanks to those who sent them in um first one here comes from glass Axel I hope I’m saying that

Right that’s a hard word to say uh but the question is I’m having trouble understanding what are the pluses of trading Pascal SE yakum other than clearing up cap space uh you me BR brother uh I think um for me look the arguments we talked about this last week

With Joe wolon right like there are Salient arguments to it specifically you know the cap space one is real right the NBA is getting to be is going to be a difficult place to navigate team building in the future and having big large huge contracts on your books is

Going to make it hard harder to build Pascal seum if you don’t view Pascal SE AUM as a you know second or third best guy on a very good team which I think he clearly is but if you don’t view that over the next few years on a Scotty

Barnes team then you know the idea of moving on from him and not paying him his max money which it seems like he’s hellbent on getting and good for you Pascal go get paid man you deserve it um if you know if you feel like you can’t

You know sort of maximize these next four years and the having siakam’s money on the books is going to make it too challenging work around the money then that’s the argument right the other argument I guess is you sort of replenish the back end of your roster

With whatever players you can get back in a deal I I always find the logic of that one to be like very silly it’s like oh wow they got it better seven seventh and eighth man but their second best player is worse now like okay great what

What have you accomplished here we get so sort of caught up on depth I think sometimes that we forget that it’s still top-end talent that drives winning more than anything else in the NBA and the idea of well trade this guy for depth like okay well if you trade him

For depth he’ll be just looking to replace that guy at some point down the line which hey maybe the Raptors can do like this is you know if you’re trying to make an argument for a picks heavy package back for Pascal SE yakum like has been reported by sham terrania then

You know the argument there is okay you get a picks heavy package back you can probably parlay those picks to some other sort of pick horny team and find yourself getting a real player an established actual NBA player it was not just a spec of teen to run with Scotty

Barnes and if you did do that say the Raptors go and get three first round picks from the Pacers whatever else comes back playerwise and you go into the summer you convey your pick this summer which looks like it might be a 50-50 proposition at this point but uh

You convey your pick I still think that’s best for the health of the team long term to just get it out of the way now uh but you get to the summer you got three Pacers first round picks and you have all of your own first round picks

Available 2025 and Beyond if you convey to the Spurs this year and all of a sudden you’ve got yourself seven first round picks to go play with you can actually get into those conversations that you know the a lot of these teams are in right now right they’re kind of

Waiting to strike at the next big potential star you know the the Jazz of course are one of these teams the Thunder are one of these teams the Rockets are one of these teams the Nets are one of these teams who have all these extra picks on hand Al the Nets

Have like the Rockets picks and not their own I don’t know if the Rockets actually have picks now I might be getting that wrong either way um lots of teams have these sort of hordes of picks and all of sudden the Raptors become one of those teams and you know the Knicks

Are another example right where they keep on hoarding these picks these sort of sneakily not very good picks by the way uh for some sort of speculative Superstar trade you know it puts you in the conversation which I guess is nice uh you know there’s no guarantee you

Pull it off we’ll see but that is the the conversation you would assume the Raptors are looking to put themselves into if they’re going to go make a deal where they get a pick heavy package back for Pascal the other argument is like the timelines argument which I think is just so like

Over focused upon like if you can get multiple good players on long-term contracts together I don’t care how old they are frankly like if they’re good and they fit and they make sense then like that to me is an alignment of a timeline whereas you know I think the

General consensus is well everyone’s got to be around the same age everyone has to have been in high school at the same time for it to be a sensible team build which I just don’t get and like the Pacers clearly being eager to trade for Pascal seak to pair with 23-year-old

Tyrese halberton suggests that you know maybe we overthink this timeline thing a little bit too much but that’s just me um so yeah the the other thing is the timeline you get younger players you get more sort of cost controlled players like that’s the big thing right it all

Comes back to money frankly the arguments in favor of trading Pascal SE yakum um and that’s where we’re at right now the Raptors clearly view those money arguments to be pretty compelling based on all of their actions and all the reporting to this point so that’s where

We’re at couple more mailbag cues to close it out oh maybe just one more this one comes from Matt T not talking about Pascal seaka we’re talking about the guy who is about to become my new favorite Toronto Raptor I think that’s Emanual quickly uh and the question from Matt T

Is what can IQ do to improve his finishing at the rim of course not been uh a great start for Emanuel quickly from like two-point range from floater range so far with the Raptors just 30% from three to 10 feet per basketball reference right now uh well below where

He typically is he is a floater Merchant and I think those will just kind of like fall so a lot of this is you know like regression to the mean from shots that he typically takes and makes a lot going in a little bit more often of course

He’s been banging in triples like a maniac and that’s been super fun he’s 47% from three as a raptor so far that kicks ass um but as far as the rim scoring yeah he’s at 60% right now inside three feet which would be his career low if you know you know mapped

Out over a full season he’s never been like a crazy high he’s not flirting with 70% at The Rim or anything like that but he’s flirted with you know 63 6 68 one season in 2022 23 um you know I would assume he’s going to bounce up from the

60 even he’s at right now but as far as just like the general Improvement of Emanuel quickly I do think the big thing for him when you see him go into the lane and he’s close around the bucket a lot of it he’s trying to score over guys

Instead of through guys and a lot of the best sort of drivers and free throw merchants and all those types who get to the rim and score like they’re looking for contact they’re absorbing contact they’re not trying to shoot around the contact they’re trying to just go

Through dudes and finish this goes to the point that I think Assad brought up on yesterday’s podcast if you go listen to that of quickly just need maybe a little bit more beef just kind of you know bulking up a tad to feel like he

Can go in among the trees and hang and not sort of get flattened when he goes into to try to get contact um you know I think this is going to be a process right for the Knicks he was like very three-point dependent he was someone who

Was asked to bomb away and kind of go Gunner mode and have the floater game to sort of back him up and be that counter when he got ran off the line um if he wants to be a more sort of lead guard type then there has to be a little bit

More in terms of scoring around the bucket and um you know collecting free throws all that type of stuff I think it’s going to come the dude’s clearly very talented he clearly works pretty hard and and has like a lot in his bag to work with um it’s just the process

Right it’s a feeling out process for him as much as it is the Raptors trying to get climatized to having his gravity and spacing on the team he’s got to get used to the burden that is being a lead guard and I think that will come in time um

But yeah I think the physicality around the rim is probably the thing stop to score over dudes score through dudes and uh you know good things will happen you’re going to go to the line a whole bunch and all that good stuff so that’s I think my quick answer to that one and

I think that’s going to be where I leave this podcast thank you so much everyone for tuning in thanks to those who sent in listener questions didn’t get to all of them that are in the backlog right now but that’s because uh some stuff happened last night with Shams that we

Had to address on today’s show um so thanks for hanging out really appreciate it we’ll be back again tomorrow to talk about Raptor’s heat with Jamar Hines that should be fun and then we got of course a double header a back toback the Raptor bu bus game we’ll talk about on

Friday as well um plus we’ll have a little bonus episode I think talking with Tony East from locked on Pacers about well you know uh we’ll get into all that coming up later this week till then thank you so much for hanging out and we will talk to you again on

Thursday I I I would go out with my like usual recent sign off of extend Pascal cakam now but that feels like it’s going to uh fall on deaf ears and so I’ll just go out on uh just get this sorted out now please and rip off the B and get it

Over with and end all of our misery thanks so much bye

In Episode 1557, Sean Woodley goes solo to react to the latest Shams Charania report suggesting the Toronto Raptors and Indiana Pacers are actively engaged in talks on a Pascal Siakam trade, with Bruce Brown and three first-round picks potentially being part of the return headed back to the Raptors from Indy. Off the top, Sean parses the reporting and digs into why the Pacers have always been the team that’s made the most sense as a Siakam destination, and why the reports of a pick-heavy package are a little perplexing considering the priortiy the Raptors have seemingly placed on young, ready-to-contribute players over draft picks in their recent trade dealings. Next, Sean digs into the main feeling he had upon reading the Shams report: relief. The Raptors have been a hard team to invest in emotionally for two seasons due to the constant uncertainty and trade rumours. Trading Pascal for a middling package seems bad, and probably is bad, but maybe it’s just time to rip off the band-aid and let the Raptors just be a normal basketball team. Lastly, Sean answers a couple mailbag questions about the reasons for dealing Siakam now instead of signing him long-term, and Immanuel Quickley’s next developmental steps to close the show.

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