NBA Rumors: 5 best trade destinations for Pascal Siakam

The Toronto Raptors are open to moving Pascal Siakam before the season. These five teams should get involved. 

Masai Ujiri and the Toronto Raptors front office have not been the most willing trade negotiators in recent years. Despite a torrential downpour of rumors involving Kyle Lowry, OG Anunoby, Fred VanVleet, and others, the Raptors have consistently held tight. They were even willing to lose Lowry and VanVleet for nothing in free agency.

Now, Pascal Siakam is the name circulating the rumor mill ahead of training camp. The Raptors are expected to drive a hard bargain, but Siakam feels like a genuinely strong candidate to get traded.

The 29-year-old is currently eligible for an extension, but the Raptors have not re-upped his contract. NBA insider Marc Stein speculates that Toronto wants to place the ball in the hands of Scottie Barnes and OG Anunoby, essentially kicking the can down the road after losing VanVleet to Houston.

The Raptors have kept plenty of expiring players under contract before, but none of them carried Siakam’s theoretical trade value on the open market. And, with an increasingly alarming track record of losing key players for nothing, maybe the front office has finally learned its lesson.

Here are five teams who should make a real effort to pry Siakam out of Toronto’s hands.

No. 5 Pascal Siakam trade destination: Brooklyn Nets

The Brooklyn Nets are stuck in no man’s land. A team would normally be wise to strip down to the bare bones and rebuild after trading Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, but the Nets owe the majority of their upcoming draft picks to Houston due to the James Harden trade. There’s no point in bottoming out if that juicy pick goes to another team.

So, the Nets are presumably looking to build a competitive team around Mikal Bridges and the recently extended Cam Johnson. With Nic Claxton anchoring the defense and one of the league’s better coaches in Jacques Vaughn, it’s not hard to imagine the Nets scraping together a postseason berth.

That becomes much easier to envision and accomplish if Brooklyn trades for Pascal Siakam. The Nets do have a stockpile of picks to sell (just not their own) after the Durant trade, plus there are plenty of intriguing young players on the roster: Cam Thomas, Noah Clowney, Dariq Whitehead, Day’Ron Sharpe, and so forth.

The Raptors, in need of a proper point guard, could seek a trade package built around Spencer Dinwiddie, young players, and future picks. Siakam is a top-30 player when healthy and he would immediately elevate Brooklyns’ stagnant halfcourt offense with his shifty downhill scoring and vastly underrated playmaking. Maybe the Nets wouldn’t win the East, but they’d be a team worth paying attention to.