This is the first of a new weekly series chronicling trade trees in Raptors’ history, if you have a trade you want to see written about, make a suggestion in the comments!
Inspired by a similar series by our friends over at Canucks Army, this weekly series will take a look back on past trades by the Raptors, revisiting each branch of the trade, following them to the end of their line.
This week, we’re going all the way back to 2013 to look back on one of the most influential trades in Raptors’ history, one that helped them to their 2019 championship and led to the New York Knicks first championship in 53 years.
In December of 2013, the Raptors new general manager, Masai Ujiri finalized the second trade of his Raptors tenure, sending Rudy Gay, Quincy Acy, and Aaron Gray to the Sacramento Kings in exchange for Chuck Hayes, Patrick Patterson, John Salmons, and Greivis Vasquez.
After a rough stretch, Ujiri had come to the conclusion that Gay wasn’t a fit alongside Kyle Lowry and Demar DeRozan, and so made a deal that seemed okay at the time. Zoomed out, it turned out to be one of the greatest trades in Raptors history, let’s take a look at how it played out.
The Kings Side
Gay played in Sacramento until the 2017 offseason when he signed a contract with the San Antonio Spurs, playing there for four seasons before signing with the Utah Jazz in 2021. On July 7th, 2023 he was traded to the Atlanta Hawks for John Collins, five days later the Hawks shipped him to the Oklahoma City Thunder alongside Usman Garuba and TyTy Washington for Patty Mills. The Thunder waived him on July 19, and he would sign with the Warriors before they waived him ahead of the 2023 season.
On August 6 2014, Acy was traded by the Kings alongside Travis Outlaw to the New York Knicks for Wayne Ellington and Jeremy Tyler. Acy played one season in New York before the Kings decided they wanted him back and signed him to a contract in the 2015 offseason. He played one more season with the Kings before signing with the Dallas Mavericks where he played just six games before they waived him. Acy went on to sign two ten-day contracts with the Brooklyn Nets before they signed him to a multi-year contract. In 2019, Acy signed two more ten-day contracts with the Phoenix Suns before bouncing around overseas. Earlier this year, Acy announced that he was joining the Dallas Mavericks as an assistant coach.
Gray finished the 2013-14 season with the Kings before signing a contract with the Detroit Pistons in the 2014 offseason. In September 2014, the Pistons announced that Gray would miss the preseason as he recovered from a cardiac episode suffered during a workout. They waived him in October and he announced his retirement nearly a year later due to a blood clot found in his heart. Gray joined Stan Van Gundy’s coaching staff with the Pistons after his retirement, coaching until 2018.
The Raptors Side
Now, for the Raptors side of the deal, the branches go far and have had a deep impact on the current NBA landscape. Let’s start with the smaller pieces first.
Hayes Branch
Hayes stayed in Toronto for a season and a half, playing in 74 games before signing a contract with the Los Angeles Clippers during the 2015 offseason. They would waive him just a couple of months later. His playing career ended where it began after he signed with the Houston Rockets, played two games, and was waived. From 2016-2018 he served as an assistant coach with the Denver Nuggets and he is now the Director of Basketball Operations for the Golden State Warriors.
Patterson Branch
Patterson played with the Raptors for three and a half seasons and was a key rotation player during some of the team’s most successful seasons, including an Eastern Conference Finals run in 2016. In the 2017 offseason he signed with the Oklahoma City Thunder, playing with the Thunder for two seasons before signing with the Los Angeles Clippers in 2019, he played two more seasons in Los Angeles before signing a contract with the Portland Trailblazers where he was waived after two preseason games.
Now we get to the juicier pieces.
Salmons Branch
Salmons was on the decline when he came to Toronto, once a near 20 point per game scorer, he came to Toronto as a 34-year old who was averaging under 6 points a night. Yet still, that off-season Ujiri was able to make some magic once again, on June 29 2014, he finalized a trade to send Salmons to the Atlanta Hawks in exchange for Lou Williams and Lucas Nogueira. The Hawks waived Salmons, looking to clear cap space that they used to fill their roster with multiple role players ahead of a 60 win season. Salmons signed a contract with the New Orleans Pelicans that same summer, but was later traded in a three-team deal to the Phoenix Suns (the trade that landed the Miami Heat Raptor fan-favourite Goran Dragic), he was waived a couple days later which marked the end of his NBA career.
For the Raptors, the Salmons deal was a brilliant move, Williams was an incredible bench player (the type of guy this current team could use), and he won Sixth Man of the Year in his single season with the Raptors. He went on to sign with the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2015 offseason, playing there for a season and a half before they traded him to the Houston Rockets for Corey Brewer and a 2017 first round pick that became Tony Bradley. Williams spent just half a season with the Rockets before he was traded to the Clippers in a deal for Chris Paul. Williams went on to win two more Sixth Man of the Year awards before being dealt back to the Hawks for Rajon Rondo. He played two more seasons, including a conference finals run with the Hawks, before retiring in 2023 as the all-time leading bench scorer.
Nogueira’s stint with the Raptors was his only one in the NBA, and lasted four seasons. In the 2018 offseason the Raptors did not extend him a qualifying offer, and he went on to play for various teams overseas before returning to Canada to play for the Guelph Nighthawks of the Canadian Elite Basketball League. Fun fact: When I was in junior high I ran a Raptors fan account on Instagram and threw together a PicCollage edit of Nogueira that he liked and commented on. I was on cloud nine all week long.
Most Raptors fan know the rest of this trade tree very well, but if you don’t, the next branch is what solidifies this as quite possibly the greatest trade in the franchise’s history.
The Vasquez Branch
Vasquez played the next season and a half for the Raptors, averaging just shy of 10 points a night, but he is forever a Toronto legend for one simple reason. In the summer of 2015, the Raptors finalized a deal to send him to the Milwaukee Bucks in exchange for Norman Powell and a 2017 1st round pick. That pick became O.G. Anunoby. I don’t know what it is about Vasquez that enamored the Bucks enough to send a first round pick, but that trade produced two beloved Raptors, and so by proxy, Vasquez is beloved as well.
The Vasquez Branch: Norman Powell
Powell became a key role player for the Raptors, he was a member of the team’s ‘Bench Mob’ alongside Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet, Jakob Poeltl, C.J. Miles, and Anunoby. He grew with the Raptors into a crucial bench player during their championship run, by the time the Raptors traded him, he was averaging nearly 20 points a night. On March 25, 2021 the Raptors traded him to the Portland Trailblazers for Gary Trent Jr. and Rodney Hood. The Raptors waived Hood later that year. The idea behind the trade was that Trent Jr. was younger and would be cheaper, but that never really panned out. Both Powell and Trent Jr. signed contracts of nearly identical annual value. Since the trade Powell has continued to grow and evolve with the Trail Blazers, Clippers and he earned his first All-Star appearance this past season with the Miami Heat.
Trent Jr. played three and a half seasons with the Raptors, and despite there once being rumours that he would sign a long-term extension in Toronto in 2024, nothing ever materialized. Instead he signed a minimum contract with the Bucks, and has played there for the past two seasons.
The Vasquez Branch: OG Anunoby
This is where the story reaches it’s conclusion, at least for now. The second piece that came to Toronto in the Vasquez trade was a first-round pick that later became Anunoby. As we know Anunoby also began a member of the Raptors ‘Bench Mob’, but quickly capitalized on a Powell hip injury that vaulted him into the starting lineup as a rookie. In his sophomore season he slid back to the bench after the team acquired Kawhi Leonard. Unfortunately, Anunoby never got the chance to play in the Raptors championship run after he underwent an emergency appendectomy just days before the team started their legendary run.
After the championship, Anunoby became a full time starter for the Raptors, and in 2023 finished 7th in Defensive Player of the Year voting and made All-Defense Second team. Part way through the 2023 NBA season, the writing was on the wall for the Raptors, with the arrival of Scottie Barnes, and the departure of Fred VanVleet, the team was heading towards a new era, one that wouldn’t include Anunoby, who had spent his entire career growing with the Raptors. On December 30th 2023, the Raptors finalized a deal to send Anunoby to the New York Knicks alongside Precious Achiuwa and Malachi Flynn in exchange for R.J. Barrett, Immanuel Quickley, and a 2024 2nd round pick that later became Jonathan Mogbo. Barrett and Quickley have become quality starters in Toronto and Anunoby just won an NBA championship with the Knicks, 7 years to the day of the Raptors championship-clinching victory. While he didn’t get to contribute to the Raptors run, he was the Knicks second leading scorer in the Finals, and did so on elite efficiency. He even got Finals MVP buzz.
What I’ve learned about trades over the course of this exercise, is that even when you think you’ve reached the end of the thread, the connections just keep spiraling. Even this one you could write considerably more just about the other trades that Powell was involved in. We can likely revisit this trade in a few years to see that it’s branched even further, depending on what becomes of Barrett and Quickley. What seemed like a decent trade in 2013, has since grown into one of the most impactful trades of recent NBA history, it’s provided two NBA championships, and has given the Raptors two of their current starters, we’ll have to wait to see where it branches next.
