As an exercise in asset management, it was an abysmal failure.
If you’re in a charitable mood, you can make case the Toronto Raptors simply got unlucky in losing Fred VanVleet in free agency over the weekend. Maybe they can’t be faulted for being blindsided by the max-deal bombshell offered up by the Houston Rockets that stole away VanVleet from the franchise that gave him his NBA start, not to mention an NBA championship.
Certainly the Raptors won’t be criticized for declining to match the three-year contract worth a stunning $130 million US that lured VanVleet to Houston.