Earlier today, we rounded up post-deadline comments made by one general manager, the Thunder's Sam Presti, in the wake of yesterday's moves. Now we'll turn our focus to Toronto, where GM Bryan Colangelo spoke to reporters today about the Raptors' deadline decisions. Eric Koreen of the National Post has the key quotes.
On the Raptors acquiring Sebastian Telfair:
"We feel like we’re getting a player that gives us the necessary depth at that position. [John Lucas III] has done a great job filling in on the short term. The ability to score, the ability to man those minutes, he did an admirable job and I don’t necessarily see him getting supplanted right away. But what I do see is a guy that is capable of playing those minutes if need be and if someone were to go down with injury you’ve got a guy that has started I believe 192 games in the NBA who can come in and play this games if need be."
On trade talks involving Andrea Bargnani:
"Once the [elbow] injury occurred, his return, as late as it was in the process, as near to the trade deadline [as it was], it probably did not leave enough runway with respect to a deal being made now. That didn’t stop us from having dialogue with other teams or teams expressing interest. I believe it did affect some of the deals that we were probably discussing in advance of the injury, and even some that we were maintaining connection or dialogue over the course of the last couple months."
On revisiting a Bargnani trade this summer:
"The summer is the next potential opportunity to engage in trade discussions with respect to our entire roster. And with 27 games left in terms of us looking at where we are and how this group can come together and what the chemistry looks like. Continuity is obviously something nice to look at going forward. I think a lot of the pieces we do have in place are pieces we want to keep and hang onto and we’ll see how it all plays out."
On the impact of the CBA and increasing tax penalties:
"Of course, every team in the league is tax-averse. You do not want to be in the tax for various reasons…. Some people have said different things about the transaction we made yesterday. It not only shored up a point guard position need that we had, but it also took a $200K commitment off of the books for next year with [Hamed] Haddadi’s contract. It sounds like nothing, but $200K over the tax next year is actually a $300K tax with a $1.50-per-dollar principle for the first $5MM over. It was a $500K decision just for next season. … We made a very large transaction and have climbed into the tax for next season prior to three weeks ago. It certainly didn’t affect us in terms of a decision that was made in terms of the acquisition of Rudy Gay."