The Raptors have placed Ishmail Wainright on waivers, according to Blake Murphy of Sportsnet (Twitter links). That could clear the way for Sam Dekker and Isaac Bonga to make the team’s 15-man roster, though the final roster deadline isn’t until Monday.
Wainwright, 27, had been playing overseas since going undrafted out of Baylor in 2017. Murphy expects other teams to have interest in Wainwright because of his versatility on defense.
Dekker, a 2015 first-round pick, has been out of the league since the end of the 2018/19 season. He spent time in Russia and Turkey before getting an opportunity with Toronto.
Bonga signed with the Raptors as an unrestricted free agent this summer after the Wizards opted not to give him a qualifying offer. The 2018 second-round pick started 49 of 66 games in 2019/20, averaging 5.0 PPG and 3.4 RPG in 18.9 MPG. His playing time dropped dramatically this past season, as he played in 40 games (eight starts) and posted modest stats (2.0 PPG, 1.7 RPG in 10.8 MPG).
Toronto will take on some dead money for Wainright if he goes unclaimed on waivers, since he had some partial guarantees on his minimum-salary contract. He’s owed $250K this season and $125K in 2022/23.
Dekker and Bonga have partial guarantees too, but their salaries for 2021/22 will reportedly become fully guaranteed if they make the opening-night roster. If the Raptors want to avoid locking in both of those cap hits, they could still decide to cut one of them before Monday’s deadline.
I’m a bit surprised they kept Dekker over Wainright, when they still have Yuta, but it was going to be an extremely tough decision whatever they ended up doing. There are a lot of guys that got cut, plus guys who were still available that could/should easily be in the NBA. We should look for expansion at some point in these next 3 years, in my opinion. It’s never been harder than right now to be in the NBA