Immanuel Quickley Discusses Free Agency as Raptors Season Ends
The Toronto Raptors are widely expected to re-sign Immanuel Quickley as he heads into free agency this summer
Immanuel Quickley isn't going anywhere.
A new contract for the 24-year-old point guard is essentially a foregone conclusion. Sure, it would have been tampering for the Toronto Raptors to engage in discussions with Quickley prior to acquiring him from the New York Knicks in December. But realistically there's little chance the Raptors didn't do their due diligence on Quickley before pulling the trigger on the OG Anunoby deal.
That said, it might be a little while before Quickley gets a new deal.
Quickley's cap hold heading into the offseason is $12.5 million, well below the $25 or so million he's expected to get per season on his next deal. For Toronto, that creates an opportunity because the league is only withholding $12.5 million of the organization's salary cap, allowing the Raptors to potentially sign other free agents with their cap space before inking Quickley to a deal after the fact.
The catch is Quickley has to play ball and the expectation is that shouldn't be difficult.
Toronto provided Quickley exactly what he was looking for. He shifted from being a bench player in New York to the lead ball handler in Toronto and a key piece for the organization moving forward.
"Absolutely love Toronto," he said Monday. "Since the day I got here, they've done nothing but show me love. Love is an action word. It's not just something you just throw around. They've done that from the day I got here to today."
Quickley will be a restricted free agent this summer and it's possible a point guard-needy team will throw a boatload of money at him and force Toronto to match the deal. Utah or Detroit, for example, could take a run at Quickley. Orlando might be able to make it work too. Realistically, though, that seems unlikely. It's not often teams make crazy offer sheets to restricted players and Toronto should know roughly what Quickley is expecting heading into the summer.
