Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
Report: Raptors Nearly Traded for Talen Horton-Tucker Last Season
The Toronto Raptors nearly had a trade in place to land Talen Horton-Tucker from the Los Angeles Lakers at last year's trade deadline.
It's hard to know exactly how close the two teams came to finalizing the deal, but, according to ESPN's Dave McMenamin, Toronto was willing to move a first-round pick and Khem Birch for the 21-year-old guard. The Lakers, however, declined the deal, opting to keep Horton-Tucker before eventually trading him this past offseason to the Utah Jazz for Patrick Beverley.
Toronto had reportedly been looking at Talen Horton-Tucker at the previous year's trade deadline in a deal that would have involved Kyle Lowry. The Lakers, though, deemed Horton-Tucker untouchable, per The Athletic's Shams Charania.
The Raptors did make one deal at last year's trade deadline, sending Goran Dragic and a first-round pick to the San Antonio Spurs for Thad Young and a second-round pick. The move opened up a little bit of extra wiggle room under the luxury tax threshold for Toronto to make another trade, but no secondary trade ever transpired.
It's unclear which first-round pick Toronto would have dealt to the Lakers. Their 2021 first-round pick went to San Antonio in the Young deal. It's possible the Raptors were willing to trade a future first, though the team was prohibited from trading their 2022 first-round pick due to NBA regulations barring teams from trading first-round picks in consecutive years.
Horton-Tucker hasn't quite developed the way some had hoped earlier on in his career. He's averaging just 17.2 minutes played for the Jazz this season, scoring 7.9 points per game on 40.2% shooting from the field.
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