Raptors Roster, Salaries, Cap Space, Available Draft Picks and More

17.09.2024 21:00

Nick Turchiaro-Imagn Images

We are answering every question you could possibly have about the Toronto Raptors’ salary, draft pick and other team-building situations here.

With the abundance of technology at fans’ fingertips to inform them on things like roster planning and salary cap situations for teams, they’ve only become more eager for information. Teams are also getting more surgical with how they build rosters and create contracts, and the CBA is ever-changing to ensure the rules are fair.

We’ve partnered with SalarySwish to use their database to make sure Raptors fans have the answers they want available to them as we head into the draft, free agency and the next season. SalarySwish makes it easy to see where the Toronto Raptors are at in terms of financial situation, free agency, team-building and more.

This page serves as an updating base to come back to, and will have everything you need to know about the Raptors roster, salaries, future picks, cap space and more!

Now, onto the info...

Toronto Raptors Roster, Salaries, Draft Picks, Cap Space and More

Here is a table with all of the Toronto Raptors salary information, courtesy of our friends at SalarySwish:

Now, because that’s a lot of data, let’s answer some of your most frequently asked questions about the Toronto Raptors salary cap and draft pick situations moving forward.

Frequently Asked Questions...

Who is the highest paid player on the Toronto Raptors?

Currently, the highest-paid Toronto Raptor is Immanuel Quickley. The point guard acquired mid-way through the 2023-24 season was a pending-restricted free agent and signed a five-year contract for $175 million to stay in Toronto. Quickley’s cap hit for the duration of his contract is $32.5 million, which leads the Raptors for 2024-25. It also puts him 50th in the NBA, and 16th amongst point guards.

However, Quickley won’t be the highest-paid player on the team for very long. On the same day that Quickley signed his new contract, Scottie Barnes signed one of his own. A league-maximum contract that equals nearly $225 million across five years, Barnes is currently projected to be the 35th highest-paid player league-wide and eighth-highest-paid power forward once his contract begins. Scottie’s starting cap hit will be $38.775 million, but that won’t kick in until the 2025-26 season, as the former Rookie of the Year signed a contract extension and still has one season remaining on his rookie deal that only costs about $10 million.

How much salary cap space can the Raptors have this offseason?

In short, none! The Raptors are currently over the salary cap by about $25.5 million, and are also projected to be over the cap come the offseason. But that doesn’t mean they can’t make any roster moves. Let’s break it down.

The salary cap for 2025-26 isn’t officially confirmed yet, so we’ll have to do a little bit of estimating in order to determine this. The salary cap for the the 2024-25 season is set at roughly $140.5 million, which was a 3.66% increase from 2023-24. Using that same percentage, we can project the salary cap to be roughly $145.5 million for the 2025 off-season.

Based on this number, the Raptors are already over the cap for next season. They currently have $150 million committed to 2025-26, being over the projected cap by nearly $5 million. Scottie Barnes’s contract extension, a greater than $28 million increase year-to-year, eats up all of the potential cap space the team could have had after also extending Immanuel Quickley.

Teams are allowed to go over the salary cap in the NBA, but doing so restricts what that team can do. Being over the cap means the Raptors likely lose veteran players Bruce Brown and Chris Boucher — if they’re not already traded away during the season — as both players are unrestricted free agents come July 2025. The Raptors will still be able to sign all of their 2025 draft picks — they currently have two but may end up with more — and they will be able to sign a limited number of free agents as they will have access to both salary cap exceptions, the Bi-Annual Exception and the Mid-Level Exception. Follow the precedening hyperlinks to a breakdown of each exception league-wide, courtesy of Salary Swish.

In order to be eligible for the Bi-Annual Exception, a team must:

not have used the BAE the previous season
not currently be over the salary cap apron
not exceed the salary cap apron at any time they roster a player signed with the BAE
not have used the Cap Room or Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception during the current season
not have signed a player using available cap space during the current season

Jalen McDaniels was signed using the Bi-Annual Exception in 2023, and since his contract expires in 2025, plus the Raptors will be over the salary cap — meaning they will not have signed any free agents using available cap space — the team will once again able to use the Bi-Annual Exception. With the salary cap tentatively projected for $145.5 million, that would put the BAE around $4.8 million in 2025. Toronto then has the ability to sign one free agent to a contract worth up to that amount of money.

In more exciting news, the Raptors will also have access to the Mid-Level Exception. In the NBA salary cap, there are three different Mid-Level Exceptions, but you can only use one of them in a season. They are as follows:

Cap Room MLE - available for teams below the salary cap who has not used the BAE
Non-Taxpayer MLE - available to teams above the salary cap who fall below the luxury tax
Taxpayer MLE - available to teams above the luxury tax but below the second cap apron

Given that they do not have any cap space and that they are also under the luxury tax, the Raptors are eligible for the Non-Taxpayer MLE. The Non-Taxpayer MLE is the largest Mid-Level Exception in the NBA’s salary cap. For the 2024-25 season, it is set at roughly $12.8 million, so we can project it to be set around $13.25 for the 2025 offseason.

Unlike the BAE, the MLE can be used on multiple players as long as their combined cap hits do not exceed the MLE limit. In layman’s terms, despite being over the salary cap, the Toronto Raptors will actually have a little over $13 million to pay free agents in 2025, plus an additional $4.8 million to sign one player.

How much will the Toronto Raptors pay in luxury taxes this year?

As of right now, the Toronto Raptors will not pay any luxury taxes this year, due to their team salary cap hit of $166 million falling below the luxury tax apron of $170.8 million.

The NBA’s luxury tax isn’t calculated until the final day of the season, so it’s possible that the Raptors make a few trades and end up over the tax apron, but that’s fairly unlikely. In fact, the teams who stay below the luxury tax apron receive a payout at the end of the season. The sum of what the luxury tax teams pay in fees gets evenly dispersed across the non-tax teams, meaning there is a financial incentive for the Raptors to stay below that $170.8 million threshold in 2024-25.

What draft picks can the Toronto Raptors trade?

The Toronto Raptors can currently trade the following first-round draft picks:

2025 Raptors pick
2026 Raptors pick
2026 Pacers pick
2027 Raptors pick
2028 Raptors pick
2029 Raptors pick
2030 Raptors pick
2031 Raptors pick

Additionally, the Toronto Raptors can currently trade the following second-round draft picks:

2025 Trail Blazers pick
2026 Raptors pick
2027 Raptors pick
2028 Raptors pick
2029 Raptors pick
2030 Raptors pick
2031 Raptors pick

If you found this page useful, please bookmark it and/or share, and if you have any questions or information you’d like to see included, let us know in the comments below! This page will be updated as the Raptors make moves in the upcoming season.