Brian Windhorst

It's about the contract.

Nobody can take an overweight contract in the apron era.

That's just reality.

And the Raptors just have a couple of them.

So –

They've done a really nice job, and I'm not ruling them out in this series.

And I love where Barnes is.

I love where he's at.

But the next step will be a challenge, and they're having a challenge in the next step in this series.

Well, I mean, I can't say that they've already agreed to a contract because I guess they could look me in the eye and say that's not true.

But James Harden had a no-trade clause built into his contract this year, and he agreed to be traded to Cleveland in midseason.

Why do you think he would do that?

He would do that because he had an idea that his contract was going to be, he was going to have a thing worked out.

So what happened in Cleveland is they were building their team on Evan Mobley's timeline.

And the Donovan Mitchell trade was to go along with Evan Mobley.

Evan Mobley made All-NBA last year, was Defensive Player of the Year.

And they have had to accept the reality that they can't build on Mobley's timeline anymore.

They have to build on Donovan Mitchell's timeline.

So that decision was a huge, gigantic decision.

And so that's why you end up trading and committing to a future contract with the 37-year-old instead of keeping the 26-year-old Darius Garland.