Grade the Trade: Warriors make huge upgrade in proposed summer homecoming

Laying out a Wiggins homecoming trade

Greg Swartz of Bleacher Report recently put together a list off five trades that teams were already thinking about making. In that piece he pitched a deal involving the Golden State Warriors and the Toronto Raptors, giving the two teams more to link them than simply the 2019 Finals.

The thought process behind the deal is that the Warriors are trying to win next season and the Raptors are not, and therefore Toronto may be open to moving more of its veterans after trading OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam this season. They also have traded for tow Canadiens in RJ Barrett and Kelly Olynyk, perhaps signaling a change in organizational philosophy. Players from Canada may be more reluctant to walk in free agency, after all.

Here is the trade that Swartz came up with:

For the Toronto Raptors, they buy low on Andrew Wiggins and hope to rehabilitate him and in the process add a two-way wing who (theoretically) fits in with any good team. Kevon Looney and Gary Payton II are other players included for salary but who are proven playoff players and could potentially even be flipped for further draft capital. Speaking of, they also get a first-round pick added in.

In return, they move off of a pair of veterans who may not factor into their next good team. Is the return here enough for Toronto to make this trade? Honestly, it's not likely -- Wiggins' deal surely has negative value on the market now, and if the Raptors are bad enough to move off of their remaining veterans what use do they have for Looney and Payton?

Yet let's entertain the thought for the moment that the Raptors do buy in; they value the veteran mentorship of Looney, flip GP2 to another team and think Wiggins will go back to the player he was in a new environment. If the Raptors do say yes to this trade, should the Warriors?