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2022 Free Agents - Dalano Banton

Summary
Despite being a mid-second round pick, Banton played a solid amount for the Raptors, especially earlier in the season before Nick Nurse starting cutting his rotation and playing his starters the amount of minutes you don't normally see in the regular season.

The Raptors don't have a ton of passing on their roster, so Banton's skillset comes in handy as a playmaker with some size. Banton is also physically a good fit in Toronto as they clearly have the priority of just putting a ton of length on the floor. He has often gotten the backup point guard minutes over Malachi Flynn, the Raptors first round pick in 2020.

Banton will likely need to either shoot better from outside or improve defensively to become anything more than a back-end rotation player, as he's shooting 24% from three thus far, and his overall eFG% of 44% was near the bottom of the league. He also struggled to be efficient in the pick-and-roll, as the Raptors only scored 0.558 points per possession with Banton as the ball-handler in pick-and-roll, per Synergy.

It is extremely unlikely that Banton hits free agency in 2022, and instead Banton will hit restricted free agency in 2023.

 
Cap Considerations
Banton's $1.6 million salary for 2022-2023 is non-guaranteed, and if he is waived he will become an unrestricted free agent and the Raptors will have no form of Bird rights on him. If the Raptors waive Banton, any team could claim him off waivers since his contract was signed using the Minimum Salary Exception.

If Banton becomes a free agent, other teams will have multiple ways to sign him as even teams without cap space could use any of the Non-Taxpayer MLE, Taxpayer MLE, Room MLE, or Bi-Annual Exception to sign him. I would also say that in the scenario Banton is waived and clears waivers, his value will have dropped low enough that he would only have offers for the minimum.

Potential Teams: Raptors, Pelicans, Mavericks, Grizzlies, Heat

Predicted Contract: Not waived: $1.6 million

Actual Contract: Not waived: $1.6 million

As expected, Banton was not waived and made the opening roster, so he'll hit restricted free agency in 2023.

Last updated: 10/17/2022

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