Raptors Interested in Clippers' Guard Bledsoe?

Earlier today news broke that the Toronto Raptors were interested in Los Angeles Clippers' guard Eric Bledsoe.

Apparently the Dinos are one of several teams interested in Bledsoe, and this is likely no surprise to Raptors' fans, considering the team took a very close look at drafting him back in 2010, ultimately choosing Ed Davis when he fell into the team's lap.

Here's our recap of Bledsoe's pre-draft workout for the Raps back then.

To get the deal done, it sounds like Toronto would be open to moving Andrea Bargnani and potentially DeMar DeRozan but obviously the Raps would need to take back a sizeable contract to make this work. One option could be Bledsoe, who's entering the final year of his rookie contract, along with Caron Butler, to Toronto, in exchange for Bargnani and DeRozan. The move would potentially allow Butler to start at the 3 in Toronto, with Rudy Gay manning the 2-guard spot, or have Butler backing up Gay at the 3, with Bledsoe starting at shooting guard beside Kyle Lowry.

Ahhhhh yes, Kyle Lowry.

This is where this rumour gets interesting.

As many commented yesterday on the site, there's not a huge difference between Lowry and Bledsoe in many ways, the obvious one being Bledsoe's age. But both are athletic, score-first types, who can be bulldogs on defence, and rebound the ball as well as distribute and score. Bledsoe is certainly more athletic, but frankly hasn't shown much of an ability to run a team himself as of yet.

And yet if the Raptors make such a move, it hardly makes sense to keep Blesoe AND Lowry, so a transaction of this nature would potentially be the first in a series of dominoes, the next one to drop perhaps being Lowry, dealt to another club.

Apparently the Clippers however aren't so enthralled with the Raptors' offers so far (SHOCKING!!) and new coach Doc Rivers would prefer to hold onto Bledsoe, and other players such as DeAndre Jordan.

So we'll see what happens here.

The bottom line to me is that the mere fact that this discussion between the teams is taking place, means that both Lowry and DeRozan are players who could be on the move. This to me is a good thing as to truly get this ship back on course, pretty much everyone on this team should be up for grabs with maybe, maybe, the exception being Jonas Valanciunas.

And even then, if the right deal comes along...