Malachi Smith Lands Raptors Camp Deal, But the Real Story Is Kawhi

Malachi Smith has a new address, but not yet a guaranteed job. The 26-year-old guard signed a training camp deal with the Toronto Raptors, a low-cost flier for a player who flashed real efficiency in a tiny sample to close last season. Across 15 games with Brooklyn in 2025-26 — four of them starts — Smith put up 8.3 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.3 assists on a 48.5/43.5/100 shooting split.

Those are pretty numbers on paper, and they help explain why Toronto took a look. But context matters: the Nets waived Smith on July 10 after exercising his minimum team option on June 30, purely to clear cap room. He's owed $2,185,116 next season, and right now he's one of 17 players on Toronto's books when the hard cap of an NBA roster is 15.

That math is the whole story here. Toronto has no open two-way slots and a payroll stuffed with both standard and camp contracts. Smith isn't walking into playing time — he's walking into a numbers crunch.

The Move That Actually Matters

The reason Smith even has a path is the pending blockbuster: Toronto is reportedly sending forward Brandon Ingram and guard Gradey Dick to the LA Clippers for Kawhi Leonard. Once that clears, exactly one roster spot opens up. Smith is fighting for it, mostly against undrafted Oregon center Nate Bittle, throughout the preseason.

For fantasy purposes, though, the Leonard side of this deal is the headline. Leonard sits at #9 overall in our rankings (#4 at his position) after a 2025-26 line of 27.9 points, 6.4 rebounds and 3.6 assists across 65 games, good for 45.9 fantasy points per game — an actual result, not a projection. Dropping him into a Raptors offense that just shipped out its top scorer changes the entire usage picture in Toronto.

Ingram is the man moving out, and he's no throw-in. He ranked #48 overall (#18 at position) last season, averaging 21.5 points, 5.6 rebounds and 3.7 assists in 77 games for 35.9 fantasy points per game (2025-26 actual), and he was trending up — his last five games came in at +3.1 versus his season average.

Gradey Dick is the other outgoing piece, and his fantasy stock is a different conversation entirely. Dick finished last season at #349 overall (#171 at position), scraping together 6 points, 1.9 rebounds and 0.7 assists over 76 games for just 10.8 fantasy points per game (2025-26). His last five were even worse — down 6.5 versus his average. A change of scenery can't hurt.

The Fantasy Fallout

Winners first. Leonard's arrival doesn't lift his own ceiling much — he's already elite — but it consolidates touches in Toronto and vaporizes some of Ingram's departed usage. Watch how the Raptors' remaining rotation redistributes those 21.5 points and 3.7 assists Ingram used to eat; whoever slides up the pecking order becomes a sneaky mid-round target. On the Clippers side, Ingram lands next to more shot creation, which could compress his usage even as it improves his shot quality — draft him as a solid but not screaming value at #48.

The clear loser in raw opportunity is Gradey Dick, though at #349 he barely registered anyway. A Clippers move keeps him buried but at least resets the narrative. Nobody outside the deepest dynasty leagues needs to act on him.

As for Smith himself: this is a bench-your-expectations situation. He's a training-camp body scrapping for a single spot that only exists if the Leonard trade finalizes, and even then he's competing with Bittle. If he's cut, the Raptors 905 in the G League is the likely landing spot. There's no fantasy case to make today — file him under watch-list and revisit only if he survives cuts and injuries force him onto the floor.