Drama begins before a pick has been made
Big names have been traded, top pick has been swapped, and that’s just for starters
To say it’s been a whirlwind week around the NBA would be the grandest of understatements; there’s hardly been a week like it in years with trades, trade talk, front-office departures and expected player departures leaked a year ahead of time.
D’Angelo Russell is a Net, Dwight Howard is a Hornet, Jimmy Butler is, for now, still a Bull, and Paul George has yet to squirm his way out of Indiana. No one seems to be fully in charge in Cleveland after general manager David Griffin was shown the door, and one-time Raptors wheeler and dealer Bryan Colangelo threw himself in the middle of the fray by dealing Philadelphia’s third pick to Boston for the No. 1 selection in Thursday night’s draft.
The draft still remains full of intrigue, the trade possibilities around it are close to endless and the evening could be explosive.
After the Sixers make Washington point guard Markelle Fultz the first pick, no one can be certain what will transpire. The Lakers have the second pick and are focused on UCLA guard Lonzo Ball, unless De’Aaron Fox of Kentucky is their man. Boston dealt back to third to take Josh Jackson of Kansas, unless they want Jayson Tatum of Duke.
After that, it’s equally murky because the rampant trade rumours floating around could change not only the order of selection but the players chosen, depending on need.
And into it all, sitting back and waiting to see what falls to them are the Raptors, armed with the 23rd pick and a collective look of bemusement at all the shenanigans.
Toronto doesn’t have a glaring need right now but four key rotation players — point guard Kyle Lowry and forwards Serge Ibaka, Patrick Patterson and P.J. Tucker — will be free agents in about a week. It is against that backdrop that president Masai Ujiri works.
“I think this is why you wait and go through the process of evaluating your team and see what happens in the NBA,” Ujiri said this week. “One day it’s quiet, the next day it’s noisy. That’s just how the NBA works. With all of these things going around, you make calls, you listen to calls and you see what fits your team.
“Leading up to the draft and on draft day, that’s another deadline that we work with on our side. Things will shake up a little bit and we’ll see how it affects the Raptors.”
Like every other team president or general manager worth his plush corner office, Ujiri is keeping his thoughts private. He won’t discount trading, he won’t dismiss taking a player to stash overseas for a year or two, he won’t admit that one skill is more desirable than another for the Raptors.
“We are really open-minded with this pick, it’s not very often you see a pick in the 20s that can contribute right away, but sometimes we say, ‘you never know,’ ” he said.
One thing Ujiri is not worried about is adding to a long list of young players who need time to develop. He already has Jakob Poeltl, Pascal Siakam, Delon Wright, Fred VanVleet, Lucas Nogeuira and Bruno Caboclo, but the Raptors president knows there will be a premium across the league on growth from within.
“With the way the new CBA is going, constructed, I feel that player development is something we have to pay attention to, so whatever young players or draft picks we have, we have to pay attention to it,” Ujiri said. “You never know when you’re going to hit with that or something pans out that will help your team in any kind of way.”