Raps add another small guard to roster with Flynn
The newest piece of clay for the Raptors to mould is Malachi Flynn.
Toronto chose the six-footone guard from San Diego State with the 29th pick in Wednesday’s NBA draft and now must begin transforming the teenager into a professional.
Flynn, a native of Tacoma, Wash., was the defensive player of the year in the Mountain West Conference. He averaged 17.6 points on 44 per cent shooting and 37.3 per cent threepoint shooting, and added 5.1 assists per game.
He spent two seasons at Washington State before transferring to San Diego State.
“I think Toronto would be a great fit for a guy like him,” SDSU assistant coach Chris Acker told Sports Illustrated before the draft. “He’s a bluecollar guy … I think people are gonna really, really fall in love with him.”
The Raptors had plenty of time to contemplate the first opening round pick they have had since 2017, when they took OG Anunoby with the 23rd selection.
General manager Bobby Webster said this week he estimated the team spoke to about 70 players, almost double the usual number of workouts or interviews they would have conducted. It’s impossible to say how it will work out.
“It forced us to watch a lot more film so … just a lot of different ways of evaluation,” Webster said this week. “And, as has been stated elsewhere, we won’t know how much it hurt or helped the league in the evaluation until a couple of years down the line.”
The Raptors now have two pressing matters to deal with: the NBA free agency period that opens Friday and trying to fill out training camp and Raptors 905 rosters with players who went undrafted on Wednesday night.
The free agency picture should become clear quickly because teams can start official negotiations with players on Friday and sign them Sunday.
Filling out rosters might be more tricky because there should be intense bidding among teams. The draft process, with little time to work players out, and the condensed nature of the off-season will have everyone scurrying. “You don’t have Summer League, you don’t have an evaluation period to go watch guys that may go undrafted,” Webster said. “So I think in this case you’re going to have to make those decisions based on your evaluation and not based over what may happen over the course of the summer.”