Raptors top pick may not contribute next year
Many mock drafts have Ujiri selecting a project big man
Now is a time of great importance for Raptors president Masai Ujiri, owner of a bonus lottery pick in Thursday’s NBA draft before he heads into the free agency period trying to improve a team that fell just two victories shy of playing for the league championship.
It could be seen as a time of great stress and great pressure as well, the period when a talent evaluator with final say over the construction of a roster can ill afford to make a major mistake that could set his franchise back significantly.
It speaks to Ujiri’s nature that not only did he seem unbothered by the circumstances Tuesday, he spent a fair amount of his time chatting with the media making light of the whole affair.
He joked about All Over The Place Monday leading into All The Options On Your Board Tuesday and was quite excited and not at all daunted by the possibilities that lie ahead.
“There’s no pressure to me. I can never feel there is pressure or we can’t feel that way,” he said. “I tell my guys: It better work out. That’s the pressure. This is how I grew up in the league and there is so much pride in it. It’s how my guys grew up . . . such an exciting time for us. We don’t look at it as pressure at all.”
It is true that in some regards Ujiri has a bonus card to play Thursday night, when he owns the No. 9 pick in the draft courtesy of the New York Knicks and an Andrea Bargnani trade, as well as Toronto’s own No. 27 pick. It’s a bit of an embarrassment of riches and provides myriad opportunities to make moves.
“You continue to narrow and narrow (the list of possible suggestions) and when you have a bunch of guys you have different options,” he said. “You can look at trading the pick, you can look at drafting a guy who doesn’t come right away, you can look at a player you can draft and develop slowly.
“We just feel it’s a great position for us to be in.”
Ujiri plays cards so close to the vest that there is no chance of even prying a list of candidates from him. A variety of mock drafts circulating narrows the group to a collection of big men including Domantas Sabonis, Ska Labissiere, Henry Ellenson and Deyonta Davis but even Ujiri admits it’s a stretch to think any of them would be of immediate assistance.
“I don’t know if it’s a draft where we can go and get somebody who will impact our team right away,” he said.
“And we have to take that . . . and look at it a different way. Is it a player that’s three, four years down the road and that player has a high upside? We have to look out for the organization that way.”