Trading No. 9 pick slam dunk for Ujiri

With holes to fill and young roster, it’s only logical move

There are two things about the Toronto Raptors that are undeniable, no matter who is in the conversation.

With an all-star backcourt, an emerging 23-year-old centre and coming off an appearance in the Eastern Conference final, Toronto is a pretty good team with some promise for the future.

And with a quartet of kids at the end of the roster taking up more than a quarter of the spots available, it is a team more than young enough.

And that’s why despite all his discussions about the myriad possibilities that await him with the No. 9 selection in Thursday’s draft, there is just one logical thing for president and general manager Masai Ujiri to do: Trade the pick.

With needs at power forward, backup centre and on the wings, there is a need for immediate, veteran help far more than there is for a young player who Ujiri admitted this week is not likely to make the Raptors appreciably better.

It will be up to Ujiri to do his due diligence with other general managers, agents and his cadre of advisors to figure out precisely what the trade should be, but he has to make it.

Maybe he makes a selection for some other team Thursday night that’s a precursor to an alreadyagreed to multi-player transaction that can’t work financially until the new salary cap numbers come into play in early July.

Maybe he makes the deal sometime Thursday afternoon or evening and lets some other GM make the pick.

Maybe he makes it and then waits for another team to pick the player he actually wants, and a deal gets announced midway through the evening’s proceedings.

No matter how it transpires, the best thing for the franchise right now is to turn an unexpected asset — obtained only because Ujiri was able to bamboozle the Knicks into taking Andrea Bargnani — into a tangible player who can help right now.

He said Tuesday he knew he could turn the ninth pick into something in a trade, and confirmed that it has value among his fellow executives so he has no reason not to make something happen.

Look at the group of rather underwhelming projects that present themselves at No. 9. All are okay, none knock anyone’s socks off and on this roster, it’s hard to see any of them having an impact quickly.

Going on the perception that free agent DeMar DeRozan comes back, at worst on a short-term deal that makes him free again a year from now, Ujiri owes it to the players and coaches to continue the growth pattern and to not be concerned about three or four years from now.

Luis Scola, bless his hard-working 35-year-old heart, is no longer an NBA starting power forward and Patrick Patterson, himself with only one year left on his deal, certainly hasn’t consistently distinguished himself as a starting stretch four in this incarnation of the league.

It’s impossible to say which specific player Ujiri might have in his sights in trade talks but he, more than anyone, knows the shortcomings on the roster. And if he admits a move is possible, it has to be for someone at a spot the Raptors need filled.

General managers can shake a tree and find a useful backup centre — especially true now in the age of small ball and particularly here since Jonas Valanciunas has to play 33 minutes a night — and a draft-andstash move with the 27th pick on Thursday may help satisfy the long haul.

And if they do believe in Delon Wright, Norm Powell and to a lesser degree Lucas Noguiera and Bruno Caboclo, couple that with some teenage prospect taken 27th and the longer-term future is OK. Besides, if it isn’t, with the way the salary cap numbers are going, the apparent willingness of ownership to add salary if Ujiri wants to, future moves can be contemplated at that time. Now?

Now is the time to turn a gift asset — “we’re blessed to have No. 9 selection,” Ujiri said this week — into some immediate help.

That happens by dealing the pick.