Hernandez falls into Raps’ lap after gap year
Toronto’s lone pick in draft a rangy centre out of Miami
A lost year may not have helped the only addition to the Raptors organization on draft night personally, but it may have helped him fall Thursday to Toronto, which was picking 59th.
Your newest Raptor is Dewan Hernandez, formerly Dewan Huell, and while he’s out of the Miami program, he hasn’t played there in more than a year.
The NCAA took care of that when it suspended him for the season after Hernandez was linked to one of the agents caught up in the FBI’S college basketball corruption investigation.
Had Hernandez stayed at Miami for his senior season, he would have been ineligible for 40 per cent of it.
Instead, after exhausting all appeals, Hernandez walked away from the University of Miami and spent the remainder of the year in Charlotte, N.C., working out with his agent.
Hernandez went through the draft process, but with not having played 5-on-5 basketball since March 2018, when the Hurricanes were knocked out of the NCAA Tournament by Loyola Chicago, there was obviously some rust.
Raptors assistant general manager and director of player personnel Dan Tolzman said that rust may have helped the Raptors land a rangy, six-foot-10 big centre with advanced agility.
Raptors GM Bobby Webster described Hernandez this way: “He’s a really talented kid. Obviously he had an unfortunate year last year where he didn’t get to play NCAA ball, but he’s 6-10, he’s agile, he’s skilled, he’s really competitive. He’s a guy we’ve followed probably for a few years now because he was a top recruit coming out of high school, so he’s kind of been a known commodity.”
But the odd circumstances that surrounded his situation obviously led to some uncertainty and that was a gamble the Raptors were willing to take.
“I think to some extent, maybe, we got lucky that he didn’t play last year,” Webster said. “He kind of flew under the radar. I think we all felt like had he had a full season, he wouldn’t have been available at 59. So we think we got a really good player and we’ll see here shortly.”
While the pick wasn’t unanimous in the Raptors’ draft room, Hernandez was at the top of their board when they made the selection. There was debate about the pick, but the potential upside of the player won out.
The Raptors had him in Toronto for a workout during their championship playoff run and saw him with the rest of the league at the combine in Chicago.
As for the NCAA rules violation, Webster said the team has done its due diligence and is satisfied with Hernandez.
“We were comfortable with that,” Webster said. “We brought him in, he came up to Toronto, we interviewed him, we put him through the full gauntlet of questions and asked him the hard ones. So we’re comfortable with his answers. It’s unfortunate and I’m sure it was an incredibly tough year for him.”
In his sophomore year at Miami, Hernandez averaged 11.4 points and 6.7 rebounds. After initially deciding to test the NBA waters after that second year, Hernandez changed his mind and was on his way back to Miami for his junior season when the FBI investigation turned his world upside down.
Hernandez was expected to arrive in Toronto Friday afternoon to get acquainted with the staff still in town. He’ll be part of Toronto’s entry at the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas next month.
As for the rest of draft night, Webster said it was rather low key for the Raptors.
Even without a pick a year ago in the draft, Webster felt they were busier than compared to this year with that one late pick in the second round.
“Obviously coming off the season we’ve had, it’s a different mindset of what you want to prepare for next season,” he said. “I would say, generally speaking, it was a quieter night. Doesn’t mean that there weren’t intense discussions in the late first, early second trying to get in and get some guys that started to fall, but we weren’t willing to sacrifice any of our future assets to get in.”
With just one player to show for Thursday, Tolzman was hitting the phones hard Friday trying to round out the Summer League roster. They certainly wouldn’t mind a repeat of three years ago, when they negotiated a deal to bring an undrafted Fred Vanvleet to Toronto.
“We’re always trying to find the next Fred, (but) it’s not easy,” Webster said.