There was faint hope that the events of draft night would somehow bring some clarity to the Toronto Raptors’ quest to put their disappointing finish to last season behind them.
It might and the night seemed like a big step in that direction, if not exactly how might have been expected. At the very least the picture is getting more interesting all the time.
The Raptors will look – and sound – different heading into next season thanks to Masai Ujiri dealing big talking, defence-optional combo guard Greivis Vasquez to the Milwaukee Bucks for a future first-round pick and the No. 46 pick in Thursday’s draft. The upshot is that Ujiri is managing the difficult feat of reloading his roster and remaining competitive at the same time. The Raptors will have two first-round picks in 2016 (thank-you Andrea Bargnani!) and two in 2017, providing the Los Angeles Clippers (it was their pick that the Bucks traded) make the playoffs.
Where the other shoe lands is speculative at this point but moving Vasquez frees up $6.6 million in cap space heading into free agency. It means Ujiri can create as much as $23 million in cap space if he chooses to renounce both Lou Williams and Amir Johnson.
Would that be enough to add multiple pieces to a core that needs reinforcements? Ujiri sounds like he’s going to try.
“We’ll look, we’ll look. Our eyes are all open now,” he said. “That’s what this period is all about in the NBA. It goes from one season to another. It was draft season and now it’s free agency.”
There is already an expectation that the Raptors will make a run at Cory Joseph of the San Antonio Spurs. The pride of Pickering, Ont., is a restricted free agent who might be an unrestricted free agent if San Antonio renounces him to clear cap space for a bigger fish in free agency. Regardless, they could be vulnerable to a well-crafted offer sheet and the Raptors are in a better position now to be that team.
That’s thinking a bit conservatively. Would Ujiri roll the dice and use all his cap space and some of his future picks to pursue an elite player either via trade or free agency?
There are possibilities now, and Ujiri is at the very least not one to get dragged down by those. On the contrary, he seems to thrive on them.
“This is the business. We’ve slowly started growing here and you want to build your team, but sometimes you are stuck with contracts, you have to go through some time,” he said. “We’re coming to a time where we have to make some decisions. We’re going to face it and try to make the best decisions we can make.”
The draft itself couldn’t have worked out better as the Raptors were able to backfill their suddenly slim guard rotation with Delon Wright, a polished senior point guard from the University of Utah who at 6-foot-5 has the size to guard both backcourt positions and the reputation as the kind of ball hawk that could warm head coach Dwane Casey’s heart.
He averaged 14.5pts/5.1 assists/4.9 rebounds and 2.1 steals last year, while shooting 50.5 percent from the floor, with an improving three-point stroke. He’s 23 and the brother of NBA journeyman Dorell Wright, currently with Portland.
"He’s one of the top defensive point guards in the draft, he’s not going to be too overly excited about the NBA being the brother of Dorell and one thing he does is defend and run the pick-and-roll," said Raptors head coach Dwane Casey. "Great kid, good character, good team guy and excellent passer.
"He reminds me a lot of Nate McMillan as far as a big, long point guard that we had in Seattle that can defend multiple positions," Casey said. "He’s a little older than your typical 19 or 20 year old coming into the NBA today, but that is good. He knows the NBA.
He’s from Los Angeles and knows DeMar DeRozan, who called him shortly after the pick was announced.
“He just told me I had nothing to worry about, he was going to take care of me, make sure I did my best and get after it,” said Wright, who cited defence, playmaking and IQ as his best attributes.
There were surprises almost from the get-go. The first pick went as expected with Kentucky’s Karl-Anthony Towns, who will join Andrew Wiggins in Minnesota as part of long, uber-athletic tandem that should give the Western Conference fits for years.
After that things kept breaking the Raptors way with players like Terry Rozier (16 to Boston) and Sam Dekker (18 to Houston) perhaps going higher than might have been projected.
Is Wright the answer? Unlikely, but he fills a need and point guard is usually a place that value can be gained later in the first round.
The Raptors took Norman Powell, a shooting guard from UCLA with the 46th pick they picked up from Milwaukee.
On the Canadian front, Trey Lyles of Saskatoon, by way of the University of Kentucky, was taken 12th overall by Utah and will be joined there by Olivier Hanlan of Aylmer, Que., who starred at Boston College.
Nearly every year there are players taken later in the first round or even in the second that turn into impactful contributors in time. Just last week the Golden State Warriors were led to an NBA title in part by Draymond Green, taken No. 35 overall in 2012. Their first big man off the bench was Festus Ezeli, taken No. 30 in the same draft. One of the better player in Raptors’ history, Morris Peterson, was taken No. 21 overall.
Time will tell if Wright will contribute in any meaningful way, any time soon.
But at the very least the Raptors are positioned to be a different – and potentially considerably different – team heading into free agency and next season.