Many NBA first-round picks are pre-ordained.
Their talent, size and circumstances have them at the forefront of the basketball conversation for years before the NBA ever comes knocking.
Allen Graves, the versatile forward taken by the Raptors 19th overall in the first round on Tuesday, was not that kind of prospect.
The first person he had to convince that elite basketball was his path forward was his mother.
The way Graves tells it — and the gregarious 19-year-old can tell a good story — he was nursing an elbow injury suffered playing football (“I love football, growing up in Louisiana, you kind of have to play football, you got to love it”) when he told his mom, Amy, that he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his older brother Marshall and older sister Amoura who played college basketball at LSU and Auburn, respectively. At the time, Graves was six-foot-one and carrying a little bit of extra weight, and his mom gave it to him straight.
“She told me — we're in the car — and she was like, 'Well, I don't think you're athletic enough, you're not tall enough, if you want to play a college sport, then I think it's gonna be football, so you need to stick with it,’” Graves recounted at his introductory press conference in Toronto on Thursday. “I was like, ‘I'm gonna show you, mom.'”
What followed was a growth spurt that changed everything as Graves went from six-foot-one to six-foot-seven over the course of the summer prior to his Grade 10 year. Two Louisiana state championships and recognition as player of the year as a senior followed, and Graves' path became more evident.
“Shout out my mom for helping me grow,” he said.
Even at that, Graves' road to the NBA and hearing his name called in the first round of the draft was uncertain. He was relatively lightly recruited coming out of high school, eventually choosing to play out of state at Santa Clara where he red-shirted his freshman season and came off the bench for all but four games this past season.
But as his year unfolded, the possibility of making the jump to the NBA began to take shape.
“I would say a switch flipped in my mind — being willing to go out there and show what I can do — I’d say the first time was after (playing) Gonzaga at Gonzaga. After that, I was like, ‘All right, I’m gonna get it this year, not next year, not the next one after. This year,” said Graves, who registered 18 points, five offensive rebounds and a blocked shot in a two-point loss against the ‘Zags, who ranked 12th in the country at the time.
“… That’s when that switch flipped in my head and (I’m) really thankful toward my brother. He was a big part of that. He came out there right before one of the games, right when conference (play) started. We worked out, we started watching film, getting everything going. Once we started that, it slowed down even more for me and really helped me be here now.”
Per sources, Graves was among a small pool of players the Raptors were tracking closely as one of their preferred choices with the 19th pick. When his name was still on the board, the enthusiasm in their draft room was palpable.
Graves fits the profile Toronto seems to be favouring as a versatile defender with a knack for disrupting opponents' possessions (as indicated by his averages of 1.9 steals and nearly one blocked shot in just 22 minutes played per game) while gaining extra possessions for his own team (he averaged 2.9 offensive rebounds) and using them efficiently (41.3 per cent from three and a 61.3 per cent true shooting mark).
It’s a range of attributes that make the now-six-foot-eight Graves a strong choice based on advanced metrics and a fit alongside Raptors forwards Collin Murray-Boyles and Scottie Barnes.
Graves said the way he approaches to game is a tribute to the work ethic demonstrated by his father, also named Marshall — “he worked four jobs trying to make sure we were well taken care of, so just watching him, how hard he worked in life … it just transferred over to the court” — and his own view of what winning basketball looks like.
“I've heard I've been the analytics darling of this class. I mean, I don't really take it as nothing, obviously it’s a title, but that's how I play the game,” said Graves, who cited improving his footspeed defensively and dialling in his shooting as his focuses for the summer.
“I feel like that's just what I do on the court. I don't look into the analytic side of it, never have, and just that's just the way I play basketball, is I guess it is good on analytics charts. So I just want to impact winning, that's all. That's all I care about doing, and that's what I plan to do here in Toronto, and just making sure that I’m making the winning plays, whether that's diving on the floor, whether that's going to get the loose ball, making a shot, whatever it may be, I just want to win.”
It’s a similar theme expressed by Raptors second-round pick Jaden Bradley. The 22-year-old fourth-year guard out of Arizona taken 50th overall brings a similar energy and a similar college profile to Raptors guard Jamal Shead as a hard-nosed guard out of a winning program.
“I just feel like the NBA is a very talented league, with one-and-dones and all that stuff,” said Bradley, who was Big 12 player of the year while leading the Wildcats to a 36-3 record before they lost in the Final Four to eventual champions Michigan. The six-foot-two guard has a reputation as a dogged on-ball defender and who shot 39 per cent from three last season.
“But when it comes to NBA-ready players, the four-year guys have experience in college, they’ve had their ups and downs, so I feel like those guys are pretty mature and more ready for the NBA,” he said.
Each of Graves and Bradley will continue their journey from college basketball to the NBA when the Raptors convene for NBA Summer League in Las Vegas next month.
