Post Draft Poll: Grade the Raptors Draft

[Duffman100]

F. 2 years of rebuilding and we didn't land a high upside young offensive talent. Now the roster needs a trade or 2 to improve. Easier said then done.

who was the high upside offensive talent they passed over?

It's also easier said than done to acquire a young offensive talent.

[OakleyDokely]

F. 2 years of rebuilding and we didn't land a high upside young offensive talent. Now the roster needs a trade or 2 to improve. Easier said then done.

who was the high upside offensive talent they passed over?

It's also easier said than done to acquire a young offensive talent.

It's very easy to generalize and pontificate without offering actual solutions.

[traps#10]

F. 2 years of rebuilding and we didn't land a high upside young offensive talent. Now the roster needs a trade or 2 to improve. Easier said then done.

We Failed at tanking, and we still have glaring holes on our roster. Thought we were suppose to make a push for this upcoming season? Unless Masai has a trade up his sleeve, this current roster doesn’t look promising.

[TorontoBarneys]

C.

Two incredibly mid picks.

[tms]

I like CMB and love Martin. Positive attributes galore. I generally hate picks so this haul can only be viewed as a win lol. They may not be future MVPs but 28 other teams also feel that way today. Appreciate the parting gift from Masai. I haven’t been this bullish in years. B+ (I rounded up).

[Naysorn]

They went after a specific type of player and really seemed to alter the identity of the team. We went from feeling like a pretty soft squad to having Dawgs all over

I give it a B+

I would give higher but they specifically said they wanted to add a big via draft to the developmental pipeline and they failed to do so

they did not say this

bobby going into the draft said they can fill the center spot through other means so they will draft BPA

Bobby said "they would like to add a big" in the draft. He said it during the interview with Will lou...I'm not saying they didn't change their mind but thats what he said

he also said they can always find these guys outside of the draft and they will be going for BPA.

[Walid]

Roster construction is horrible

[Morris_Shatford]

From the perspective that I generally have little confidence most of the 240lbs + 6' 11" center types will pan out;

A -

CMB was the guy I wanted who was left on the board @ 9
Martin I forgot existed till the pick was made but in the second round I won't cry about a scrappy player who won a chip in college.

I don't have a huge opinion on Hepburn, but ACC defensive player of the year has to mean something.

[tsherkin]

I'll be honest, I wanted us to trade the pick. I'm not super excited about the pick, but the draft is... different than when I first started paying attention to basketball. Considerably more volatile, and with what feels like a far lower chance of acquiring an impact player as opposed to a project. Feels more like all of those years of teams chasing HS potential. So my bead on what is and isn't good isn't particularly strong right now.

I like the talk around his defensive potential. I think he's a little small, but true 7-footers with the skills to thrive in today's game aren't easy to come by. Hell, even 6'10 dudes with that, and we do have Yak. So working as a reserve, floating between the 4 and the 5... maybe I'm being a little conservative in my evaluation.

Screens well. Runs hard in transition. He takes contact well. He cuts well around the paint. Like, if he was 2" taller and Al Horford-sized, I'd probably be a lot happier about this, so I guess it's time to revisit how much I value raw height. Like, what if that was all neck height ala Chris Bosh? So maybe it's time to reconfigure my thoughts. We'll see.

I gave this draft a B.

I don't know much about Martin, and 2nd rounders routinely don't amount to much but they're also super low-risk.

[Jay_Hawk]

I gave it an A. I like that we’re putting an emphasis on toughness and attitude.

And from here on out I’ll be watching more film on prospects under 6’2. Turns out, the Raps aren’t looking for the next Giannis but rather the next Lowry

[theonlyeastcoastrapsfan]

I gave it a B. Seems moot since apparently he’d already been told he was fired before he made it.

[Walid]

F. 2 years of rebuilding and we didn't land a high upside young offensive talent. Now the roster needs a trade or 2 to improve. Easier said then done.

who was the high upside offensive talent they passed over?

Kasparas was on the board.

[WuTang_CMB]

Toronto Raptors
• Selected Collin Murray-Boyles (No. 9) and Alijah Martin (No. 39)

Until the last couple of months of the season, the Raptors struggled to defend under coach Darko Rajakovic. They finished 25th in defensive rating in his first year and were 26th in defensive rating before this year’s All-Star break. However, after the break, they were second in the NBA over those final 27 games. But the team’s final 20 games included 11 against the Wizards, Brooklyn Nets, Jazz, Hornets and Philadelphia 76ers. So it’s fair to say that there were some sustainability questions about their late-season defensive performance.

So what did the Raptors do? They loaded up on their defensive infrastructure. Murray-Boyles is probably my favorite defender in this class who isn’t a guard. He is a dynamic, multi-positional defender who has exceptional basketball IQ and hand-eye coordination. He’s a playmaker who averaged 1.5 steals and 1.5 blocks per game, and he’s an elite communicator on that end who is unbelievable with his reactive help instincts. I love his fit as a versatile defensive chess piece for this team, and my ideal fit for him was within an organization that understands how to use him both as a four and as a small-ball five to weaponize his elite strength and length. The Raptors should be perfect for that, as the team experimented often with Jonathan Mogbo as a backup five. Murray-Boyles is a significant upgrade on Mogbo in that role. He has questions offensively because of his inability to shoot right now. But if his jumper comes along in the slightest, he’s going to be a serious impact player.

The Raptors also took one of my favorite second-round prospects in Martin. He’s small, but he’s a tank at 6-foot-2, 210 pounds, and he’s the epitome of a winner. He asserts his athleticism on the game and on his opponents with his explosiveness and his motor. Defensively, he’s tough and a terrific on-ball defender. He fights and scraps for loose balls and has a fairly sizable shooting track record at this point. Even if he’s not elite as a shooter, he has at least proven that he’s confident taking them while hitting 36 percent from 3 on over 800 career collegiate attempts. His presence this year gave Florida the attitude and aggressiveness that it needed to win a national title.

I love drafts where teams identify needs and take valuable players to fill them. This is a perfect example.

Grade: B+