Raptors Draft Watch: Reading the Tea Leaves from the End-of-Season Media Availability

What did coach Darko Rajakovic and President Masai Ujiri say during their respective media availability that could indicate the direction of the team’s roster construction?

Coach Darko Rajakovic and President Masai Ujiri talked a lot during their respective end-of-season media availability, and they should, as they had a lot of questions to answer.

In this corner of the internet, we care more about what these guys said regarding the draft. Hopefully, we can pick up some clues about the team’s strategy going into the draft season.

Rajakovic did not go into depth about his draft thoughts. Still, the comments on the president and the coach on separate occasions have something in common: this team needs talent.

Let’s see what they have to say.

Draft-related tidbits from Coach Darko Rajakovic’s End-of-Season Presser

Re: Team needs

Every team needs the same thing: it needs great players. And that’s where I’m really excited that flexibility that you were talking about and potential draft picks and all of that mean, Bobby and Masai are the best in business and they do a really good job of evaluating the talent and putting the team together so I have absolute trust in in them that they’re going to build the best roster possible for us.

It’s not a secret that Darko Rajakovic did not have a lot of options once you get past the 7th player on the roster, including the opening night roster. Is Scottie Barnes a great player? Potentially, and he could very well be on his way there. In today’s NBA, you need several great players in the top 50 and a handful of great role players to be in the upper echelon. The Raptors’ new core, Barnes (63rd), RJ Barrett (71st), and Immanuel Quickley (92nd), were all outside of the top 50 of ESPN’s “100 Best NBA Players for ‘23-24,” and while Barnes has a case to be inside the top 50, the team will need more talent that will better augment this new core and coach Rajakovic’s offense. Every coach wants a better roster, as better players will make a coach’s offense and the coach, as a whole, look way more competent.

Re: Positional depth

It’s its size, its skill, its ability to cover multiple positions. It’s potentially (a) backup point guard. You know, we’re still about to have all of those conversations to really assess what we have. And before we head into decision making. But just like I said, I have utmost trust in Masai and Bobby, and we’re going to have a lot of conversations this summer. So I’m sure we’re gonna come up with great solutions for us.

The Raptors made a significant philosophy shift this season, parting ways with their stash of vision 6’9” players, including their most skilled player (Pascal Siakam) and their best defender (OG Anunoby). The team appeared undersized on nights with Kelly Olynyk in the middle, particularly if Barrett and Barnes didn’t step up defensively. We’ve witnessed games where Ochai Agbaji and Garrett Temple played power forward, and the results were less than ideal, especially if coach Rajakovic persisted with that strategy. The bottom line is that the front office will approach this draft and upcoming free agency with a substantial list of the team’s needs, highlighting the team’s need for improvement.

What’s telling here is coach Rajakovic hinting at a backup point guard. Based on how the season went down – including the Raptors trading Dennis Schroder and not bringing a ball handler to force coach Rajakovic to put the ball on Barnes’ hands more, it’s expected to see Immanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett, and Barnes take turns running the point, and alternating as the secondary creator. So why bring another point guard if the minutes might not be there? Unless….

Draft-related tidbits from President Masai Ujiri’s End-of-Season Presser

Re: Draft class reputation

It doesn’t matter. You know, like I think players are found everywhere, I can guarantee you, they’re going to be two, three, all stars that will come out of this draft here. It happens every year happens all the time. You know, like, and it’s on us, it’s just with the responsibility is on us to find those players wherever we pick. So we can complain about the draft or draft class as much as we want. You know, I think maybe sometimes people say the bad draft class was Giannis’ class but Giannis, Gobert, those guys got picked from that class. So we we have to do our jobs, and it’s on us.

The Raptors have the potential to secure three picks (6th?, 19th, and 31st) in what draft pundits call a ‘weak draft.’ However, this doesn’t diminish the importance of the draft. As Masai rightly points out, it’s their job to unearth the best talent available. Even in the all-time worst draft class of 2000, there were at least 10 players who could have been an instant upgrade and immediately slotted in as the 4th, if not the 5th best player on the team right now. This presents an intriguing opportunity for the Raptors to bolster their roster and address their needs.

Re: Summer cap flexibility

You can view it in many ways. That’s the joy of beauty of having flexibility. So you could use it in players, you could use it to take in contracts and assets, you could use it in many ways. And we wanted that flexibility for our ballclub here. I think where we are as a team, we’re going to see how we develop and how we grow. We’re going to see how the summer starts off with our players. And we’ll see how we’ll use that cap space.

Masai has several picks, tradeable contracts, and cap flexibility to operate starting this coming draft. With a semi-empty canvas, there’s little restriction tying Masai’s hands when it comes to roster decision-making, so we might witness some exciting moves as early as this coming draft. If the Raptors end up keeping the pick, will they cash out? Or will they use their assets to obtain picks for the following year’s draft? The possibilities are intriguing.

Raptors GM Bobby Webster echoed the same script a few days before Masai’s presser. Bobby mentioned hitting singles, and those are probably the type of players that they are looking for in this draft and perhaps free agency.

Re: Keeping/Conveying 1st round pick

Anyway it goes, anyway it goes, we will be grateful. We’ll be happy. if we’re not in the top six, we get our pick next year. If we’re in the top six then you know what, we go out and find the best guy or find whatever transaction that there is, to make the best use out of it.

Masai previously wanted no part in this draft. Still, one of his terrible moves as the key decision-maker can get even worse. According to Tankathon, the Raptors have a 45.8% chance of keeping their pick if the ping-pong balls give them either the top 4 or the 6th pick, so the odds are slightly against them. It’s perfectly fine to be indifferent about this pick, as conveying it might be for the best, as the 2025 draft class is loaded.

Re: Draft/Free Agency player-type targets

I think when you look at the draft, I think it’s going to be best talent. And we always look at the talent. But when we when we when we attack the draft, but honestly, like our team is not at a point where we can really pick and choose. I know backup point guard is something that we’ll we’ll focus on a little bit. I think a wing defender type player is something we’ll we’ll focus on, I think we’ve been lucky in the in the last year or so with a really, maybe a backup big that is young kinda suits us in some kind of way. We had high hopes, we forget that one of the shockers this year for us was Christian Koloko. And we had high hopes for Koloko on how he was going to play for us and a future center for this team. And that didn’t work out for health reasons. And also Jontay Porter, you know, like, we don’t know where that’s going to go. So I think those were two good finds for us that fit our program, you know, like that. Maybe we were unlucky on this in some kind of way.

It’s interesting to see what the Raptors’ front office will do if they pick in the top six. Could it come down to Alex Sarr vs. Zaccharie Risacher? What if neither one’s available? Nikola Topic? Matas Buzelis? What’s telling here is, much like coach Darko, Masai’s first position that he mentioned is the point guard spot. Reed Sheppard, Rob Dillingham, and Topic are all in the top six range if the Raptors are shopping for a point. It’s less appealing than the PG crop once you get past the lottery range. However, there are still some decent ones like Devin Carter, Jared McCain, and Isaiah Collier.

Or are we going back and redo the “Vision 6’9”? A wing-defender type of player will have to play behind Scottie Barnes and RJ Barrett, and he will have to compete with Ochai Agbaji for the remaining minutes unless coach Darko plays unconventional lineups as coach Nick Nurse did.

Are the Raptors looking to move on from Jakob Poeltl? With Poeltl and Kelly Olynyk on the fold, very few minutes are available at the centre spot. However, none of these guys figure into the Raptors’ future.

At the end of the day, the Raptors don’t have plenty of depth to be picky. They need talent in several key areas, so drafting the best talent available, even if he’s “two years away from being two years away” might be the best move in this year’s draft.

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2024 Indiana Pacers’ Pick

The Orlando Magic, Los Angeles Lakers, Indiana Pacers, and Philadelphia 76ers all finished with a 47-35 record at the end of the season. Unfortunately, conference, division, and play-ins don’t affect the seeding of non-lottery teams when two or more teams finish with the same record. Instead, the league will do a random drawing to break the ties.

The Pacers’ pick had a chance to go as high as the 16th pick, but instead, it ended up with the worst-case scenario, landing 19th, the lowest among the four teams. At least now, the mock drafts can recalibrate their boards to reflect these broken tiebreakers.