Title: Draft profiles: 6 guards and bigs the Raptors could select with the No. 58 pick
Date: July 2, 2020
Original Source: The Athletic
Synopsis: In my latest for The Athletic Toronto, I wrote about six interesting guards and bigs the Raptors could target with their late second-round pick or on the undrafted market.
There is value late in the draft if you know how to look for it. Often, that has meant a nose for translatable big-man skills in profiles otherwise perceived to be flawed, or high-floor guards who maybe have a bit less shine coming out of college.
Of the 16 highest late-draft (Nos. 45-60) producers of win shares since 2000, 13 are guards or bigs. The modern NBA puts a premium on wings here in 2020, but historically the league has done a better job unearthing gems at either end of the positional spectrum. In more recent years, teams have done a bit better finding wings, such as Norman Powell, Sterling Brown and Dillon Brooks. By and large, though, the draft seems better suited to finding non-wings of value.
When I rolled out the first three groups of draft profiles, I did my best to split them by functional position (guard, wing and big instead of the five traditional positions) and focus on players who had been requested in the comments. The lines between guard and wing or wing and big might be thin for some players, similar to picks Nos. 28 and 58 in a draft like this.
Blake Murphy Sports Writing 