Title: Raptors draft profiles: 6 players Toronto could target on the first-round bubble
Date: November 12, 2020
Original Source: The Athletic
Synopsis: In my latest for The Athletic Toronto, I wrote about six players the Raptors could target at No. 29 in the draft who we hadn’t yet profiled.
The normal pre-draft process is about more than just determining which player a team will select.
The Toronto Raptors have made good use of an expanded draft search under this front office to create baselines for players that they can chart progress from. It allowed them to get a more intimate look at how Matt Thomas developed in his first two seasons overseas. It intrigued them that Oshae Brissett was rapidly putting feedback from that process into action at Summer League. It offered a glimpse, through the G League Elite camp, how Dewan Hernandez might receive coaching.
There are plenty of obstacles a pandemic pre-draft process has presented. For a team like the Raptors, with later picks and a track record of strong player development, the loss of those baselines to measure developmental capacity — the likelihood a player actually makes it from current floor to ultimate ceiling — might be paramount. That’s part of why we’ve heard a little less about risers, from body changes to strong workouts to tangible skill improvements, or fallers, from medicals to the black box of personality-based interviews, during this process.
Blake Murphy Sports Writing 