Title: NBA Draft Prospects: Six guards the Raptors could select with picks No. 46 and 47
Date: July 7, 2021
Original Source: The Athletic
Synopsis: In my latest for The Athletic Toronto, I took a look at six guards who could be on the Raptors’ radar with their two second-round picks.
I love draft season.
For those who have followed my work back to my time as our NBA Draft lead at theScore, I think my process has been fairly well-established. For those of you who are newer to the draft cycle — and hey, it’s not as if the Raptors have given you a ton of high picks to focus on — I want to start off this first batch of deeper dives with an important annual acknowledgment: I am in catch-up mode this time of year.
It’s not reasonable, or even possible, for a full-time beat writer to also watch enough college hoops over the course of the season to have the same level of insight as someone like our draft guru, Sam Vecenie. I watch college basketball during the season as a fan, and while the introduction of the G League Ignite program and some FIBA windows have given me additional looks at some players, it’s important for me to engage in this work with the caveat that I’m starting from a baseline established by more draft-oriented experts.
To wit, you’ll see Vecenie’s ranks noted for each player below, as well as a composite rank, which takes 14 different boards from a variety of sources into account. The aim is to mix establishment draft opinions with independent evaluators, highlighting potential gaps or areas of disagreement that work as a big flashing light as an area I should look into more closely. I take that consensus rank, then look at mock drafts to determine who might be available to the Raptors with their picks. And then I dive into stats, video and some other tools, all with a Raptors-centric lens.
Blake Murphy Sports Writing 