Raptors must draft for need, meaning swingman

The Raptors are deep into their season, but for the team’s scouts, they must look ahead. Who do we need when we make our draft selection?

The NBA Draft takes place on June 22, and there’s a lot of hoops to play before then. Even so, we will be entering the prime viewing period for up-close-&-personal examinations of the world’s best young prospects. My colleagues and I here at Raptors Rapture will be taking reviewing a bunch of these hopefuls. Can we find a building block for the Toronto Raptors?

The Raptors will chose whichever is the better of their pick and that of the Los Angeles Clippers, which arrived gift-wrapped from Milwaukee as part of the Greivis Vasquez trade. At the moment they are neck and neck, so our team picking #22 is a reasonable guess.

Making an intelligent selection with the #22 pick is most difficult. Two guys selected there have been NBA head coaches (Scott Skiles and Randy Wittman), which suggests brains and effort can sometimes overcome modest physical capability to create a decent career, both playing and afterwards.

Talent vs. Need? No contest

As to the Draft for Talent vs. Draft for Need debate, I’ve never hidden my views. I take Need almost every time, particularly when you’re as far down the draft ladder as we are. We’re most unlikely to find a well-rounded player at that point in the evening.

An extreme example of the failure of Draft for Talent is the recent experience of the Philadelphia 76ers. In the midst of their “Trust The Process” period under GM Sam Hinkie, they picked Talent. As it happened, all those top draft picks were big men (Nerlens Noel, Jahlil Okafor, Joel Embiid). So where are the 76ers now? They have, or had, a grossly overcrowded frontcourt which created nothing but frustration. While the NBA was moving to an environment in which winning is impossible without a top-drawer point guard, they stockpiled big men. Noel was traded for 40 cents on the dollar to Dallas, Okafor isn’t worth half what they paid, and Embiid is hurt, again.

Doing the “draft the best guy and we’ll sort it out later” thing is thoroughly discredited.

What do the Raptors need?

In a word, shooting.

In baseball, a manager can live with a lot of strikeouts if occasionally his big bopper compensates with a home run. While the parallel isn’t exact, I’m suggesting we might be able to live with below-par defense if our draft pick can make shots, particularly from deep. You can hide a mediocre defender to a certain extent, by surrounding him with enough talent that his weakness isn’t glaring.

Let’s bear in mind: we aren’t likely to grab a starter-grade, two-way protege. Recent picks at #22 include Malachi Richardson, Jared Martin, and Jordan Adams, none of whom are All-Star candidates. Masai Ujiri drafted Kenneth Faried, who’s a rotation player at least, in this spot in 2011 for the Nuggets.

There’s no harm in starting our exploration. Luke Kennard of Duke is considered a late teens-early twenties pick. He’s a shooting guard whose game has taken significant strides this season, and I’m a sucker for improving players.

Still on the fence

I’m not prepared to anoint anyone yet as my selection. There’s a lot of NCAA ball left to play, and we can’t make an intelligent decision unless we see how guys perform under pressure. But Kennard is the kind of player I’m interested in. He’s likely to be still on the board, [20-second timeout: we won’t be doing reviews of Markelle Fultz or Lonzo Ball; this is a Raptors site, not an All The Young Dudes one] he can shoot, and he plays at an elite school. It’s reasonable to assume he’s been well-coached and is productive against tough competition.

I won’t be watching March Madness games with blinkers on. If there’s a big man who catches my eye, I’ll pay attention. But I want you to know my starting position.

Anyone you want me to focus on, Rapture Nation? Let me know in the Comments.