Toronto Raptors: Grades for the past five first round picks
Bruno Caboclo
The illustrious drafting history of Masai Ujiri started off with…. Bruno Caboclo. If first impressions are your thing, this certainly was not a good one. Caboclo is the only true disappointment on this list, but man did he disappoint.
The player who Fran Fraschilla famously described as “Two years away from being two years away”, turned out to never make an impact for the Raptors. Over the course of four seasons, Caboclo appeared in just 25 games and played a TOTAL of 113 minutes. Not good.
During the time of his selection, Caboclo was a known gamble. Athletic, long, and raw as steak tartare, Caboclo’s ceiling was the roof. Unfortunately, like many players, Caboclo never reached that ceiling and is now on the fringe of an NBA roster.
The results of this pick certainly do not hold up, but the reasoning was sound. In order to find a Giannis Antetokounmpo, you need to take risks. Sometimes those risks end up being Bruno Caboclo.
The reasoning may have been sound, but that doesn’t make the missed selections taken after Caboclo any easier to stomach. The 2014 draft was filled with late-first and second round steals such as Clint Capela, Kyle Anderson, Jerami Grant, and Nikola Jokic.
Of course those are just the highlights. Not all the picks after Caboclo worked out. The pick immediately following Bruno was Mitch McGary who is already out of the league (And apparently a professional bowler now).
Still, with Capela, Rodney Hood, and Shabazz Napier all being selected in the next five picks, it’s reasonable for Toronto to have expected some value from the pick.