Raptors Rapture
Fansided

Toronto Raptors: Five best draft picks in team history

By Jason Mills

24 Jun 1998: A picture of Vince Carter (L) being traded to the Toronto Rapters and Antawn Jamison (R) being traded to the Golden State Warriors during the NBA Draft at the General Motors Palace in Vancouver, Canada. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY
24 Jun 1998: A picture of Vince Carter (L) being traded to the Toronto Rapters and Antawn Jamison (R) being traded to the Golden State Warriors during the NBA Draft at the General Motors Palace in Vancouver, Canada. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
5 of 6
Next

4. Power forward – Toronto Raptors select Pascal Siakam

Toronto Raptors
Toronto Raptors, Pascal Siakam (Photo by Kim Klement-Pool/Getty Images) /

If the 2016 NBA Draft were to be revisited knowing what we know now, there is not a chance the Toronto Raptors would have been able to select Pascal Siakam 27th overall. Masai Ujiri either got lucky, or 26 other general Managers made a mistake, including Masai Ujiri.

It’s an arguable point that Siakam should have been among the top three or five picks that year. Yet, the Toronto Raptors selected Jacob Poeltl ninth overall, 18 spots before they called Pascal Siakam’s name. Pascal Siakam is an NBA Champion already and has just completed his fourth NBA season.

While this year was tumultuous in both good and bad ways for the Raptors’ power forward, there is no denying his meteoric rise. He went from scoring 7.3 points to 16.9 points to 22.9 per game over the last three seasons. He became an NBA Champion in 2019, but he was also named the league’s Most Improved Player.

However, while the 2019/20 season saw him improve offensively again, he struggled during the bubble-restart in Florida to the 2020 NBA season. Perhaps it was not touching a basketball for three and a half months, or perhaps it was the pressure of being the main scoring option (he had Kawhi Leonard to take the heat off of him in 2019), but Siakam struggled in the playoffs mightily.

He will need to take his game to another level to be considered an elite NBA all-star, but he is almost there.