The Toronto Raptors select 29th at the 2020 NBA Draft, which is being held on November 18th, 2020. Regardless of whether they keep the pick or trade it, the Toronto Raptors have made some fine selections at the NBA Draft since 1995.
The Toronto Raptors have had a quarter-century of experience selecting fresh young talent to add to their roster each year. Like any team, there have been horrible selections, and there have been great ones.
The NBA Draft, if used correctly, can help a team improve at the moment and for the future. Especially in the modern game, most NBA franchises have a G-League affiliate where young developing talent can be sent to improve.
In the case of the Toronto Raptors, that is the Raptors 905. The Raptors 905 have played a huge role in Pascal Siakam’s development and Chris Boucher and Fred VanVleet.
Historically, the Toronto Raptors’ draft selections between 1995-1998 include some very prominent names in the NBA, such as Tracy McGrady or Marcus Camby. There have been some horrible choices, too, like Alexsander Radojevic or Raphael Araujo.
The 2020 NBA Draft is less than three weeks away, and the Toronto Raptors will select 29th if they keep the pick. For a contending team in what amounts to a weak talent pool this year, the Raptors could trade right out of the draft or trade-up. The following is a look at the five best draft day selections in Toronto Raptors history.
1. Small forward/shooting guard – Vince Carter
Vince Carter is the best draft pick the Toronto Raptors ever made, the most exciting player they ever employed, and simultaneously the most hated alumni in team history. The vitriol spewed toward Carter, for the way he exited town in the worst trade ever executed by the Raptors, turned to admiration once again over the last few years.
Now retired, the player known in Toronto as “Air Canada” or “Half Man, Half Amazing” was acquired on draft night at the1998 NBA Draft when the Raptors swapped their pick, Antawn Jamison, for his North Carolina Tar Heel teammate Vince Carter.
Vince Carter would electrify the Toronto fanbase for 6 and half seasons with jaw-dropping dunks. Perhaps his most famous dunk, other than his slam-dunk contest-winning efforts in 2000, was at the Summer Olympics when he quite literally leaped over a vertical seven-foot Frederic Weis of France and at full stretch posterized the French big man as depicted below.
It’s the weekend, so grab your favorite cocktail & let’s talk sports! Ryan will talk about:
— A-Round for the Weekend (@BellyUpAFTW) September 25, 2020
- college football’s latecomers;
- the MLB playoff picture;
- & mark the 20th anniversary of “The Dunk of Death.”
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While in Toronto, Vince Carter amassed 9,420 of his all-time 25 728 career points for 19th on the all-time scorer’s list. In all, Carter played 21 seasons for eight teams and retired this year.
Vince Carter had a profound generational impact on basketball in Canada, as documented in the film, the “Carter Effect.”
2. Shooting guard – Toronto Raptors select DeMar DeRozan
DeMar DeRozan was drafted in 2009 ninth overall by then Raptors General Manager Bryan Colangelo. Until the 2018 trade that sent DeRozan to the San Antonio Spurs, DeRozan formed one-half of a dynamic backcourt duo, with best friend Kyle Lowry, a combination which was often mentioned as one of the best in the game.
DeRozan and Lowry were great in isolation basketball and were masters at drawing opponents into unnecessary contact leading to foul shots. DeMar DeRozan is on this list at number two because not only did he get better almost every year he was in Toronto, but because he was a leader on the Raptors who during his time appeared in five consecutive NBA Playoff tournaments.
The team also went to their first Eastern Conference Final with DeRozan as its top star. With 13,296 points, DeMar DeRozan remains the all-time top scorer in Toronto Raptors history, and he is third all-time in assists behind Kyle Lowry and Jose Calderon with 2,078. Unfortunately, he could not help the Raptors attain a championship as he was traded in 2018 for Kawhi Leonard, who helped the Raptors to claim their first NBA title in 2019.
3. Power forward – Toronto Raptors select Chris Bosh
The 2003 NBA Draft historically is one of the richest collections of basketball prospects ever considered. Except for the Detroit Pistons misfiring with the second overall pick selecting Darko Milicic, three of the top five selections are sure-fire Hall of Famers.
With 17,189 career points, Chris Bosh is the 96th highest scorer in NBA history. It’s quite possible, if he didn’t suffer from blood clots cutting his career short at age 31, he might have been the fourth player in the 2003 NBA Draft to be considered Hall of Fame-caliber.
In his seven years in Toronto, the Toronto Raptors made it to the NBA Playoffs twice in 2007 and 2008, failing to move beyond the first round both times. It’s been ten years since he last wore a Toronto Raptors uniform, but he is still second all-time in team scoring and first in rebounding with 4776. He is still the team leader in blocked shots with 600.
4. Power forward – Toronto Raptors select Pascal Siakam
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.
5. Center – Toronto Raptors select Jonas Valanciunas
The seven-year run of playoff success that the Toronto Raptors are enjoying has continued even though two key components to its existence are no longer with the team. DeMar DeRozan was traded in the 2018 off-season for Kawhi Leonard, and then before the 2019 trade deadline, Jonas Valanciunas was upgraded to Marc Gasol.
This is the beautiful and ugly part of drafting well. The Raptors need a center this off-season, but to win the NBA Title in 2019, management decided to turn an in his prime Jonas Valanciunas into a veteran like Marc Gasol.
Selected fifth overall in the 2011 NBA Draft, Jonas Valanciunas spent a year in Europe before making his way to the Toronto Raptors. He has a career average of 12.4 points per game and 8.9 rebounds. What was impressive about Valanciunas’ time in Toronto is that during his five playoff runs he had in Toronto, it’s arguable whether he or Norman Powell at times was the Raptors best playoff performer.
He appeared in 43 playoff games with the Toronto Raptors and ranked third on the team in shots blocked with 479 all-time. He is also second all-time in total rebounds as a Raptor with 3,961.