Masai Ujiri and the Toronto Raptors can now focus on the 2022 NBA Draft after their playoff elimination, as the club showed that they have several big wounds that need to be patched up with some shrewd wheeling and dealing. In possession of a high second-round draft pick, Toronto could land another quality contributor.
The Raptors are one of the best organizations in the sport when it comes to finding contributors late in the draft, and the Thad Young trade with San Antonio will give Toronto another chance to show how skilled they are in this area. Will there be another Norman Powell in this class?
The Raptors will likely address the lack of shooting and size in the first few days of free agency while perusing the trade market. Ujiri will use his only 2022 pick to get another hungry young player into the team’s developmental system. Nick Nurse hasn’t lost his ability to work with young players.
Toronto needs to consider going to the ACC and picking one of these four prospects from the Southeast coast of the United States in order to get even deeper as a team. All four of these prospects should be able to get some semblance of rotation time over the course of their rookie year.
4 ACC NBA Draft prospects the Toronto Raptors must watch.
4. Alondes Williams, PG, Wake Forest
After seeing inconsistent playing time in two years at Oklahoma, Williams made the most of his transfer to Winston-Salem, leading the Demon Deacons in scoring with 18.5 points per game. With 6.4 rebounds and 5.2 assists per game, the ACC Player of the Yera profiles as a better NBA prospect than teammate Jake LaRavia.
A strong and fluid 6-5 point guard, Williams can bully smaller defenders by getting to the rim and use his ingenious ball-handling to get in positions to set up his teammates. A solid defender due to his size and rebounding chops, Williams is not going to back down from a challenge.
Alondes Williams would give the Toronto Raptors depth.
Williams’ jumper is straight-up broken at this juncture, as he connected on just 27% of his 3-pointers in his college career. A 23-year-old who started off in junior college and had two seasons with under 7.0 points per game at Oklahoma, Williams isn’t going to have as much developmental upside as most Day 2 picks.
Williams is a prime candidate for the Nick Nurse shooting school. Nurse turned Scottie Barnes’ 3-point shooting into something that could eventually become a plus trait while Precious Achiuwa morphed into an elite catch-and-shoot player this year. Williams could be in for a similar bump in efficiency.