The Toronto Raptors have had a long and interesting draft history. There have been ups and downs over the years, but today we’re focusing on the positive.
Whether it’s 20 picks deep or even later, the Raptors have earned a reputation around the league as one of the premier talent evaluators in the land, so much so that Raptors fans have come to trust second-round selections with a faith most fanbases reserve for lottery guys.
Which players have broken the mold and emerged as the best draft steals in Raptors history?
Some criteria for this list; the higher the pick, the less likely they are to appear (so no Scottie Barnes over Jalen Suggs action when it’s top five), undrafted players aren’t eligible (sorry, Fred VanVleet), and we’re going from least to most impressive.
Top 6 biggest draft steals in Toronto Raptors history.
6. Delon Wright
After his days as a backup combo guard for the Raptors, Lady Luck hasn’t been kind to Delon Wright. However, remember that before he started being passed around NBA bottom feeders year after year, he was one of the more reliable backups in the East.
Playing two memorable years at Utah in college, Wright was one of the best players in the Pac-12. His sophomore season resulted in a run to the NCAA tournament alongside future NBA elites Jakob Poeltl and Kyle Kuzma. That Utah team lost in the regional semi-finals, but not before vaulting Wright up the NBA draft board.
At the same time, the Raptors had seen their second consecutive year of playoff basketball but had lost in the first round both in the 2014 and 2015 post-seasons. The Lowry and DeRozan backcourt was one of the best in the league, but with Sixth Man of the Year Lou Williams departing for greener contracts, the Raptors needed a replacement guard off the bench.
Delon Wright was a steal for the Toronto Raptors.
Enter Wright, picked 20th overall in 2015. Capable of playing the point or off-guard position, Wright was able to slot right in and contribute valuable minutes as a table-setter, but more importantly as a defender by picking up the opposing team’s best guard when one of Lowry or DeRozan sat.
Wright’s best Raptors season came in 2018, where he averaged an important 8.7 points, 3.3 assists, and 3.5 rebounds per game on respectable percentages.
Getting shipped to Memphis alongside Jonas Valanciunas in the Marc Gasol deal, Wright was playing the best basketball of his career. This deal allowed the Raptors to land the big man who’d go toe-to-toe with Joel Embiid in the Eastern Semis and then build the Giannis Antetokounmpo wall in the Conference Finals.
Wright, now in Washington, wasn’t a star, but he was a good value role player in the late first round.
5. Tracy McGrady
It might seem odd to categorize any No. 9 pick as a draft steal, but to understand why this selection was as savvy as it was, one must consider the context of its day.
McGrady was taken directly out of high school to join a Raptors squad that had their two prior lottery picks screaming for release from the team. Incoming third-year Damon Stoudamire was a statistical juggernaut his first two years in the league, and all-rookie big man Marcus Camby was proving himself a defensive force. This would make the selection of an athletic scoring wing like T-Mac obvious, right? Wrong.
Both Stoudamire and Camby weren’t too keen on playing north of the border, a non-Canadian sentiment shared by fellow star draft picks like Steve Francis and Shareef Abdur-Rahim. An unproven project like McGrady wasn’t exactly steadying the ship off the bat.
Tracy McGrady played well for the Toronto Raptors.
It’s worth considering that there was barely any history of high school draft picks coming in and succeeding at the NBA level. Even then, most prep to pro names were big men. Still, McGrady managed to average 11.1 points per game in Toronto, culminating in 15.4 per game at age 20 in the 1999-2000 season.
The Raptors still decided to swing on McGrady. We know the rest of the story with T-Mac’s rise and Toronto and further ascension in Orlando, but the judgment call to draft McGrady was much more difficult than his selection would seem at first glance.
4. Norman Powell
A four-year senior out of UCLA, Powell’s age and lack of size saw him fall to the 46th overall pick, only to become a steal that the Raptors traded for on draft night. Norman Powell has been a hot commodity for the past few years, but not even his impressive scoring seasons can hold the candle to his 2016 coming-out party.
Splitting time early on with the Raptors 905 his rookie year, Powell quickly established himself as a cut above the rest. Averaging 25 points per game in the minor league, Powell was quickly called up to the Raptors’ active roster where we would slide in during small forward DeMarre Carroll’s injured stretches and pick up DeMar DeRozan’s slack on the defensive end.
This peaked in the 2016 playoffs, when in the Eastern Conference Finals, a broken Raptors squad at the end of their rope assigned Norm to guard a rampaging LeBron James. This seemed like the Raps waving the white flag, but against the odds, Norman Powell did a better job at staying with James than any other Raptor.
Norman Powell stuck around for the Toronto Raptors.
The Cavaliers would go on to win the series, but it was at that moment that Norm fully proved himself as a man who belonged to the big leagues. Since then, Powell has gone on to play valuable backup minutes on the 2019 title team and averaged almost 20 points a game for the 2020-21 Raptors before moving on to Portland.
Norman Powell will be remembered as one of the brightest Raptors stars in what would become a dynasty of late-draft steals for Masai Ujiri. Powell’s scoring has helped him sign a huge contract with the Blazers and earn a well-deserved trade to the contending Clippers.
3. Morris Peterson
It’s unfortunate that Peterson played when he did. As a 6-8 sharpshooter, Mo Pete would see the league move in his favor in the decade following his retirement. Had he been drafted ten years later, we could have seen him spacing the floor for Lowry and DeRozan in the playoffs. 20 years on and Scottie Barnes would be driving and kicking to him instead of Will Barton.
Instead, Peterson was drafted in 2000, a severely underwhelming class that produced a grand total of three collective All-Star appearances (shout out to Michael Redd). Peterson fell to the 21st pick where a Raptors, desperate to replace the recently departed Tracy McGrady, scooped him up.
An older rookie, Peterson was an instant rotational piece backing up Vince Carter. Playing valuable minutes in the Raptors’ 2001 playoff run, headlined by a 17-point, 7-assist performance in a must-win game six vs. the 76ers.
Morris Peterson was solid for the Toronto Raptors.
Peterson and his penchant for crazy 3-pointers would go on to be a great player during one of the worst stretches in Raptors history; the post-Vince Carter, pre-All-Star-Chris Bosh stretch where the team wasn’t good or interesting. He ended up being a wasted talent, but a talent nonetheless. It’s not his fault he couldn’t carry the team to more wins.
Had Peterson arrived a few years earlier, he could have thrived in his prime as Vince’s wingman. A few years later, he could have rounded out those Bosh teams. Instead, Peterson becomes one of the faces of a forgettable stretch in Raptors history. He was a great player who outperformed his draft spot by averaging 12.0 points per game with strong defense in seven seasons, but had terrible timing.
2. OG Anunoby
This draft pick is a microcosm of Masai Ujiri’s “buy low, sell high” management mentality. Anunoby was a projected lottery pick before suffering an injury-riddled freshman season at Indiana. This caused him to fall to 23rd in the draft where the Raptors were more than happy to scoop him up.
As a prospect, Anunoby was a powerfully built forward whose defensive abilities were his main selling point in the draft. His jump shot was inconsistent, and he had no on-ball creation ability. He could barely dribble, but he fit the archetype of the most valuable roleplayer in the 2010s Eastern Conference—namely, a live body to throw at LeBron.
The Raptors were on their way to earning the “LeBronto” moniker, and the revolving door of mediocre small forwards wasn’t helping matters. Anunoby’s offense was in question on draft night, but his defense wasn’t. For that alone, he was worth the 23rd pick.
OG Anunoby became a star for the Toronto Raptors.
We have seen him blossom into an offensive weapon on top of growing into an all-defensive staple and one of the most sought-after pieces during the 2023 trade deadline, but what’s made Anunoby so valuable has been his ability to thrive without bogging down the team’s system.
He isn’t a star, but he’s potentially the most valuable role player in the entire league. An elite defender, and quality spot-up shooter without high usage, every team wants an Anunoby.
1. Pascal Siakam
What can we say about Pascal Siakam? Taken 27th overall in 2016, Siakam has changed the shape of his career and play style so many times that it’s difficult to keep track, but we’ll try.
Pascal 1.0 was a lanky, 22-year-old rookie with no elite NBA skill to speak of. He wasn’t exceptionally fast or strong, couldn’t jump out of the gym, and didn’t shoot very well. He’s a nice energy defender, but the 38 games he started his rookie said more about the Raptors’ need for a power forward than Siakam’s skills at the time.
Pascal 2.0 is born in the 2019 season. This version has developed his patented spin move and improved his handles to where he could create a bit for himself off the dribble and finish gracefully inside. He hit his free throws and was a decent three-point shooter. This is the year he wins league MIP and plays a vital role in the playoffs to help lead the team to the NBA championship.
Pascal Siakam has been amazing for the Toronto Raptors.
Pascal 3.0 has seen the departure of Kawhi Leonard and the aging of Kyle Lowry. Here, we saw Pascal continuing to improve his game but struggling under new pressures and attention. Defenses know his moves and are making him their primary target. His statistical boom gets him into the 2020 All-Star game, but he fails in the bubble playoffs. He’s graduated from the best of role-players to the worst of stars. Still a net positive, but it’s an unfortunate exercise in relativity.
Pascal 4.0 is the current iteration. This version of Siakam has played as the No. 1 option on his team for three consecutive years and has never stopped improving. He’s become a true point-forward capable of dominating the ball for serious stretches of the game. He’s become a deadly mid-range scorer, continued to add to his crafty interior game with moves on moves on countermoves, and has made his second All-Star team despite being written off the previous year.
Siakam’s career improvement is so drastic that it’s almost more a feather in the cap of the training staff than the team scouts. Seeing the potential in the player he was to become, Ujiri pulled off one of the best late first-round picks in NFL history.