7 Stars the Toronto Raptors missed drafting by a single pick

2005 - Drafted Roko Ukic, one pick after Monta Ellis

We covered the first-round whiff that the Toronto Raptors made in the 2005 NBA Draft, but we stay in that year's draft for their next near-miss. In the last draft where players were eligible to be drafted straight out of high school, every player who didn't want to play a season in college tossed their name into the draft.

That included Monta Ellis, a 6'3" shooting guard from Mississippi who could dribble the ball on a string and never met a shot he didn't like. The Golden State Warriors took him with the 40th pick of the draft and landed a player who won Most Improved Player his second season and was averaging 20.2 points per game by his third.

Ellis was a walking bucket, pulling up for silky jumpers or gliding to the rim for acrobatic finishes. He was a deadly scorer who wasn't enough of a playmaker to man the point but was small enough that he was forced into it often enough. He was eventually eclipsed by Stephen Curry and bounced around the league over the back half of his career, but to land a scorer as potent as Ellis with the 40th pick was a coup.

Unfortunately for the Raptors, they owned the 41st pick in that draft. Instead of landing a dynamic scoring guard like Ellis, they drafted European combo guard Roko Ukic. The decorated Croatian guard waited a few years to come over to the NBA, and when he did he lasted just two seasons in the league before returning to Europe for a larger role.