The Toronto Raptors' 2026 Summer League team features intriguing names and potential breakout candidates, but no name should catch the eye of Raptors fans more than Jamarion Sharp.
The 7-foot-5 giant is a shot-blocking monster who won the NBA G League Defensive Player of the Year last season, posting 3.8 blocks per game for the Dallas Mavericks affiliate. With Toronto in need of size and center play behind Jakob Poeltl, the 24-year-old has a chance to potentially earn a real role with the regular-season Raptors through his play in Las Vegas.
Throughout his basketball career, Sharp has been an elite shot blocker, averaging 3.7 blocks per game over his three D1 college seasons and 3.5 blocks per game over his two G League campaigns. The biggest thing holding a shot-blocker of his caliber back from breaking through at the NBA level is how unpolished the rest of his game remains
Outside of blocking shots and grabbing rebounds, Sharp doesn’t provide much else defensively or on the offensive side of the basketball. This is why the summer league is a great chance for him to finally earn a role in the NBA, as it won’t take anything crazy for Sharp to earn a role, given how desperate Toronto is for some frontcourt help.
Sharp's path to earning a role with the Raptors
The No. 1 thing Sharp can do in the summer league to catch Bobby Webster is finish plays at an efficient rate. He doesn’t have to be flashy or pull off crazy post moves, just catch the ball in the post, go up with hooks and dunks, be a threat in the pick-and-roll, and catch lobs. If he can do things efficiently as he did in the G League the past two years, with a combined 66.2 percent field goal percentage, he’ll have the front office's attention.
Something that pairs well with his finishing plays and threat in the pick-and-roll is setting a quality screen. One of Sharp’s biggest downsides is that, despite having incredible height and length, he is very thin-framed, listed at 225 pounds. When you’re that thin, being able to set a hard, solid screen can be tricky. But for Sharp, that’s a crucial next step and something that, if he can figure out, will boost his chances of playing in the NBA next season.
Staying on the topic of his thin frame, that’s a huge reason he is so limited defensively. While his 7-foot-9 wingspan makes it easy to provide weakside help or be a roamer defensively, he often gets posted up and overpowered by average-sized bigs. Even though he can’t just get stronger overnight or in the small amount of time he is expected to spend in Vegas, it’s a crucial piece in his NBA breakthrough.
The other key piece defensively is whether Sharp can improve as a defender in space. Sharp, like most players his size, is often caught flat-footed when dragged out of the paint. If he can start to use his incredible length to force tough contests and manipulate those perimeter matchups in his favor, he’ll be in a much better place defensively.
Given the positional value Sharp offers the Raptors with their current center depth, he already has an advantage over the majority of his summer league teammates. But if Sharp really wants to solidify himself, earning a standard or more likely a two-way contract, being able to finish plays, rebound, improve as a defender in space, and continue being an elite shot blocker are all things he needs to do.
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