Raptors executive talks this week's NBA draft, Brandon Ingram trade and more
The wildest thing about seven-game NBA Finals series is that nobody has time to take a breath before the pages turn, flipping one season to another.
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Just two days after league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the victorious Oklahoma City Thunder lifted the Larry O'Brien Trophy, some of the potential new faces of the NBA gather in New York for media availabilities, followed by the draft on Wednesday and Thursday.
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The Toronto Raptors have been hard at work prepping for the draft for some time (they first laid eyes on some of the prospects when they were early in their high-school careers) and assistant general manager Dan Tolzman answered media questions about the crop on Monday afternoon at the team's practice facility.
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Toronto is slated to pick ninth and 39th. Dallas is expected to take Duke phenom Cooper Flagg first, Rutgers guard Dylan Harper should go second to San Antonio, but after that, it's wide open.
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Here's a sampling of what was covered by Tolzman:
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ON THIS YEAR'S CROP BEING BETTER THAN LAST?
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'Not necessarily. We liked last year's draft, too. It's such an eye-of-the-beholder thing,' Tolzman said on Monday afternoon.
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'I think this is a very strong draft. I think it's maybe a little deeper just in terms of guys who can come in and impact right away. But I just think drafts are like this every year. You convince yourself that there's either a ton of talent up top and and not much elsewhere. This year I feel like we like where we're at and we're kind of focusing on that more so than what a normal draft look like or previous drafts look like.'
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Tolzman said there has been a lot of interest in teams trying to trade for their lottery pick, but didn't indicate any move is close. He also said it's possible Toronto trades for another mid-round pick if a guy they've ranked highly is still on the board.
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He added they were thrilled to land Ja'Kobe Walter, who they expected to go far higher, at 19 last year.
It could be prospects who think they won't last until nine skipping, or others thinking they will be taken a lot later that didn't want to waste a valuable visit on an unlikely landing spot, but it happens every year.
He said workouts aren't the be-all. end-all (Walter didn't come in for either a workout or have a meeting with the Raptors at the draft combine) as long as they have good intel on the player like they did with Walter.
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'We scout these guys so much during the season that what a workout does, doesn't really sway you that much,' Tolzman said.
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'There's a lot of guys who don't think they'll be on the board at nine. And if they happen to be, we're gonna consider them just like we would have had they been here (for a workout).'
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'It doesn't seem like there's many options out there, at least to move up. I think there's a lot of people that have the same feeling as we do that the top 10, the lottery, whatever, is a pretty good place to be,' said Tolzman, who has been with the Raptors since 2013.
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'It's an interesting group of players around there. I wouldn't say (there's an) any-percentage chance that we do one or the other, but there (are) definitely conversations being had of teams trying to get into the top 10 for the same reason as why we like being here right now.'
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