Toronto Raptors: Why The NBA Draft Is The Best Way For This Franchise To Rebuild
Just to get things clear, the NBA Draft or any draft in any league, is whenever young players from either college, Europe, Asia, etc., are picked by teams to join their squad.
Many teams have been able to make wonders using the draft. The best example of this is Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.
In the 1984 NBA Entry Draft, the Bulls picked Jordan with the third pick. Jordan not only gave the city of Chicago something to cheer about, he did amazing things: He was the first player to be named to the All-Star team in his rookie season, has won multiple MVP trophies, six NBA championships and was recently promoted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
He is also considered the best basketball player to ever play the game. Those are just a few of the accomplishments that Jordan has completed.
How this ties into the current NBA is the fact that any team can get someone with such a big skillset to Jordan's. The closest player to come to Jordan is Kobe Bryant (13th Overall, 1996) and although Kobe is an amazing player, he is nowhere near Jordan's potential and legacy.
The Toronto Raptors have a top-notch General Manager (will be referred to as GM) in Brian Colangelo. Recently, as the Phoenix Suns GM, he was the man who drafted All-Stars Amar'e Staudemire and Shawn Marion with much criticism.
He was later brought over to Toronto in order to do the same thing. His first major chance to get a good player from the draft came in 2006. The Raptors had won the lottery, with only a six percent chance and drafted Andrea Bargnani.
This move came with criticism in the future, as Bargnani is not a very good rebounder. He makes up for his bad rebounding with his smooth jump shot. If he can increase rebounding, then he can easily be a top 35 player in the current NBA (possibly inbetween 27-35). He is yet to reach his prime and is currently the leader for this young Toronto Raptors squad.
If Colangelo can get some low or high lottery picks for the future drafts, then expect the Raptors to be fifth-eigth seed playoff contenders in the Eastern Conference.
He recently drafted Power Forward Ed Davis with the 13th overall pick in the most recent NBA draft and is hoping that Davis can bring an end to Toronto's defensive struggles with his great rebounding and shot blocking skills.
This season, the Raptors are just trying to get through their first Bosh-less season. So far, they have exceeded expectations going 10-19.
Although that is not and will never be a spectacular number in terms of a win-loss record, it is higher than what many analysts thought they would be, which was with a 6-23 record.
The Eastern Conference is not a very strong conference after the sixth seed, meaning the seventh and eighth seeds are open for grabs. These positions are normally occupied by .500% and below teams.
If the Raptors are kicked out of the playoff picture with about 10-20 games left in the season, expect them to start losing some games in order to get a high lottery pick around first and seventh overall.
Although the draft does bring greats, it also brings in the not-so-greats; so much as a player might look good statistically entering the draft, but they might not be able to reproduce and expand on those stats at the NBA level.
If the draft doesn't work out, then Toronto has a smart GM. One of his smartest recent acquisitions includes trading the struggling Hedo Turkoglu for Leondra Barbosa. While Hedo is still struggling and hoping to find comfort back in Orlando, Barbosa is looking as if he is sixth man of the year award potential.
Thank you for reading and leave your thoughts on how the Raptors can rebuild in the comment section below.
