The NBA off-season moves at lightning pace.
After a swirl of trades and rumours of trades in recent days has helped give a new outline to the Eastern Conference, for the Toronto Raptors, Tuesday night was a moment of relative calm, a pause in a continuing storm.
It was time to do what an NBA front office is supposed to do: Choose the best player available when their turn comes around.
The Raptors, picking 19th, were inevitably dependent on who was taken before them. In the end, they got Allen Graves, a player they had been hoping would be available all along and who multiple sources had indicated to me was high on their board of eligible prospects.
A six-foot-eight freshman from the University of Santa Clara, Graves fits a lot of what the Raptors want to do under head coach Darko Rajakovic, as he jumped out on analytical models for his ability to gain possessions by way of his remarkable steal rate (1.9 in 22 minutes per game) and knack for offensive rebounding (2.8 per game). That he can shoot — he converted 41.3 per cent on nearly three attempts per game from deep — is a bonus.
“As a player, he’s a high processor, two-way player, wins the possession game, I think, on both ends of the floor,” said Raptors general manager Bobby Webster. “Obviously a developing player as well, just played one year of college, so he’ll have the usual and typical adjustment to NBA pace, speed, quickness. But sort of a young prospect that we think does a few things really well on the defensive end, and then offensively, obviously shooting, feel for the game. So we thought we got one of the better two-way players in the draft.”
Never let it be said the Raptors don’t have a type when it comes to big wings who can defend. Webster’s initial vision for the newest Raptor?
“Most likely I see him wreaking havoc (on defence( with CMB (Raptors forward Colin Murray-Boyles), right? That’s probably the easiest one.”
The Raptors have had considerable success picking in the middle and bottom third of the draft in the past. Most recently, Ja’Kobe Walter, taken 19th as a freshman out of Baylor in the 2024 draft, emerged as a key rotation player on a playoff team midway through his second season. In previous years, the Raptors have had success drafting Delon Wright (20th) in 2015, Pascal Siakam (27th) in 2016 and OG Anunoby (23rd) in 2017. If Graves approaches that level of success in any way, shape or form, the Raptors would undoubtedly be thrilled.
For his part, Graves, 19, seems determined to give his best shot. In addition to the way his attributes popped on the Raptors’ analytical models, Graves also made a positive first impression on a personal level when he visited the team’s practice facility during the draft process.
He certainly sounds like he’s got a firm grasp of his path towards earning minutes in the Raptors rotation.
“I feel like I have a great feel for the game, very cerebral player, just offensively, just being able to be that connector piece,” Graves said after being selected. “I don’t need the ball in my hands. I don’t need to score a certain amount of points. But just being able to make the winning plays, being able and willing to do anything that the team needs of me, and then on the defensive end, just being able to win the possession battle: deflections, steals, things like that, and rebounding. That’s where I plan to impact most.”
But for all the promise Graves might have — not to mention who the Raptors might draft with the 50th pick when the draft resumes Wednesday — there are more immediate concerns the Raptors will need to sort through if they plan on maintaining or improving on the fifth-place finish they earned in the Eastern Conference last season.
“Now we’ll turn our attention … to trades and free agency,” said Webster. “I think people saw a couple big deals that went down, and not that they were holding up the rest of the league, but I think they gave everyone a chance to exhale. And we’ve been stockpiling a lot of assets (over the years), having our first-round picks, having players under rookie scale contracts (and) that’s allowed us to build and be the youngest team in the playoffs. But at a certain point, we want to be opportunistic in the trade market, and so now we’ll look to do that over the course of the summer and even into the trade deadline next season.”
The conference has shifted significantly with the reported trade of two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo to the Miami Heat, a deal that can’t be made official until July 6th. Whether adding the oft-injured 31-year-old Milwaukee Bucks star will age well, it’s hard to argue that the Heat — who finished 10th last season — won’t improve as long as Antetokounmpo can stay healthy. The 2025 NBA finalist Indiana Pacers should rebound to the top tier of the East after an injury-driven slide this past season, the upstart Charlotte Hornets have another year of growth under their belts, and the bottom-feeding Washington Wizards seem ready to pivot to competitive relevance.
In addition, the Bucks’ trading of Antetokounmpo could have a domino effect, with Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown reportedly a trade target after he was offered to Milwaukee in a potential deal, and the Bucks are clearly open for business after moving on from their long-standing franchise superstar.
NBA sources I’ve spoken with have connected the Raptors to Bucks centre Myles Turner, with the possibility that Raptors centre Jakob Poeltl, third-year wing Gradey Dick and potentially draft compensation being the core of a deal that would net Toronto the veteran big with credentials as a rim protector and three-point threat.
Absent that, the Raptors will likely need to clear out some salary to have a better chance at re-signing stretch big man Sandro Mamukelashvili, whose perimeter shooting gives him an outsized significance to the Raptors lineup.
Keeping Mamukelashvili will likely require the Raptors to cut ties with Dick, their 13th pick in the 2023 draft, who is looking for a change of address in any case after falling out of the rotation after the all-star break. And until Toronto reaches an agreement on an extension with RJ Barrett — talks will likely be picked up at Summer League in Las Vegas next month — the future of the Canadian national team star with Canada’s lone NBA team will remain a question mark as he heads into the last year of his deal.
The Raptors first-round pick is on the books, but the rest of their off-season is a series of chapters yet to be written.
