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Now we truly begin a tradition like no other: the Raptors’ pre-draft workouts. Keep in mind that through the recent years, no publicly announced workout featured a player the Raptors actually added to their main roster. Some have popped up later on the 905, which is all well and good, but at the NBA Draft itself: we are usually surprised.
Nevertheless! Here’s the group of players coming into Toronto today:
.@Raptors will be holding a pre-draft workout this afternoon with the following players; Giddy Potts (Middle Tennessee State), Joe Chealey (Charleston), Kostas Antetokounmpo (Dayton) and Alan Herndon (Wyoming).
— RaptorsMR (@RaptorsMR) May 9, 2018
It’s worth mentioning here, before we dive into any details, that the Raptors do not have a first or second round pick in the 2018 NBA Draft. That’s right, thanks to the offloading of DeMarre Carroll to the Nets, and the rental of P.J. Tucker from the Suns, Toronto has no way to secure a new young player to add to their burgeoning roster of fun and good dudes.
This comes as something of a relief in this case when we discover that Chealey and Herndon are not ranked on any list of top 100 prospects (RIP to Draft Express). In fact, outside of the idea of signing a player named Giddy Potts — unranked too, but who wouldn’t want to root for Giddy Potts?! — the thing of note here is summarized in one long-ass name: Antetokounmpo.
That’s right, young Kostas of the Dayton Flyers is indeed the brother of Giannis, also known the Greek Freak, which immediately makes him a person of interest to every basketball scout in the known universe (and every fan of the Raptors).
We defer now to the profile on CBS Sports, which has Kostas as a late second-round pick (56th overall). At 6’10, 179 pounds, Kostas is a long and lanky power forward much like his MVP-calibre older brother. For his freshman year, Kostas averaged 5.2 points, 2.9 rebounds, 0.4 assists, 0.2 steals, and 1.1 blocks per game, in 15.1 minutes per game. Not exactly numbers that pop off the page, but still — there are highlights!
We’ll still need to see if the Raptors have an avenue to get into the draft. In the mean time, who knows. Much like the signing of Fred VanVleet, there could be other ways to pick up future players for Toronto.