Draft Watch: Catching up on Toronto’s pre-draft workouts

With the NBA Draft’s final withdrawal deadline now behind us, we finally have a better picture of the prospects that could be available for the Toronto Raptors at the 33rd pick. Sadly, the talent pool understandably shrunk a bit for Toronto, with Leonard Miller and Terquavion Smith electing to take their name out of this year’s draft.

We looked at 13 popular, insightful draft boards that updated their mocks post-withdraw deadline, and the opinions are all over the place. The middle of the pack’s range is around the 21st pick up to the 42nd pick. Several prospects are seeing their stock rise; for example, Jalen Williams was a second-round pick before the Draft Combine, and now he looks like he’s out of the Raptors’ range. Canadian Andrew Nembhard’s stock is also on the rise, as he’s not pushing into the early second-round range compared to being a fringe draft pick a month ago (he is now the consensus 42nd pick on my recent tally).

What are the Mock Drafts telling us right now?

At the top of the draft, the first three picks are likely to be Jabari Smith Jr, Chet Holmgren, and Paolo Banchero, in that order, based on the draft sites that we reviewed. The betting odds at Draft Kings are in-sync, as Smith Jr is the favourite as the 1st pick at -190, Holmgren 2nd pick at -225, and Banchero at -500, as of this writing. The fourth pick may be where the money is if Shaedon Sharpe (+600) or Dyson Daniels (+1000) gets picked at this spot. It’s the Sacramento Kings, so who knows what will happen.

Predicting the Toronto Raptors pick at 33

After looking through the various mocks, here are the likeliest candidates for the Raptors to choose from at 33:

Two names stand out from this list: Bryce McGowens and Max Christie. They’re both dynamic guards that can provide near-immediate scoring punch from the bench. Surprisingly, the various draft sites thought that the Raptors’ need at this pick comes down to either scoring punch from the backcourt (McGowens, Christie, Dalen Terry) or rim protection, with ESPN picking Ismael Kamagate and No Ceilings picking Christian Koloko for Toronto.

However, almost “anything goes” at this point of the draft, so we get to see some outlier picks. Sports Illustrated’s got Andrew Nembhard at 33rd, but with McGowens, Caleb Houstan, Peyton Watson, Josh Minott, and even Gabriel Procida still available, it’s a long shot. Rookie Wire’s got David Roddy while Hoops Prospect picked Justin Lewis for the Raptors, but both looked like a reach at the 33rd. Between the two, I like Lewis a little bit more. For some reason, Bleacher Report’s Jonathan Wasserman’s got Jaden Hardy slipping into the 2nd round for the Raptors, which should be a no-brainer, although I doubt he falls that far.

Draft Workouts

Information is trickling in on who’s scheduled or has worked out for the Raptors. This draft is also the first time Toronto’s hosting workouts in Canada after COVID forced the organization to host their workouts south of the border. With that being said, we will consider adding draft prospects to the list below if we see them posting that they are in Toronto (many thanks to all the other Raptors fans stalking these draft prospects’ IG).

More than half of the workouts are projected to go undrafted, so they are either 2-way contract/exhibit 10/Raptors 905 prospects. Almost everyone is at least +3 on the wingspan column, and there’s no one listed shorter than 6’2”. The Raptors are bringing quite a few bigs, but they’re not your traditional immobile bigs. Kamagate, Marcus Bingham Jr, Leonardo Okeke, and Mo Gueye all have the tools and promise to become a modern-day big man that might fit the Raptors’ defensive philosophy. In the next Raptors Draft Watch issue, we will take a bit of a deep dive into these prospects and assess their Raptors’ fit.

Check out DraftKings Sportsbook, the official sportsbook partner of SB Nation.