Mock Draft: Raptors Select Texas' Kai Jones at No. 7

The Toronto Raptors are tabbed to go with Texas' Kai Jones at No. 7 in Sports Illustrated's latest 2021 NBA mock draft

Aaron Rose | Apr 8, 2021

Kelsey Kremer/The Register via Imagn Content Services, LLC

If Baylor's 6-foot-2 guard Davion Mitchell didn't interest you from Wednesday's Toronto Raptors mock draft preview, maybe a 6-foot-11, athletically gifted, so-called unicorn will.

Thanks to Sports Illustrated's Jeremy Woo, we have another Raptors mock draft to look at. This one has a prospect that should intrigue Raptors fans a little bit more than Mitchell.

Raptors Select Kai Jones from the University of Texas

Outside of the top five or so players in this year's class, Texas' Kai Jones might have the highest ceiling of any prospect. He's another one of these basketball unicorns with a 6-foot-11 frame, shot-blocking skills, and an above-average 3-point stroke.

"Jones is a challenging eval and widely viewed as a high-risk, high-reward type selection," Woo wrote. "He’s tracking as a top ten pick nonetheless, based on his unusual movement skills at his size, his ability to block shots and shoot threes, and decent per-minute productivity despite playing a smaller role for most of the year at Texas. Scouts I’ve spoken with acknowledge Jones’s upside, but also have some trepidation over the actual prospect of drafting him high in the lottery. But he stands to benefit from the general mess that is this range of the draft, as long as there are teams willing to be patient and let him develop. Throwing him directly into an NBA rotation next year feels like skipping steps."

Jones' college career was good, but not exceptional. He averaged 8.8 points, 4.8 rebounds, and almost a block per game as a junior while shooting 38.2% from behind the arc this past season. Ultimately, it would be an upside play for Toronto who has consistently turned prospects selected much later in the draft into contributors and all-star level players.

The Raptors don't often get to choose a player this high in the draft very often and shouldn't for many years to come. With Jones, Toronto has a chance to take a big swing for a player who could become a perennial all-star for a very long time.

Raptors Select Kai Jones from the University of Texas

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