Raptors Explain How the Thad Young Deal Changed Toronto's Draft Board

The Toronto Raptors say moving down 13 spots in the NBA Draft to acquire Thad Young won't end up being a very big deal

Aaron Rose | Jun 8, 2022

Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

No matter what happens on NBA Draft night, one thing is for sure: The Toronto Raptors are going to say they got their guy.

It's the obvious post-draft comment to make. Every team comes out of draft night singing the praises of their selections, claiming their pick is going to be a great addition to the organization. Whether or not it's the truth, well, that can be a little bit more difficult to figure out.

When the Raptors traded their first-round pick to the San Antonio Spurs in the Thad Young for Goran Dragic deal and acquired Detroit's second-round pick at the trade deadline, they claimed sliding back in the draft wasn't going to be a big deal.

"That’s the value play here. You slide a little bit in the draft and you pick up a player that you think is gonna help you," Raptors general manager Bobby Webster said following the deal. "Historically, it’s an area in the draft where we’ve operated in the past. Realistically, we don’t see a ton of incremental change between those picks.”

It was the obvious thing to say back then and the talking points have largely remained the same four months later even with the draft order now settled and Toronto slated to pick at No. 33 instead of No. 20.

"There's definitely a big difference between 20 and we didn't know exactly where the pick was going to end up but we kind of felt comfortable with the group of players that we would be considering is not that different," said Raptors assistant general manager Dan Tolzman on Wednesday afternoon. "With this year's draft, after the top 15 players, it's pretty wide open in terms of where guys might slot in."

The Raptors are still working to narrow down their prospect list and hope to have it to about five to ten names ready to go for draft night, Tolzman said. The process has been made a little bit more difficult with those extra 13 choices ahead of Toronto, but the draft usually gets jumbled up in that range anyways and the Raptors are comfortable they'll still get a talented role player early in the second round.

"We still feel fairly confident that guys that we liked at the time around there, we might still be able to get them in the second round and so I wouldn't say it changed much," Tolzman said. "If anything it kind of almost like added players that we have to consider now because it would have been a lot easier to kind of narrow our focus if we were 10 spots higher than where we are right now."

There is, however, some benefit to drafting early in the second round with the way rookie contracts are structured. Unlike first-round picks whose contracts are fully guaranteed, second-round picks aren't assured guaranteed deals, allowing teams to get a little more creative with draft-and-stash European picks or partially guaranteed deals to save a little money.

"If there's a high-level player that we think we can get away with keeping him overseas for a year or something, that's absolutely in the mix, but we're also kind of going into this year or planning for whoever we take at this pick will probably be on our roster," Tolzman added.

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