Toronto Raptors: How the Raptors build a championship team

Draft picks

Some teams have a habit of being reckless with their draft picks in the sense they trade them away with impunity without the benefit of a plan. Instead, they hope that giving up a future decision will pay dividends in the present. And while the Raptors under Masai Ujiri have traded away their fair share of first-round picks, they’ve done so in the context of looking to fill specific holes and made up for the loss of early picks by becoming, in my opinion, the best under-the-radar drafting team in the league.

Now, of course, no one drafts perfectly every time. And especially when you’re trying to make the most of late draft picks, busts like Bruno Caboclo are bound to happen from time to time. But let’s look at why ultimately, in the Raptors case, Caboclo has been the exception and not the rule.

Delon Wright

Delon Wright was picked 20th in the first round of the 2015 draft. And while Wright was the epitome of a role player during his time with the Toronto Raptors, he did the job that needed to be done. With 49-35-81 shooting, at least he was generally not a liability when he was on the floor.

Wright finished the 2018- 19 season in a Memphis Grizzlies uniform along with Jonas Valanciunas and C.J. Miles and the additional playtime he received from being on a lower tier team than the Raptors have made clear that Ujiri and the Raptors’ head office were correct about the potential they saw in him in Toronto.

In 31 minutes per game with Memphis, Wright nearly doubled his points per game, assists, and rebounds while picking up less than one more personal foul. Will Wright ever be a household name across NBA fanbases? Probably not. But he was definitely still a solid pick.

OG Anonuby

But for a torn ACL, Anonuby would have almost certainly not been available when it came time for the Raptors to make the 23rd overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft. SB Nation published a piece lauding Anonuby as “the breakout star of March Madness” in 2016 and later went on to discuss reasons for Raptors’ fans to be excited about the pick.  In his rookie season, he started 62 games but as the fourth scoring option behind Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan, and Jonas Valanciunas, his offensive numbers belied his potential.

What Raptors’ fans know that NBA fans at large might not is that Anonuby has all the makings of a lockdown defender, the ability to shoot pretty effortlessly from range and mad hops.

Anunoby went through a lot last season starting with an orbital bone contusion in the very first game of the season. Anunoby is not a player who finds his rhythm immediately after returning from injury and it seems like each time he was beginning to find his game again during the 2018- 19 season, another disaster struck including the loss of his father in the fall, a right wrist sprain, concussion-like symptoms, and an emergency appendectomy.

But all season long and through the playoffs as the Raptors’ successes piled-up and they got closer and closer to the NBA Finals, I can remember saying to myself, “They’re doing all of this without OG. Imagine if he was healthy.” I and many other Raptors fans have not forgotten what Anunoby brings to the team and I’m hoping he can have a healthier season in 2019- 20 and build up some momentum.