we looked at the last ten years of Toronto's draft history. The general conclusion? The Raptors are really bad at drafting productive players (or, if you want to put an optimistic spin on it, the Raptors are excellent at drafting unproductive players). But, as bad as they were, maybe some of those draft choices were the best available options? Let's take an individual look at each draft pick and see if the Raptors could have gotten anything better than they did (you might want to follow along with
- 2000: #21 Morris Peterson; #56 DeeAndre Hulett
As a Raptor fan, I gotta love the man. But looking at the numbers, Mo Pete wasn't so good in his first four seasons; he only managed a WP48 of 0.050. At the 21st pick, you would expect there to be some more palatable options than that, but was that the case? While there were 7 players with higher WP48s selected after him, the only truly useful players available were Michael Redd and Eduardo Najera. Overall, Mo Pete wasn't too bad of a pick.
DeeAndre Hulett never played a minute in the NBA, and neither did most of the players selected after him. While Jason Hart eventually played 5289 NBA minutes, he didn't play enough in his first four years to qualify. I'd give the Raptors a pass on this pick.
- 2001: #17 Michael Bradley; #46 (traded)
Michael Bradley was actually a pretty good player in limited minutes. Despite that, he never made much of an impact on the NBA, and after the Raptors cut him in 2004, his NBA career was pretty much over. Instead of Bradley, the Raps could've had Mehmet Okur, Jamaal Tinsley, or Samuel Dalembert. The Raptors didn't do too badly with Bradley - now if only they had had the intelligence to play him more minutes.
The 46th pick was traded. Which was fine, because that year there were no useful players available at that number. So far the Raptors have been pretty good.
- 2002: #20 (traded); #27 Chris Jefferies; #42 (traded)
And so begins the trading of useful draft picks. Kareem Rush was not a productive player - and Chris Jefferies didn't last long enough for us to find out how good he was. Trading down from #20 to #27, the Raptors missed out on the opportunity to draft Tayshaun Prince. Useful players available at #27 included Carlos Boozer, Dan Gadzuric, Luis Scola, and Matt Barnes. Given that the other two players involved in the exchange of these draft picks were Lindsey Hunter and Tracy Murray, I have no choice but to fail this draft decision. Drafting Carlos Boozer or Luis Scola would've been much better than Jefferies.
At #42, Scola and Barnes were still on the board. Yes, the Raptors could've picked up Boozer and Scola in the same draft if they knew what they were doing. And that is why you don't trade away your second round picks: when you hit with them, they have the potential to turn your franchise around.
- 2003: #4 Chris Bosh; #52 Remon Van der Hare
Chris Bosh was a very good fourth pick - accordingly, Arturo ranks him 144 out of 980 draftees. But there were three players available who were even better than Bosh: Wade, Josh Howard, and Luke Walton. Now, keeping in mind that this ranking only considers the first four years, the only player I would think about drafting instead of Bosh would be (of course) Wade. So the Raptors did very well on this one.
Van der Hare never played in the NBA - and no one else drafted after him was useful. Looks like 2003 was a good drafting year.
- 2004: #8 Rafael Araujo; #39 (traded); #47 Pape Sow
Ah, the first monumental Raptor bust of the 21st century! Araujo was such a bad pick that he only managed to last 1585 career minutes. In those minutes, he was very bad (WP48 lower than -0.07). Who could the Raptors have chosen instead? Oh, only Andris Biedrins, Andre Iguodala, Al Jefferson, Kevin Martin, Anderson Varejao, Trevor Ariza, Dorell Wright, Josh Smith, Delonte West, Chris Duhon, Tony Allen, and Jameer Nelson - all above-average (WP48 greater than 0.100) players. It's funny, because the recent development of Bargnani had almost made me forget about Hoffa.
The 39th pick could have been useful - Trevor Ariza and Bernard Robinson were both available. Robinson wasn't all that good, but Ariza certainly was.
Ah, good old Pape. Well, he didn't play enough minutes to get ranked, and he wasn't that productive...but there was nothing after him. Hmmm. Maybe Toronto should have just taken Ariza at the 39th instead of trading down...but they only missed one really decent player, so you can't hold it against them too much. Overall though, 2004 was a bad year.
- 2005: #7 Charlie Villanueva; #11 (traded); #16 Joey Graham; #38 (traded); #41 Roko Ukic; #58 Uros Slokar
Busy draft year for the Raptors - let's start with the pick that had so many "experts" laughing: Villanueva. He actually wasn't that bad of a player - he managed a WP48 of 0.072 - and, as a scorer, was overrated, but the biggest problem with picking Villanueva so low was that...there were so many better players available. How many? Only David Lee, Marcin Gortat, Amir Johnson, Andrew Bynum, Luther Head, Danny Granger, Travis Diener, Jason Maxiell, Monta Ellis, Jarrett Jack, Ersan Ilyasova, and Ronny Turiaf. The Raptors could've at least chosen Granger there instead. This pick gets a D.
With Graham, you were never sure if you were getting "good Joey", the player who rebounded well and attacked the basket for easy shots, or "bad Joey", the player who hoisted up silly jumpers and didn't do much else (maybe the twins were playing tricks on us all?). Over his first four years his WP48 was 0.056. Again, instead of Graham, the Raptors could've had David Lee, Marcin Gortat, Amir Johnson, Luther Head, Danny Granger, Travis Diener, Jason Maxiell, Monta Ellis, Jarrett Jack, Ersan Ilyasova, or Ronny Turiaf. This pick gets a D minus.
Instead of seldomly played Roko Ukic, the Raptors could have had Gortat or Amir Johnson. But Ukic is exactly the kind of pick you want to make in the second round: high risk, high reward. All things considered, not a terrible choice.
Uros Slokar: another high risk, high reward pick. This time it didn't pan out, but again, at least Toronto went for it. There were no useful players selected after Slokar either, so this was an okay pick.
- 2006: #1 Andrea Bargnani; #20 (traded); #35 P.J. Tucker; #56 Edin Bavcic
Everyone should know by now how badly the Raptors did by choosing Bargnani; I've talked about it
several times before. In fact, if you've read those posts you'll know that Bargnani is ranked 970/980 draftees on Arturo's list. Instead of Bargnani, the Raptors could have chosen: Rajon Rondo, Renaldo Balkman, Brandon Roy, Paul Millsap, Ronnie Brewer, Leon Powe, Josh Boone, Kyle Lowry, Thabo Sefolosha, Tyrus Thomas, or Shelden Williams. This pick is an F.
Had the Raptors not traded #20, they could've had Rondo, Balkman, Millsap, Powe, Boone, or Lowry. Instead, the 20th pick was used to sweeten up the Jalen Rose trade, which was simply a correction of a previous mistake...and the resulting cap room led to future mistakes. Dumb.
P.J. Tucker didn't get much of a chance to play in the NBA, but when he did play, he showed promise. And after he left for overseas, he actually managed to achieve some measure of success. So the Raptors took exactly the kind of player they were supposed to, only to cut the guy in favour of Luke Jackson.
Edin Bavcic didn't play - and there was nobody useful picked after him - but again, at least the Raptors were looking for hidden gems
- 2007: #22 (traded); #52 (traded)
Ah, the year of no picks. Why no picks? Because - years before Colangelo - they needed to get rid of Yogi Stewart and wanted to acquire Lamond Murray and John Wallace. Who could they have picked at #22? Rudy Fernandez, Carl Landry, Marc Gasol, Ramon Sessions, and Jared Dudley. At #52, they still could have had Sessions. Lesson? Don't trade away your picks.
- 2008: #17 (traded); #41 Nathan Jawai; #45 (traded)
Really? T.J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovic, and the 17th pick for Jermaine O'Neal? The only saving grace of the trade was the cap room that it created, and BC did not use it wisely. The returns are still pretty early, but at #17, the Raptors could have had Luc Mbah a Moute, Serge Ibaka, DeAndre Jordan, Bill Walker, J.J. Hickson, Mario Chalmers, Courtney Lee, Goran Dragic, Ryan Anderson, and Sonny Weems. I'd take any of those players over Jermaine O'Neal, and I'd have been happy to keep T.J. Ford for a bit longer, thank you very much.
Instead of Jawai, Toronto could have had Walker or Dragic. Not too bad, and Jawai was an okay gamble. Those same two players were still available at #45 as well.
- 2009: #9 DeMar DeRozan; #39 (traded); #51 (traded)
Another lottery pick, another poor choice. DeRozan
didn't have good numbers coming out of college, and his first year wasn't very good (nor was his preseason this year). DeRozan is shaping up to be your classic Raptors lottery pick bust. Who could the Raptors have had instead? DeJuan Blair, Ty Lawson, Jon Brockman, Chase Budinger, Rodrigue Beaubois, Jonas Jerebko, Austin Daye, Jeff Pendergraph, Taj Gibson, Omri Casspi, or Darren Collison - just to name the above average players. It'll be a few more years before we can fully evaluate this draft class, but it's looking very likely that the Raptors made another poor choice.
Picks #39 and #51 were traded. Remember what I said about trading draft picks? Imagine Jerebko, Budinger, Marcus Thornton, or A.J. Price on the team. At least the Raptors got Carlos Delfino out of it...er, I mean, Amir Johnson (not bad, actually, although I would've preferred to have kept Delfino).
Next week I'll post Week 1 team stats (as reader Mattt points out, the Raptors are at 0.500 at the moment!), as well as the final part of this AGS front office audit and suggestions for turning the franchise around.
