Raptors Nightmare Draft Lottery Scenario Comes True

The Toronto Raptors will convey the No. 8 pick to the San Antonio Spurs as compensation for the Jakob Poeltl trade

Nov 5, 2023; San Antonio, Texas, USA; San Antonio Spurs forwardsZach Collins (23) and Jeremy Sochan / Daniel Dunn-USA TODAY Sports

This was always the nightmare scenario.

The Toronto Raptors may have said they had no preference for how Sunday’s NBA draft lottery turned out. They may have insisted they’d be “grateful” no matter how the lottery went.

But their actions this past season told a different story.

Toronto ended the season going 2-19, at times benching key players as they maneuvered their way past the Memphis Grizzlies and into the bottom six in the draft lottery. It was clearly part of the plan to improve the organization’s chances to keep its top-six protected first-round pick away from the San Antonio Spurs.

It was all for naught.

Toronto’s pick conveyed to San Antonio as the No. 8 pick in the 2024 NBA draft and now the Raptors won’t have a first-round pick until No. 19 in a draft widely considered to be among the worst in recent history.

The Raptors never anticipated this happening back in 2023 when the organization gave up its 2024 first-round pick, Khem Birch, and two second-round picks for Jakob Poeltl. Toronto thought figured it would end the year strong and head into the 2023-24 season with an impressive core ready to fight for a playoff spot.

They were wrong.

Fred VanVleet left in free agency and within a matter of months OG Anunoby and eventually Pascal Siakam were out the door and that lightly protected lottery pick Toronto thought wouldn’t be that valuable has turned out to be quite the opposite.

If there’s good news for Toronto it’s that the 2025 NBA draft is expected to be loaded with high-end talent. Had the Raptors kept the pick, San Antonio still would have had the rights to Toronto’s top-six protected first-round pick in 2025. Now Toronto has an opportunity to take one of the franchise-altering prospects believed to be at or near the top of next year’s class if the Raptors remain a lottery team next year.

Will they tank for a top pick?

That would probably be the prudent decision. Cooper Flagg, Ace Bailey, and Khaman Maluach are the kind of prospects that could change the organization’s fortunes moving forward and set Toronto up with an exciting young core built around Scottie Barnes, Immanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett, Gradey Dick, and a star prospect in 2025.

But the Raptors don’t want to commit to being bad next year before seeing what the team looks like.

“I think we'll see how the year starts and plays out,” Raptors president Masai Ujiri said during his season-ending media availability. “We understand what picking early is and … we're going to see where the growth of this team is, and we'll go from there.”

The mistake at the 2023 deadline was believing Toronto’s core was good enough to contend and giving up future assets to augment a roster that in hindsight wasn’t talented enough to compete in the East. It was a costly mistake.

Moving forward, the Raptors can’t let that happen again.