Why NBA Draft Lottery outcome was worst-case scenario for Raptors

TORONTO — Oh, the irony.

The reason the Toronto Raptors won’t have a pick at or near the top of the 2024 draft on the heels of one of their worst seasons is the same reason they probably won’t have one in 2025, either.

Those are the unintentional consequences of the Raptors' decision to trade a top-six protected pick in the deal to acquire Jakob Poeltl at the trade deadline in February 2023.

When the lottery balls finished tumbling in Chicago on Sunday afternoon, what would have been the Raptors' pick based on their 25-57 finish this season fell from sixth to eighth and automatically conveyed to the San Antonio Spurs. The Raptors had a greater chance of losing their pick (54.2 per cent) than they did of keeping it (45.8 per cent), and that’s what ended up happening.  

But that’s one part of the problem. Normally, the way the Raptors' season finished — recall the 2-19 swoon in March and April, driven by injuries and long-term absences by key players — would be assuaged somewhat by the prospect of adding a talented young prospect on a rookie contract. It’s how the Raptors got Scottie Barnes in 2021, whose promise more than made up for the otherwise miserable "Tampa Tank" season in 2020-21, when some lottery-ball luck saw the Raptors jump from the seventh-worst record to the fourth-overall pick.

Instead, when the NBA gathers for the draft in late June, the Raptors will be trying to find difference-makers while picking 19^th and 31^st overall, using picks they acquired when they traded Pascal Siakam to the Indiana Pacers, which marked their long-awaited transition to a rebuild.

Finding quality players in that range in the draft is doable — the Raptors have done it themselves multiple times — but it’s just less likely than at the top of the draft, math being math.

But here’s the real kicker: Poeltl has proven to be a very effective two-way player for the Raptors, which is no surprise, given Toronto drafted the big Austrian ninth overall in 2016 and saw him progress for two seasons before they included him in the deal that brought Kawhi Leonard in the summer of 2018.

With Poeltl as a starter in 2022-23, the Raptors finished 15-10 before losing out in the Play-In Tournament, bolstering the belief that their 41-41 record that season was an anomaly, and that being a buyer and not a seller at the deadline that year was the right decision.

This past season, Poeltl’s presence remained a stabilizing influence — lineups featuring Poeltl, Barnes, Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett were a very encouraging plus-12 points per 100 possession in the 234 minutes they did get to play together before injuries and other absences made themselves felt. In particular, Poeltl being out proved a disaster, as Toronto went 4-28 in the 32 games he missed due to injuries last season.

Which brings us back to why Sunday's lottery outcome was probably the worst-case scenario for the Raptors as they try to be competitive long-term in the Eastern Conference on the Barnes timeline as he heads into his 23-year-old season.

First, some benefits: with the pick conveying to the Spurs, the Raptors' asset-management picture gets much clearer. They now have no encumbrances on any of their first-round picks. If they have the urge to trade the rights (and swap rights) to all of their first-round picks through 2032, the door is open. Until their pick conveyed to the Spurs, they would have been limited in that regard, so there’s that. They also won’t have the salary of a high first-rounder on the books, which could also be a factor if they want to be active using cap space to add talent via trade or free agency.

But the most reliable way to add elite talent in the NBA is with high lottery picks, and only an unanticipated collision of events will likely see the Raptors picking in the high lottery a year from now — barring something like what happened Sunday, when the Atlanta Hawks jumped from 10^th to first in the lottery, just a three per-cent probability.

The past season’s tank was relatively organic in that Barnes missed the last 22 games with a broken hand and Poeltl missed the last 21 games with a dislocated finger, injuries requiring surgeries in each case, and that each of Quickley and Barrett missed meaningful time due to personal issues.

But if the Raptors are healthy next season? It’s hard to imagine they won’t be 10 or 15 wins better than they were this past year, which would put them back in the hunt for a play-in spot and — most likely — a late lottery pick.

Doubtless, there will be some good players to find in that region in a deep draft, but what are the chances of one who can contribute to winning as Barnes heads into what will be his fifth season in 2025-26?

Never say never, but it wouldn’t be something you would plan on.

All of which captures the conundrum the Raptors are in. If they were dead set on accumulating the kind of talent that wins titles, their rebuild would be given at least another season to take shape. Toss in the towel in 2024-25, hope for some lottery luck and who knows, maybe you have a chance to pair Cooper Flagg, Airious Bailey or Khaman Maluach — early candidates to go in the top three in 2025 — with Barnes, creating a homegrown superstar duo not seen in Toronto since Vince Carter was trading alley-oops with Tracy McGrady.

Instead, the most likely scenario — barring an unexpected trade, draft find or free agent signing — is the Raptors staying on a conveyor belt that keeps them mired in the middle of the Eastern Conference for the foreseeable future.

They have a core that projects to have a floor high enough to keep them out of the basement, but a ceiling that — objectively — seems to fall a few floors below the penthouse.

If that’s how it all shakes out it will be interesting to monitor how Barnes feels about having a single first-round playoff appearance to show for his first four or five seasons in the NBA. He wouldn’t be the first young Raptors star to grow a little antsy at that stage. Something to think about.

Ultimately, it is up to Raptors president Masai Ujiri, general manager Bobby Webster and the rest of the front office to figure out how to thread the needle on it all.

After an unprecedented run of prescient decision-making leading up to the 2019 championship, there have been more stumbles than leaps forward in the years since. Their biggest mistake was believing that the remainder of the championship core could remain contenders. It’s why they traded for Thaddeus Young at the deadline in 2022, a move that saw them swap picks with the Spurs and saw the Raptors draft 33^rd instead of 20^th that year.

Had they kept their powder dry — Young made a minimal impact on a team that lost in the first round that year and the play-in the following season — they might have chosen Walker Kessler, the promising defensive-minded big man Utah chose 22nd overall. Had they chosen Kessler, perhaps they wouldn’t have felt compelled to trade a top-six protected first-round pick for Poeltl in 2023.

Maybe they would have pivoted sooner to build around a younger core and got better returns for Fred VanVleet, Siakam or OG Anunoby.

It’s all conjecture — and it certainly doesn’t help that Christian Koloko, the interesting big man the Raptors did draft 33^rd overall in 2022 had his career interrupted by health concerns.

But it all ends up in the same place: the Raptors, admittedly a rebuilding team coming off a woeful season, won’t be able to pin their hopes on a high lottery pick this year and — presuming a return to health and form this coming season — likely won’t a year from now.

The draft lottery isn’t the be-all and end-all. The Raptors famously became the first team in NBA history to win an NBA championship without a lottery pick on their roster.

But given it’s happened only once, it’s safe to say the exception proves the rule. The Raptors rebuild probably got a little harder on Sunday, there’s no way around that.