Sunday’s NBA draft lottery could be a huge day in Raptors history

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Long before the season even starts, one of the biggest moments of the Raptors’ 30th anniversary campaign will take place on Sunday afternoon — and it won’t be on the basketball court. That’s when the franchise will be able to map out a more certain direction after finding out the results of the NBA’s draft lottery.

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Toronto finished a hideous 2023-24 with a 25-57 record, good for sixth-worst in the NBA, but that pain doesn’t even guarantee a flashy young prospect will be on the way like it normally would. That’s because the Raptors dealt a protected future first-round draft pick to the San Antonio Spurs 15 months ago for Jakob Poeltl, believing the centre Toronto had originally drafted before trading in the Kawhi Leonard deal was a missing piece that would propel the team forward. And while Poeltl has made the Raptors significantly better when on the court in parts of two seasons, he’s also battled injuries, while running mates Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby have been traded away, and Fred VanVleet departing earlier in free agency. So now Toronto is on a different path, retooling around Scottie Barnes, Immanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett and Gradey Dick. How quickly the process unfolds leads us back to this important Sunday afternoon.

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Toronto will be represented on stage by Barnes and has less than a 50/50 shot at keeping the pick (45.8% odds of either staying at six or moving into the top four), including 37.2% odds of jumping into the top four. That’s better than the 29.9% odds of keeping the pick the team would have had if it finished seventh-worst in the standings, but far from the 63.9% odds with which fifth-worst San Antonio enters Sunday.

If the pick heads to San Antonio, Toronto will be free to take its time building back up, knowing its 2025 first-round pick, in a draft class considered far stronger than this one, will not be going to the Spurs.

Should Toronto move up or stay at sixth, though, tanking next year becomes a mostly non-sensical option because the risk of losing the pick is too great (it would be top-six protected again, but just about everything went wrong in 2023-24 to give the Raptors a decent shot of retaining the pick this spring).

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Unlike in many years, there is not a consensus top prospect for the June 26 first round (this will be the first time the draft goes over two days, with Toronto leading off the second round on June 27 with a pick acquired in the Anunoby trade from New York via Detroit). Zaccharie Risacher, a big man from France (though he’s nothing like the really big man out of France who was the prize last June) is currently getting the most buzz because he can shoot and defend and is said to have a good sense for the game. Other international prospects, namely giant wing Alex Sarr and Serbian point guard Nikola Topic are also potential top picks, with Kentucky guards Reed Sheppard and Rob Dillingham and UCONN’s combo of big man Donovan Clingan (who has led the school to consecutive championships) and Stephon Castle likely to go high as well.

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The Raptors also own the 19th pick via Indiana from the Siakam trade.

Detroit, Washington and Charlotte each have 14% odds of winning the lottery, Portland is at 12.5%, San Antonio 10.5% and Toronto 9%. The worst teams used to have odds as high of 25% of selecting first, but that was changed. Recently, No. 2 has been the place to be. The Spurs had the second-worst record last year, but won the Victor Wembanyama sweepstakes by leap-frogging Detroit. Orlando did the same a year earlier, moving past Houston to select Paolo Banchero and, in 2021, second-worst Detroit jumped Houston to grab Cade Cunningham with the first pick (Toronto jumped from seventh-best odds to the fourth pick that year, which is how Barnes was able to become a Raptor).Toronto also moved up in 2006 all the way to No. 1 from No. 5.

@WolstatSun

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