Raptors get their man in 19th pick Walter

TORONTO – It was kismet.

Ja’Kobe Walter had no idea that the Raptors were targeting him with the 19th-overall pick in Wednesday’s NBA draft. A 19-year-old combo guard out of Baylor, Walter didn’t work out for Toronto during the pre-draft process and has never even been to Canada.

But there he was, taking in the moment and walking onto the Barclays Center’s stage in Brooklyn to shake commissioner Adam Silver’s hand, wearing a purple floral jacket – a colour reminiscent of his new team’s origins, 30 years after its inception.

“This is where I’m supposed to be,” said Walter, whose first name was his parents’ homage to two of the game’s all-time greats, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.

“[Getting drafted] meant the world to me. Me and my family have talked about this for a long time. I prayed so many times for this moment right here. So now that it’s finally here, it’s dreams into reality, and I’m just grateful.”

The Raptors have spent the bulk of the past two months auditioning prospects at OVO Centre in Toronto, putting them through intense workouts and thorough interviews. It’s a helpful process, giving the organization a chance to get to know these young men better and see how they fare in a competitive environment run by their own staff. But it’s also not a prerequisite.

For various reasons, it can be challenging to get all the guys you’re interested in to make the trip. Players projected to go in the lottery may not be so inclined to visit a team with the 19th and 31st overall selections, for instance.

But what made this week’s draft unique – in addition to being considered one of the weakest rookie classes in recent memory – was its unpredictability. Nobody knew exactly what to expect, from the top – where French forward Zaccharie Risacher went first overall to Atlanta and his countryman Alex Sarr was taken second by Washington – to the bottom. There were surprises along the way, like Toronto-born centre and Purdue star Zach Edey, who may not have even been drafted had he declared last year, cracking the top-10 and going to Memphis at nine.

And so, Walter, like most other prospects, wasn’t quite sure when he would hear his name called – ESPN’s mock draft had him projected to go as high as 14th. Even without getting a closer look, the Raptors saw enough and knew enough to have him at the top of their board when they were on the clock at 19, a pick they received from Indiana in the Pascal Siakam trade (their own pick, the eighth overall selection, was conveyed to San Antonio as part of the Jakob Poeltl trade).

There is often spirited debate among Masai Ujiri’s front office contingent in Toronto’s war room, but when it was time to make the pick, everybody was on the same page. It had to be the fiery freshman from Texas.

“We feel fortunate to get Ja’Kobe in this spot,” Raptors general manager Bobby Webster said after the first round concluded on Wednesday night. “He’s a kid we’ve followed since high school… He’s always been a winner, tough, kind of fits the mold of a two-way Raptors player, he can make a shot, he can play defence. And so, he’s a guy we’ve followed for a while but initially didn’t think he would be there at 19.”

Walter isn’t lacking for confidence; it’s one of the things that endeared him to the team in the first place. He’s an emotional player and there’s a certain swagger to him that the young, rebuilding Raptors could surely use.

He grew up playing football before committing to basketball as a high school freshman. What was his best position?

“Athlete,” he said. “I was good at every position. Good at everything.”

What does he want Raptors fans to know about his game?

“I consider myself a competitor, a scorer and a two-way player, somebody that will sacrifice their body on the defensive end and do whatever it takes to win.”

He’s adept at getting to his spots on the perimeter, squaring up and firing away, and was not afraid to take big shots with the Bears. The unfortunate byproduct of that self-assurance was his underwhelming 38 per cent field goal percentage, something that Webster attributed to a knee injury while noting that his high school shooting numbers were more indicative of his capability. His shot selection will need to improve at the next level, though some of that will happen naturally as he settles into a more complementary offensive role.

Despite his inefficiency, most talent evaluators identify his jumper as a strength. He’s got good mechanics, a smooth release, and his fearlessness is generally regarded as a feature, not a bug. He shot a passable but not great 34 per cent from three-point range on a high volume of attempts (6.3 per game) last season.

At this stage, he’s more of a two-guard than a primary playmaker, but he’s shown flashes of being able to initiate an offence and is hoping to show more of it in Toronto. He’ll need to get stronger but his length – he’s 6-foot-4 with a 6-foot-10 wingspan – and high motor give him a chance to excel defensively. If the hope is for him to become a reliable 3-and-D player, there’s work to be done, but at 19, the Raptors believe Walter has plenty of room to grow.

“I think Gradey [Dick] is a good example last year,” Webster said. “You come in and it's going to be up and down. And so, I think that's probably more the expectation. He may be able to come in right away, but can he sustain it throughout the course of the season, especially as a young player, [with] the physicality and the travel and all that? We're obviously taking these kids because we think they can come in and play."

The Raptors’ philosophy has always been to take the player they feel is the best available, as they did here with Walter, rather than drafting for need. After all, even in the most optimistic scenario, it will take time for Walter to earn his way into head coach Darko Rajakovic’s rotation and, like Dick – last year’s 13th-overall pick – he’ll almost certainly spend parts of his rookie season honing his craft in the G League.

But now that the roster, once loaded with 6-foot-9 forwards, is increasingly guard heavy, you have to wonder whether Gary Trent Jr. – a pending unrestricted free agent – could see his Raptors tenure come to an end in the coming week.

But before they get to free agency, which opens on Sunday, or make a call on Bruce Brown’s team option, a decision due by Friday, they turn their attention to the second round. With the NBA moving to a new two-night draft format, the Raptors will kick off Thursday’s proceedings, with almost 17 hours to make the 31st overall pick (which they got from New York in the OG Anunoby trade, initially coming from the Pistons).

“When we did the deal with New York we knew that this was sort of a benefit of having 31, was to be able to have these next [17] hours to field calls,” said Webster. “I think what typically happens in the draft is it very quickly turns to Round 2 and you have two minutes. Logistically you can’t take all the calls you’d want to, so now we have some time. We also have some time to sort of reconsider our list as we think about 31 tomorrow. So, we’ll probably have some pretty big fights tomorrow in the morning about who we would take and then simultaneously take these calls and say, OK, could we get multiple picks? Could we move back a little bit and still get the same guy? But yeah, I don’t know, it’s a first. It’s a bit of a novelty for all of us here to have two days of the draft. So, let’s see what happens.”