Raptors looking for gems like CMB, Walter as NBA draft prep ramps up

It has been less than two weeks since the 2025-26 season ended for the Toronto Raptors in Cleveland, but it is already nearly time to get back to work.

While players, coaches and team staff got a bit of time off to rest aches and pains, reacquaint themselves with family and friends, the NBA only really sleeps — at least a tiny bit — in August and September, so things are about to pick back up.

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Bobby Webster and the rest of the Raptors front office barely got a break at all and have been at the NBA Draft Combine since May 10 and will be there through Sunday checking out the prospects.

This year will be different than last, not only because Masai Ujiri was still around until the day after the June draft in 2025, but also because the team will pick 19th, instead of 9th (where they nabbed a seeming gem in big man Collin Murray-Boyles, who starred in the playoffs).

This year will be more similar to 2024, when the Raptors also had the 19th selection (coming away with another solid player in Ja’Kobe Walter), along with 31st (a whiff on Jonathan Mogbo) and 45 (excellent work to nab Jamal Shead, who had to fill in for injured Immanuel Quickley against the Cavaliers). This year, Toronto has picks No. 19 and 50, so the team will work out and study a wide variety of prospects outside of the lottery talents. Both Walter and Shead emerged as two of the Top 10 sophomores in their less-than-outstanding draft class this season, while Murray-Boyles has likely turned enough heads that he would be selected a few picks higher in his loaded crop.

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Draft workouts will begin soon at the team’s practice facility and will continue over the next month or so. Webster hinted at his season-ending media availability that the team would likely go with its standard procedure of picking the best player available, but there are also clear holes to fill: Shooting is top of the list. Only four teams hit fewer three-pointers per game in the regular season and 20 of 30 hit a higher percentage of their three-point attempts. Once Quickley and Brandon Ingram were lost in the playoffs, scoring was at an even bigger premium.

The team also needs more size. Jakob Poeltl, who has well-documented back issues, is the only player on the roster taller than 6-foot-9. The team could take a flyer on a young giant with its late pick, while addressing shooting and shot creation at 19.

The draft goes June 23 and 24.

What comes next?

Things will move quickly from there. Negotiations with free agents can begin June 30, with official signings starting on July 6. Sandro Mamukelashvili, who will surely opt-out of his under-market deal, is the most prominent unrestricted free agent.

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Picking up the team option on Shead is a no-brainer, while Mogbo, who rarely played this season after getting a bit of time late in 2024-25, could be cut loose. They will explore the trade market to try to free up more salary (perhaps gauging the interest on underperforming Gradey Dick), but probably won’t make many moves since they are quite cash-strapped.

Much of the organization will gather in Las Vegas for Summer League from July 9-19. Last year’s Raptors edition there fared well and players such as Walter and Murray-Boyles built on that success and some of the defensive concepts they were taught during some of the biggest Raptors games of the season, including against Cleveland.

It will be interesting to see how that series will be retroactively assessed if the Cavaliers can finish off the Detroit Pistons (they were up 3-2 after winning three straight, with Game 6 at home Friday night).

There likely will be another Raptors gathering in Europe later in the summer after last summer’s successful get-together in Spain at the Real Madrid facilities.

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