With a one-time home-run hitter like Masai Ujiri running the Raptors, moments like Thursday night’s NBA draft always hold the possibility of a long-awaited big swing.
Savvy draft-night deals, after all, have a history of mythical deliverance in the world’s best basketball league. It’s how the Lakers got Kobe Bryant, how the Mavericks got Dirk Nowitzki, how the Raptors, long before Ujiri was making the decisions, ended up with Vince Carter. Which makes it a moment of tantalizing possibility. On a night like Thursday, the executive who chooses the correct undervalued prospect can, if things go improbably well, change the fortune of a franchise with one move.