I will not pretend to know much about Terrence Ross, as most, no, every mock had him in the teens, and that positioning made him of little interest to anyone following the draft from a Raptors POV. This is, by all means, going against the grain, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it just feels wrong. My first reaction was DeRozan 2.0, my second was “this is something Babcock would do”, and the third was resigning myself to trusting Colangelo. Again.
Those meaningless games that we won at the end of the year, combined with the lost coin toss against GSW, means we lost out on Harrison Barnes by a pick. This one has serious potential to hurt us, because even though Barnes’ stock dropped, he’s a player that’s got enough talent (and now extra motivation) to make his doubters look silly. Let this be a lesson to those anti-tank idealists who reduce their thinking to the short term.
I should point out that the Raptors didn’t make a press release till 1am, which makes me wonder what exactly they were contemplating doing with Ross. Seemingly, Ross could’ve been had by trading down, but Colangelo’s not known to do that and expecting creativity out of him in these situations is like expecting this guy sleeping in front of me on the GO train to realize he’s drooling all over his shirt.
So, Terrence Ross from Washington. A freshman sophomore who can shoot in the NIT. The Raptors need a shooter, so there you go. Simple, right? Only problem is that the Raptors also need a point guard and a small forward, and while Ross could, physically speaking, slot over to the three, a lineup of Ross, DeRozan, JoVal, Bargnani. and Calderon/Bayless is heading nowhere but to 15 wins. That might’ve been the case with Barnes too, except that the perceived potential for a great end product was better and just might’ve rekindled the dwindling fan interest up in here.
Apparently, Ross impressed defensively in his workout and shot the ball well, which sealed the deal for Casey, who will liken him to be the sharp shooter/defensive stopper, that all D-minded coaches love. It’s almost a trend, except be mindful that for every Bruce Bowen, there are 10 Antoine Wrights. Casey is talking about him being a “pure shooter” and a scorer, and expects Ross to follow in the footsteps of his parents (both All Americans). He feels that he’ll be able to play within the zone defense the Raptors will be deploying, and also “fits into our culture”.
Whereas Casey thinks Ross is a 3, Colangelo thinks he’s a 2, which is a bit funny. Here’s Colangelo who thinks he’s improved the depth on the court and thinks Ross has what it takes to get to “another level”, but they key words here he used to describe Ross is “piece”.
Remember how Babcock tried to be smarter than he was by being different? This has shades of that thinking, and what settles me right now is that Casey was involved in the draft process and is going to ensure that we got a guy who will play hard, will have the discipline required of rookies, and earn his minutes. This is definitely a “fit pick” more than a talent pick, which I have no issue with at #8, except that you can’t help but feel that we didn’t get enough return on our lottery position, and that the whole night was rather underwhelming.
The Raptors did select forward Quincy Acy from Baylor with the 37th pick and Tomislav Zubcic from Croatia with the 56th. I suppose we need people to carry shit off and on the planes, and I think both these two able-bodied men can do that with great zeal and vigor.
Thanks to everyone who came out to the party, it’s nice when you pack the place. Here’s some disappointment at the selection of Barnes and pure confusion for Ross.
Obviously, more on the draft soon, and as the title hints at, it could be that we picked a player that turns out to be a decent NBA player when it’s all said and done, except that right now it feels like we reached.
