We’re just over the 48-hour mark for the 2025 NBA Draft to go live. With the draft being so close, let’s take a look at who the experts are projecting that Toronto selects with the 9th pick.
ESPN – Noa Essengue
The first list we check out comes from ESPN, and they have the Raptors selecting the 6’10” Forward out of France, Noa Essengue. The 18-year-old prospect has been playing overseas in Germany for the past two years. He averaged 12.4 points, 5.3 rebounds, 1.4 steals per game and shot 56 percent from the field. He shot below 30 percent for three pointers, though, while averaging almost two attempts per game.
CBS Sports – Carter Bryant
CBS has Toronto going with a 6’8″ guard out of Arizona, with Carter Bryant. Samson covered him with much more detail, so this will be a brief breakdown of what Bryant is capable of. In 37 games, Bryant only started in five of those contests and only averaged 19.3 minutes per game. He averaged 6.5 points, 4.1 rebounds, 1 block and 0.9 steals per game. His shooting numbers were solid as he shot 46 percent overall and just a bit over 37 percent beyond the arc. The pitch for him is that he’s a lengthy guard who is athletic and has great switchability on the defensive end.
SBNation – Kasparas Jakucionis
SBNation has the Raptors going for a 6’6″ point guard out of Illinois with Kasparas Jakucionis. Jakucionis was born in Lithuania, and before playing for Illinois, he played a few years for FC Barcelona, mostly for their junior and reserve team. In Illinois, Jakucionis averaged 15 points, 5.7 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 0.9 steals per game. He shot 44 percent from the field overall and just below 32 percent beyond the arc on over 5 three-pointers attempted per game. He also had an alarming 3.7 turnovers per game.
Yahoo – Carter Bryant
Yahoo also thinks Toronto go with the “swinging for the fences” pick with Carter Bryant.
NBA.COM – Derik Queen
We have our first centre projection for the Raptors, and it’s Derik Queen out of Maryland. He is a bit undersized for the center position at 6’10”, but his numbers looked great over 36 games. Queen averaged 16.5 points, 9 rebounds, 1.1 steals and 1.1 blocks per game. He shot above 52 percent from the field and only 20 percent from the three-point line, but he shot one per game, so that’s still a work in progress.
theScore – Khaman Maluach
theScore also has Toronto going for a big, but they think it’ll be the 7’2″ center out of Duke with Khaman Maluach. The big man was born in South Sudan, as he came up from the NBA Academy Africa, which is located in Senegal. He averaged 8.6 points, 6.6 rebounds, 1.3 blocks and shot just above 71 percent from the field. He attempted 0.4 threes per game and connected on 25 percent of them.
NBADRAFT.NET – Khaman Maluach
Make it two for the big man from Duke.
Tankathon – Khaman Maluach
Scratch that, make it three.
The Ringer – Khaman Maluach
Hello there, haven’t seen you in a while. It looks like Maluach is the most popular choice for the Toronto Raptors with the ninth pick. It’ll be surprising if he lasts to the ninth pick, and if he does, will Toronto pick him?
SI.COM – Derik Queen
Another duplicate, this time coming from SI, with bigman Derik Queen out of Maryland. Out of the 10 outlets, we decided to check on six of them (seven if we count Noa Essengue as a potential small ball big), think Toronto go with a center.
