Toronto Raptors have plenty of options after moving up to fourth pick

Toronto Raptors: Trade the pick to move down and acquire more assets

Another benefit of the lottery balls falling for the Raptors is that they jumped other teams (notably Oklahoma City and Orlando) who have additional draft capital and may have urgency to talk trade with Toronto for the fourth pick.

Thunder General Manager Sam Presti has so many draft picks the next number of years that they may as well call it the ‘Thunder Draft, featuring other NBA teams’.

OKC has some young pieces in place already but this is a slow rebuild that will take years to come to fruition. The team is hoping to mimic the homegrown success of drafting Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden by pairing budding star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander with other high-end talent.

Murphy put forth an idea of the fourth pick for OKC’s sixth and sixteenth overall. I’m not so sure why the Raptors would do that. The general perception is that there is a drop-off after the first four prospects. For The Raps to move out of the top four would take more in my view.

The Orlando Magic also have incentive to move up but would really have to love someone that they think the Raptors (or another team trading up) would take.

The Magic have picks five and eight in the first round but that seems like too much to move up one spot unless the Raptors sweetened the pot.

I don’t really see the upside for Toronto moving down. I think trying to move up makes a little more sense. Staying where they are is the most logical unless…