Dan Tolzman Talks Raptors Draft Strategy | 2025 NBA Draft Media Session

Dan Tolzman Talks Raptors Draft Strategy | 2025 NBA Draft Media Session

who you picking i called it i told JQ I know what the first question will be and who’s going to ask it there’s one joke to make we make it and then we ask the real question i think it’s the same same answer every year i have no idea we’ll see though a lot of the talk for for a while now has been how much stronger this year’s draft is compared to last year i’m sure a lot of that just has to do with the level of guys at the top once you get to the mid to late lottery area do you feel like there’s a big difference from what was available in that range last year uh not I I would want to say not necessarily but I mean we liked last year’s draft too um it’s such an eye of the beholder thing like I think this is a very strong draft i think it’s maybe a little deeper um just in terms of guys who can come in and impact right away um but I I just think drafts are they’re like this every year like you you convince yourself that there’s either a ton of talent up top and and not much elsewhere um this year I feel like you know we like where we’re at and we’re kind of focusing on that more so than what a normal draft look like or previous drafts look like um but I would say it’s a it’s a range that we we like a lot and and you know we felt pretty good about last year and I think we got a really good one last year in Jacobe in in a similar range um I mean close to the lottery but uh yeah I would say it’s a it’s a good draft is probably the best way to say it by saying you like where you’re at like obviously you have all the relevant discussions but does a move up or down seem I mean it’s not like you have made a ton of those anyway but does it seem even less likely at this point on Monday of draft week i mean so much of the the the trade discussions it always takes another team to to make those moves um it doesn’t seem like there’s many many options out there at least to move up like I think there’s a lot of people that have the same feeling as we do that that you know the top 10 that the lottery whatever is is a pretty good good place to be there is you know there’s definitely interest in people trying to get our pick i think for the same reason like it’s a it’s an interesting group of players around there and so yeah the um I wouldn’t say it’s a you know any percentage chance that we do one or the other but there is there’s definitely conversations being had of of teams trying to get into the top 10 for for the same reason as why we like being here right now messiah identified the backup center position as an area of need after the season seems to be a lot of quality bigs in in that range i I know you guys always talk about best player available when it comes to the draft but would that kind of be a perfect storm if the guy at the top of your board at nine ends up being somebody that checks off boxes in terms of need as well uh I I wouldn’t say it’s impacting our decision- making at all with nine i think I mean you guys know like the one of the hardest positions to play especially for young players is a center position and so there there has there can’t be a ton of expectation that whoever we would take at nine if they are a center that they can come in and fill those minutes right away anyways so to draft that position with the idea that they would for sure be a backup center playing x number of minutes next year is kind of hard to to say anyways I think because of that we’re going to take the best available regardless of position just because that’s the way we operate but also you know actual rotation minutes is probably easier to fill you know in free agency or trade or the different scenarios than to actually bank on a draft pick coming in and doing that if they can do that like you said like that’s a that’s a perfect scenario but to make that decision in you know late June and then hope by October that you’re actually getting that production that it’s just too hard to plan with that in mind the the role of the center in the NBA has changed so much um nowadays uh what what are the particular traits that you would look for if you guys were to try to evaluate the center position particular in the draft uh I think probably the most important thing for us is is our style of play you know like we the way we like to play I think you all see it with Jakob in terms of like playing through him letting him be a bit of an operator in the high post and um and what he brings to our defense as well um I I mean you could kind of play it two ways like it’s it’s always good to have a another center alongside him who maybe does the opposite it’s it’s also good to with the way we play you can see how he’s effective um it’d be good to have 48 minutes of that same type of guy because of what it it does for us so we’re definitely looking at kind of both sides of the coin in terms of what’s the best type of player to pair with him and again that says in in terms of a free agency discussion too um it’s kind of I think the way we’ve always approached every position is we like guys that can play both sides of the ball and if they’re not going to play on the on the defense I think Darko’s made it pretty clear that you’re going to have a hard time playing um that wouldn’t change at all whether it’s a draft pick or a free agent because I think anyone coming in understands you’re going to be held to a certain standard on the defensive side of the ball to then be given more rope offensively um I think that would be a big part of of any type of guy we’re looking at whether it’s a center or any position are you guys pretty confident that you know who’s going to go one through eight in in whatever order that it is like most you have a group going to go through uh I don’t know if I’d say confident i think we definitely have a a bit of a feeling of of who could go ahead i think there’s always a chance of one maybe two guys kind of sneaking in there that that change things up a little bit it does seem like at least if I’m reading all the the stuff online and the public stuff and and the the sources if you will that it seems like there’s eight players that are being named to go ahead of us um if it goes that way like I’d actually be really surprised it doesn’t seem like any draft ever goes the way that it’s says it does to begin so we’re kind of preparing for you know different scenarios of if all eight go that are supposed to what are we looking at and then if if one player slides in that might shift things again like who are we who are we looking at that might drop to us as well go into the second round with the 39 have you found that the NIL landscape has affected that that group of players that you’re with European guys coming or not coming or how is that played into that sort of coding yeah I I think it’s it’s obvious that it has impacted it a lot you know I think this this early second round you know discussion where in the past that was a like a pretty good contract for a kid in college to to like stay in the draft for now with NIL it’s it’s pretty much comparable to what they could get and stay in college so how many of those guys it’s probably more the younger players that would usually stay in to the draft and that’s who we would probably be picking from at 39 a lot of those guys are are going back um going back to college for another year before making the jump and so we’re looking at maybe a little bit older group of players than what what we normally do and and that’s not a bad thing like a lot of those guys can come in and contribute from day one just because they’re they’re more closer to to being NBA ready you said it’s only four year guys that seems to fit into your game yeah we we’ve never really NIL preNIL whatever we’ve never really especially in the second round approached it so much based on um like one group of player that we prefer to take versus not whether it’s a development or a or a experienced guy but I would say we try to just get the guys that we think still have some upside and some of those four-year guys that we’ve taken we see um we see some potential with in a different environment with a little more development work you know is there more we can we can get out of them um as a pro and I don’t think that would change any now it’s it just comes down to yeah maybe maybe now there’s less of those um young development project guys that’ll be available at 39 because a lot of those guys are now going back for a second or third year in college first before taking the jump i was going to ask about NIL as well like do you see more it impacting it more this year than last year is it going to just keep going more like impacting drafts um I definitely think it’s more than last year because I I think I think it was probably still a little new last year in terms of what what colleges knew they could how much they could sway guys to stay i do think at some point it’s going to I would imagine plateau and and players will just they’ll they’ll understand like you know I think it’s going to take a number of guys who maybe go back to school and they don’t improve and they don’t and it actually hurts their draft stock or something to where will it balance out and a certain number of these guys will actually jump when they when they have the opportunity earlier and and um um or or if it if it goes the other way i don’t know like it’s it’s kind I think early enough in the kind of infancy of of what it’s going to do to maybe it’s another another or one or two draft cycles to like really kind of balance out but I do think it seems to be a a larger impact this year than it was last year but who knows how long that’ll keep going how does the draft process change when you’re working with a contending team versus you know when you’re working with a rebuilding team you know whether that’s talking to prospects about what their future outlook like might be whether you know the internal conversations just can you compare and contrast uh sort of those two cycles um honestly not a lot i think not a lot different i would say it um when you’re in a contending team situation the guys you’re taking you know you’re going to have the ability to kind of develop them in the background while your your main group is trying to you know get as deep in the playoffs as possible so there’s a little a little more runway with those guys to to not be like thrown into the mix right away but that doesn’t change the fact that like we’re still looking to draft the same players it’s just that maybe with a non-contending team you know there’s going to be minutes available for this guy early on to where you can kind of get a read on them earlier to see um like do they have what it takes to be an NBA guy and stick but I wouldn’t say the actual process of the drafting is any different at least the way that we approach it like maybe it’s um I I would say if as a contending team maybe you value the pick more as an asset that you can use to go get a a a player in a trade that can plug into your rotation better if you’re like pushing to make more you know playoff impact um but again like if you’re just strictly on the draft if you’re taking the pick versus keeping or trading it I would I would say you’re probably still going to take the same players it just comes down to how much do you get out of that player in the first couple years is there something you learned or that was illustrated emphasized in these playoffs and maybe specifically the finals um that you’re bringing into this draft that I guess is what did you learn from the playoffs in the finals uh I wouldn’t say anything in particular um I think it it highlights how physical the game is come playoff like it it’s clearly a difference of like just the the intensity ratchets up um defense is so much more important which is why I think Darko and our coaching staff like they preach that so much knowing that you know someday like we’re we’re hoping to be in that situation and so you have to be ready for when the physicality goes up a level like can you take it or are you are you stuck in the you know complaining with refs and stuff because they’re not getting the foul calls you normally do in you know November and December and so it seems like the teams that can just fight through that stay mental ly strong and actually like take those hits and keep executing despite the the more physical defense you’re seeing on a possession basis um those are the guys that are they’re being successful in the playoffs and so I think that you know the way we approach it is like yeah we want to get players that can eventually be playoff basketball players and so you know if they’re maybe if they’re not physically ready to take that that sort of hit right away at least we want to get guys that have the like the mental fortitude to be able to once they get stronger and and are ready to take the actual pounding that the playoffs is they can they can fight through it and um eventually they’ll be ready to to impact it but yeah I’d say you know that’s kind of like we we’ve been there like we I think this franchise has been in the playoffs enough with the group of people around here and our coaches have been around the playoffs enough elsewhere as opposed to the last couple years that I think everyone knows like how intense it is and and how draining it can be of a process to fight through and try to win four games against the same team um it it takes a certain type of player to understand that and and you know that that those are the types of guys we’re looking for is there a specific urgency this year to improve the team um either through the draft or through agency because the fact that the East seems to be more open this upcoming season uh I wouldn’t say an urgency as much as like I think this was I mean this was like a big part of of why we did the Brandon Ingram trade was you know that we see him as as you know a big addition to our team next year regardless of what what he brought this past year so um I wouldn’t say the East is any more open i think it’s still going to be very difficult because I’m sure there’s a lot of these teams that are kind of in the midfield that are they’re going to be trying to make that jump up to contention too so um yeah I think you know we we definitely feel like we’re we’re just trying to get the pieces in place that when we’re healthy when we’re you know ready to actually make a run as a group and and on the same page and chemistry is where we think it can get to that we’re ready to to you know be in a point of actually competing with some of those teams that have been ahead of us it’s just being you know ready for when that opportunity comes and so we’re just trying to get our get our group together and going and and I think BI is going to be a big part of that that group um and then from there you know what we can we can kind of put in around the edges to to keep pushing that forward is important but at the same time like we’re not looking to sacrifice any of our long-term um with you know we still have a really young group of players so we want to keep developing while maybe getting more competitive in the process question who else you read about whether you worked out here or there you want to Did you get everybody in you wanted uh I mean no it I would never say that we got everybody in we wanted to i think that’s it’s always the song and dance you do with with agents of you know they’re they’re going to tell you they’re the guy’s for sure going ahead of us and so you know they only work out for certain number of teams and then there’s a number another whole group of players who say that we would never consider their guy at at nine or wherever and so they don’t send them to us because they have to prioritize teams in the range that they think their guys are going to go so there’s always this like kind of back and forth of of where your pick lands and and can you get everybody in and it’s impossible to get everybody in but you know you do your best with the scheduling and there’s definitely some guys that you know we would have really liked to get in up here that they just for whatever reason prioritized other teams or scheduling for whatever reason of of just being able to fit in the certain number of teams in the certain number of days and it is what it is but that’s where we I mean we scout these guys so much during the season that what a workout does um like doesn’t really sway you that much it’s it is nice to get them here and to get to like know them a little bit and honestly to get some of your like non-scouting staff around them but from a like getting to know guys standpoint it’s just a workout honestly so it wouldn’t preclude you from dropping a guy that didn’t work out no no i mean I think I think we said it last year like we did not work out Jacobe last year we didn’t get him as an interview at the combine last year and so we somewhat blindly took him but we did enough background on him we had a good enough relationship with his representation that we felt very comfortable with taking him when our pick came up and we got lucky that he fell the way he did but yeah we it is what it is you know like it’s we didn’t hold it against them for not sitting here because they didn’t expect to be around at 19 and I think it’s the same with nine this year is like there’s a lot of guys that don’t think they’ll be on the board at nine and if they happen to be that like you know we’re going to we’re going to consider them just like we would have had they been here dan say there’s that expectation of who the first like seven eight will be how do you feel about that next crop like is there very little to like separate the next six seven eight guys or do you maybe just see like two three key guys that you have oh no it’s a um it’s a big group of guys that that are kind of that next tier of of players consideration and honestly like our our eight is probably different than every other team’s eight you know above us and so where the lines are made of of who goes ahead of us to the next six guys after us seven guys after us whatever it’s kind of blurry um and ours is going to be different than everybody else’s it’s definitely going to be different than what you’re reading online um but no we really like we really like the tier of players that that we’re we’re in right now and we’re we’re trying to figure out the order of it that’s what we’re these meetings over the next few days are going to do um to kind of get to a place where we’re we’re you like comfortable with what it is but the biggest thing with that is it um it opens things up like if if we’re really comfortable with this this group of players and guys that were comfort like through these meetings if they end up still being on the board later in the draft when the draft actually comes like that’s where conversations of trying to jump back in and get a guy because we have them ranked so high during this process is it it comes out you know so these are what all these kind of leading up to the draft these meetings do is it it sorts out not only what we’ll do at nine but also how what shapes the the rest of the draft dan have you guys been able to incorporate AI into the drafting process i mean I’m sure in some ways I mean I’d like to hope that none of our scouts are using it to write reports but um no I don’t know it’s like a uh it’s a part of everything these days you know like it’s it’s definitely not we’re not we’re not having models run on it and so much of this is we’re we’re tackling this the same way we always have with you have to see these guys in person you have to like really feel like a gut instinct on what what you feel about these players regardless of what any sort of of machine learning can tell us but then we also take in analytics and we take in you know these different perspectives on it um but I wouldn’t say that it’s like shaping or changing the way that we’re doing this process at all obviously last year you took all as a long-term project and I know he got hurt but but a year later are you excited about him were you pleased with the steps he took is he meeting kind of what you saw last year yeah I mean I think I think um it it definitely kind of went as expected for the year where it was you know maybe a couple months of like growing pains figuring things out um just the speed of the game the physicality all that stuff but it seemed like by the by the last couple couple months of his season pre-injjury like he was really trending in in the right direction and it was super unfortunate that he got hurt when he did because with the way the the main team was going like we were really hoping to see him mixed in there and getting minutes with the big club um just again like as a measuring stick to see what the summer should look like and then this next year but I think from a from a like the progress that that he’s shown in one year it was you know pretty promising in terms of like this is what we were hoping to see and expecting i think physically he’s really improved he’s getting stronger and it’s just a matter of time for the game to slow down for him and to really like start to pick things up um and I mean as you guys all know like the NBA is it there’s so much that goes into it in terms of just like the understanding of the game and and defensive reads and offensive sets and like the other the amount of things that are being thrown at him for where he came from it’s going to take time for that to really digest and I think all the work he’s put in on his game the um in the weight room these sorts of things like he’s doing the work to prepare for when all those things kind of click um and I think defensively he showed at least in the G-League some potential in terms of just naturally being a gifted like impact player on that end of the floor so what we can unlock the rest of it is it’s just a matter of time and you know we’ll see him at summer league he should be back ready to go for that and then we’ll we’ll see where the summer goes and and what it brings for next year but it’s I’d say his the the development plan it hasn’t changed any in terms of the the timeline that he’s on and it’s um I think if everyone just has a nice slow uh approach to like just watching what this kid can turn into um the result might be pretty fun at the end it’s Damon Starttomire and thanks for watching the Toronto Raptors YouTube channel check out our latest videos and subscribe for more starttomire launches a three knocks it in starter yes scottire

Raptors Assistant GM and VP of Player Personnel Dan Tolzman takes questions in an informal media session focused on the upcoming NBA Draft. He shares insight into the team’s approach, scouting philosophy, and what fans can expect on draft night.

Subscribe for more front office updates, draft coverage, and exclusive Raptors content.
#TorontoRaptors #NBADraft2025 #DanTolzman #RaptorsDraft #WeTheNorth