Bobby Webster Talks Draft Night Moves  | Post-Draft Presser

Bobby Webster Talks Draft Night Moves  | Post-Draft Presser

needs more purple 31st year purple
why not
every year purple down for that
aren’t you the boss can’t you make that decision
what’s that
can’t you make those decisions
these decisions they’re made so many years in advance the purple was probably made in like 2020
so it’s 2030 you’re saying purple back when you were an intern
exactly yeah back before what’s up everyone thanks for staying late
i can’t believe we used to do the second round after this
seems later right it does i don’t know if they were definitely play you know I felt like it was more than five minutes between each pick right
yeah so why uh what about Colin Murray BS made you decide he was your man at number nine
yeah I think as a sophomore you know we had two years to evaluate him so someone that we identified last year he decided to stay in school um what sort of had our eye on him going into the season i think for those of you who watched him I think you know very obvious elite defense um really versatile great hands um a lot of stocks so I think for us it was uh the defense versatility but we felt you know he has a chance to be a really really good defender in the NBA concerned about the shooting though he’s been working on it not a lot of punch I think sometimes we forget you know Brandon’s coming onto this team and so you know you sort of you know think about the offensive defensive you know balance of the team um shooting’s at a premium in the NBA um at the same time I think we saw in the final sort of Oklahoma City defense you know there’s a there’s some something to be said about these type of defenders that you know can really disrupt um you know the other team um and then shooting you know something we’ve always tried to work on here i think you know we’ve taken a lot of kids with this profile in the past and you know it’s a lot of work out there it’s a lot of you know testament to these kids work ethics and sort of our evaluation of how much he can how willing he is to work um he’s not running from it he knows obviously it’s something that he wants to work on so uh you know we’ll go there but we know sort of the baseline on the defensive end and around the rim on offense i think that’s you know he is effective around the rim and he’s been you know productive on that end as well
ob
obviously with every rookie there’s some degree of patience required but it it does seem like with his body and his skill set that he’s a little bit more NBA ready than some of the other bigs in that range
how quickly do you think he can make an impact even at the back end of a rotation at the NBA level
i mean it’s tough for any rookie we’ve been you know you’ve been through enough rookies here it’s hard to be productive as a rookie i do think the one thing that gets you on the court as a rookie is your defense and so I think that gives him a leg up but no expectations will always be managed as far as listen he’s not only adjusting to uh coming to the NBA and playing basketball it’s the lifestyle stuff it’s off the court there’s so many more requirements here you’re not in school anymore what are you doing with your time so I think we’re always um cognizant of the other stuff that they’re adjusting to as well so um you know we’ll we’ll have the realistic expectations for him positionally do you see him like obviously he’s got the bulk to play anywhere really but do you see him tall enough to be a center or is he more like a four or you’ll see how it goes sort of thing
i think in the defensive end he can guard all over so I think that that’s fine yeah probably where does what’s the natural fit on the offensive end um but I think we’ll see it i think he he handles the ball well he does a lot of things you see sort of Darko does in his offense dribble handoff sort of operate from the top pass well um so we think he fits sort of on both ends on the offensive end there um I know he played a little bit of kind of like point forward at South Carolina do you think that’s a potential for him in the NBA or do you think you have more like a connector at the pro level
i think both what you said right he grabs and goes sometimes he kind of plays that elbow top of the key dribble handoff um so I think it you know a lot of stuff you see in in our current offense I think he’s he is suited for on the offensive end as well
there was a lot of trade rumors and speculation about what you guys may do with a ninth pick in addition to picking maybe trading it what was that actual volume of interest when you guys got to the making of the pick
i think a couple things were play i think we were one of the few teams in the top 10 willing to to deal it and so I think that’s probably where a lot of the noise came from um and so we had a lot of those discussions because of that um I think some people thought it was sort of a seven eight player draft so the draft really started with us a lot of teams that were trying to move into the draft they felt like you know right around where we were is where it kind of was unknown and so if you wanted to to move in there and get your guy um but yeah I think probably the first part which is was just a more active year than normal for us with this pick
um so with Colin in particular would be confident for you to like Yes there’s a lot of interest in this pick but we see Colin there’s an opportunity here like I guess I’m asking did you guys have him higher than than nine for example
yeah we had him higher than nine i think the defensive style versatility if you know you’ve we’ve seen a lot of players here be successful in that role and I think um you know that’s a that was high in our list
you guys have talked about needing like a backup center a young center for a little while now does he is that no longer a need is that still something you guys want to address how does he sort of fit into that equation um you probably have to talk to Darko i think you know he’s played some small ball five so I think there’ll probably be some of that i think you know as we’ve seen you can’t play that the whole game um I think he probably feels comfortable four or five maybe some three if you’ve talked to him but um I also think you know big picture you know we’re still in talent acquisition mode i think we’re not so worried about position as we try to find you know these players obviously you know teams aren’t teams change a lot and you can trade you know there’s a lot of different movement there so for us it was just more who do we think is the best player
bobby Collins said Toronto was his first workout do you sense any nerves from him and maybe what stood out in the conversations you had with him yeah um I think he was excited he did his homework he told us he went to um I think it was with he was with his family he said during the holidays in New York so I think there was a road game you know and he said uh I think he said Scotty’s um defensive energy is what stood out to him on that team so he knew a little bit about us he had watched us play um obviously talking to his agent you know was uh identified here as a place that he wanted to come we wanted to come so we had I think he said his first workout here took him to dinner um really professional hardworking has a bit of a chip on his shoulder you know I think you’ll probably get that he wasn’t the most highly recruited kid coming out um I think he transferred went to a prep school at at Wasatch which is a pretty well-known prep school then goes to South Carolina so doesn’t sort of follow the typical um you know path of a top kid and so I think he’s you know put in a lot of hard work to get here so you weren’t spooked by uh his first word on the broadcast uh when he was announced you know of you all see it and then sort of we have to like we sit back my my take on it was um
I can’t believe you have an answer for this it was great
no it was you know we don’t tell you know a lot of a lot of teams will tell the players that they’re getting picked and so I don’t think he knew i think maybe you know I think it was it was truly like sort of a reaction to it happening um and so maybe we should leak to them more i don’t know um
he knew we had my point is he knew we had interest he wanted I think that was that that was sort of like that was our reaction um you said you’re still in talent acquisition phase and rosters uh rosters can change
you know it seems like there’s with the reported trades I suppose at this stage there there’s been a lot more going on early do you still anticipate that level heading into free agency uh with all you know so much focus being on teams looking to shave money or or whatever do you still think a lot of trades are coming
always but I do think that the draft is the sort of second you know unofficial trade deadline or first unofficial trade deadline I guess you’d call it um mainly because the value of these picks and so so many of our conversations around nine and so now nine goes away and so I’m not sure there’s as many talks um there’s probably more just typical player for player trades um but no I think we’ve had a pretty oct pretty active offseason to date you know for NBA term so
do you feel pretty good about who might still be there at 39 do you think do you have a sense of if you’ll make that pick or might be up for grabs
pretty sure we’ll make it you know it’s our second year doing this two-day NBA draft so I think we’re trying to get a sense of um do we sort of rerank tomorrow do we just sort of go according to the board is there more information that’ll come out i think last year um you know we went through it at 31 and so there’s there’s just more things tomorrow that’s going to come out who fell why’ they fall so there’s going to be all the sort of gossip so you have to sort of sift through all of the information um but now I expect us to take 39
a lot of time these top prospects come from winning programs and we look at that and talk about that as a feature or look how much they won and all that south Carolina lost a lot last year do you take anything from that in terms of like informative for you guys in evaluating what kind of a both player and person Colin is having gone through that and handled it the way that he did
yeah no I mean it’s you know it’s our job to sort of see through that i think a lot of the on-off stuff for him when he was on the court they’re obviously better so you’re trying to find the winning players within you know those situations um most you’ve probably seen it has really I think sort of uh poignant interview where he talks about it you know sort of like you know um I think either they had lost a bunch of games in a row and they finally won one but you guys can probably find it where he sort of talks about being a winner on a losing team and I think that that sort of perspective stood out to me um also SEC is the best you know basketball conference in the country so it’s not a necessarily a detriment that you weren’t great in the SEC
you do have a team that’s very together the chemistry they’ve talked about for years what what will make you think he’ll fit in personalitywise with your guys
you know I think you know you just think of that second unit um sort of second half the the year i think they thrived on defense i think you know they sort of rallied around that i think that sort of became uh you know one of our you know top attributes or identity towards that and so I think he’ll fit in with that which is who’s going to play really hard on defense uh Darko made a huge emphasis on that and so um playing together on defense I think is sort of infectious and I think that that would be the initial one stuff matter
yeah i mean I think you know great kid personable like all those things you know it’s kind of I think sometimes you think too hard to mush those guys together whereas I think you know you probably saw this year wasn’t the personalities fit not necessarily because we were so okay this you know Jamal is going to be best friends with Jako you know like they sort of just they fit together in their own way and I think we’re not trying to puppet master it too much you know past four or five years uh you guys have obviously gotten a pretty massive roster overhaul uh how do you think Colin will kind of embrace just kind of the chaos of the NBA you know the competition you know going into summer league going to training camp and and all of that
yeah I think it’s it you’ll you’ll find very quickly I think he he’ll take that challenge on i think in talking to him and getting to know him sort of his path to here wasn’t easy um and sort of the challenge of the NBA feels to me like something that he’s been building towards even his decision to go back to South Carolina was I’m not quite ready i know I need to help work on things so I think there’s a realistic expectation a realistic perspective of what he can and can’t do um but no I think he’s up for the challenge
last year you guys drafted shed 30 or 45th and that was a trade or a trade that you made um is that something that you’re open to do tomorrow and was last year’s again that like second day you kind of re-evaluated where things were
yeah it’s a good one i don’t think we went into last year on the second day expecting we’d end up with I think 45 and 57 right and so yeah I think that opportunity presented itself um similarly we’ll be ready for that tomorrow you know we were ready for that tonight is do you move back do you move out um but yeah it’s it’s a good point tomorrow we didn’t I mean last year that wasn’t I didn’t tell you that on on Wednesday night how do you see Colin and Scotty fitting offensively together
i think high IQ um uh both can handle the ball i think we always feel like you know we say you know you can stack IQ and so I think that feels to me like you know uh they’ll play well with each other you obviously have to worry about the shooting but I think we have some shooting that you can package with both of those guys um I also think on the defensive end you think about maybe front line of Colin and Scotty and Yak like it’s you know formidable on the other end as well play those three guys offensively together with their spacing issues
i think there’s probably two good enough shooters on the team that you could
but these are darker questions
um the concept of like best player available or picking that um
do you think that’s like best player available career-wise what they’re going to be in their career or do you look at it more in like a shorter window and and does the modern NBA change the way you look at it because it seems like there are shorter windows with the aprons and all that i think I think you know sort of Josh’s question it’s hard for rookies to be productive so I think you have to say okay who’s really you know realistically okay can you know Cooper come and you know like so I think that’s sort of there um no I think best best player available is you’re assuming the guys going to stay on your team for a long time so you want him to be great if he so happens to be productive early great um but I think it’s always much more of a long-term view which is you know in in Colin’s case we know he’s going to be really good on defense we know he’s really good around the rim if he turns into a really good shooter then that sort of you know sort of changes the trajectory of his career thanks Bobby thanks Bobby

Bobby Webster steps up to the mic to break down the Raptors’ 2025 Draft Night moves, vision, strategy, and what it all means for the future.
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