Toronto Raptors might have tough decision to make with recent first-round pick
If you’re confident in what the Toronto Raptors’ roster will look like at the end of the season, you might be the only one.
The Raptors head into the 2025-26 season as a team full of question marks, mostly centred around the fit of last year’s big-ticket trade deadline acquisition, Brandon Ingram. The 2020 All-Star hasn’t played a regular-season game since last December, a fact that’s not lost on the 28-year-old.
The Raptors remain in a multi-year rebuild, though they appear to be in the midst of a postseason push to start the year. Whether that will come to fruition is another discussion.
But while there’s much intrigue around Ingram, there are also other questions to be asked further down the roster. One storyline that appears to be emerging is a battle for minutes between 2023 and 2024 first-round picks Gradey Dick and Ja’Kobe Walter, entering their second and third years in the league.
“It’s better to compete against other teams, but the day-in, day-out, going against each other, it’s just like a kind of an addiction at this point,” Dick said this week, as per Sportsnet’s Michael Grange. “If I’m called to be in second rotation, called to be in first rotation, whatever it may be, I just got to buy into my role. And I’m completely grateful to have the opportunity because, at the end of the day, it’s basketball, and I’ve played long enough where I know what a team needs.”
Toronto head coach Darko Rajakovic has frequently spoken about using 10-man rotations, with either Walter or Dick possibly ending up as the odd man out from the second group. While Dick started 54 games a year ago as a sophomore, it appears he’ll be on the bench unit to begin this year.
“I’m just going to bring energy, whichever way I can bring energy, bring my tools, which are, like, my defensive instincts, getting steals, getting deflections, just kind of being the all-around guy that’s gonna dive on the floor, do whatever,” added Walter, per Grange. “You know that’s always gonna keep you on the court no matter what, if you’re giving effort.”
Dick is eligible for a contract renewal after this season, while Walter is extension eligible after the next year. Toronto holds its rights either way, so it’s not the most time-pressing decision, but it should be a big year for both players to help see where they fit in Toronto’s future. In the NBA, former first-round picks find new homes all the time, as only six of the 21 players on Toronto’s training camp roster are home-grown.
Eventually, at some point this season, push will come to shove with Walter, Dick, and the rest of the lineup. Perhaps a trade is in the works for one of the two, or perhaps Toronto will end up parting ways with another player ahead of them in the depth chart.
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