With the Toronto Raptors’ 2016-17 NBA season now over, it’s time to look back on the performances of each player. Moving from the youngsters, to the bench, to the starters, we’ll grade each player’s 2016-17 season and evaluate his future with the franchise.
Our first batch of exit interviews comprises the youngsters who flitted between the NBA and the D-League.
Toronto Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri filled in his roster with recent draft picks rather than veteran free agents. As a result, Toronto came into the season with a young bench. In total, six of Toronto’s 15 players were rookies or second-year players.
Five of those six saw less than 1,000 minutes this season, and they all showed differing levels of potential and progress. Today, we’ll be taking a look back on their 2016-17 NBA seasons with player grades for Bruno Caboclo, Fred VanVleet, Delon Wright, Jakob Poeltl and Pascal Siakam.
Each of them will get an admittedly arbitrary grade that represents their progress and performances in 2016-17. These grades – and I cannot stress this enough – are relative to preseason expectations.