Toronto Raptors: 5 options for pick No. 23 in 2017 NBA Draft
By Nate Wolf
1. Semi Ojeleye, SF/PF, SMU
Take a few minutes, go to Reddit, find the Raptors sub, and skim through a few threads about the draft. You’ll quickly notice that the team’s fanbase loves Semi Ojeleye.
It’s easy to see why. Ojeleye is nearly 6’7” in shoes and weighs 241 pounds, but his body fat percentage is just 5.5 percent. He is literally a Roman sculpture. Ojeleye combines those measurements with a 40.5-inch max vertical, giving him elite physical tools for an NBA forward.
He’s not unproven, either. Having transferred from Duke, Ojeleye averaged 19.0 points and 6.9 rebounds per game in his lone season at SMU. He even canned 42.4 percent of his 172 three-point attempts. The dude can play.
He’s ostensibly a combo forward, and with both P.J. Tucker and Patrick Patterson entering free agency, a frontcourt vacancy may well need filling. Ojeleye’s a superior athlete to both of those guys, plus he replaces their floor stretching ability assuming his spot-up shooting translates.
The comparisons end there, however. Ojeleye is a unique prospect, but his versatility and skill level shouldn’t be overblown. Listed as a combo forward by DraftExpress, Ojeleye seems more like a pure stretch-4 at the professional level, where nearly every team is looking to downsize.
As Mike Schmitz of DraftExpress notes, Ojeleye “doesn’t have a ton of experience chasing around NBA-level wings.” Offensively, meanwhile, the draft gurus over at The Ringer say Ojeleye looks stiff and uncreative with the ball. Maybe he becomes a Tucker-like Swiss army knife, but for now, the Kansas native is more of an undersized 4.
Defense is another sticking point for those wanting Patterson or Tucker 2.0. Ojeleye averaged 0.5 steals and 0.5 blocks per 40 minutes last season, which is worrisome since those statistics usually indicate defensive success in the NBA. Ojeleye is too athletic to get targeted on defense – and truthfully, that’s half the battle – but his ceiling is definitely not Draymond Green.
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That’s fine, of course. Green is an All-NBA type of player. Ojeleye will not be that, but he fits a need and his measurements and shooting give him a solid platform to play at the NBA level. If the Raptors want a solid modern forward, they could do much worse than this 22-year-old.