Raptors’ No. 13 pick: Dariq Whitehead could make noise ahead of 2023 NBA Draft

Injuries had Duke's Dariq Whitehead playing catch up for the bulk of his college season. Tyler Rucker explains why 18-year-old might raise eyebrows before the 2023 NBA Draft. Listen to the full episode on players the Raptors will consider with their first-round lottery pick on the ‘Raptors Over Everything’ podcast feed.

Video Transcript

TYLER RUCKER: Coming into this year, he was a preseason top five pick. Everyone thought that highly of him. He's around 6' 7" with good size, good strength, good length. Like, he checks a lot of boxes. In high school, he was extremely explosive.

It's just been a weird year because high school, you're like, man, the shot's the only thing that needs to come around. And then he has a preseason lower leg injury, misses a lot of time. Comes back, just didn't look like he-- he looked like he was 50%. Just the explosiveness wasn't there--

AMIT MANN: Sure.

TYLER RUCKER: --and never really came around. I think he was just-- I think there was even a post-game interview, and he was just like, everything's so fast. I'm just trying to catch up. Like-- and I was like, that tells you a lot about a kid who's been dealing with a tough year so far.

And he has a lot of talent, a lot of intrigue, but had another lower leg injury that I think he was out a couple of games and had to try to play through. So just had the surgery to clear everything up. Hopefully, it's fine because the explosiveness never looked like it was coming back.

But the positive side of that was his shot looked fantastic this year. I mean, it really developed in a really strong way. So now, there's this balance of, well, if you're getting the pre-high school Dariq with the explosiveness to match the outside shot developing that he just had, then you might find gold.

And that's the range in the draft where the Raptors, if they're entertaining that idea, you're going to have to lean on your scouting department. You've got to go back and-- you know, I even asked an executive around the league. I was like, how do you-- how do you go with that mindset, with players like that?

And he was like, you have to trust the player and everything that happened before this year, and if they're a hard worker, they got the intangibles. And if everything checks out, then yeah, you roll the dice. But he's like, it's really hard. He's like, it's really, really difficult, so--

AMIT MANN: Sure.

TYLER RUCKER: Dariq's still got a lot of fans. I think there's-- he's got the talent to be a top 10 player in this draft. But it's just can everything check out healthy? And I hope it does.

AMIT MANN: Interviews are very important with the Toronto Raptors, I guess for many teams as well. But I mean, the Raptors, I can see them-- if it comes down to two players, they might go with the one that they trust more in terms of the interview, how they present themselves.

And I mean, all these are leap of faiths, right? There have been many players who have not worked out, and others who have worked out. And they were the 40th pick or whatever the case is. So that eye contact, the conversation, they value a lot.