Then again, don't count them out entirely.
A year after being the centre of attention with the coveted No. 1 pick, the Raptors have no pick this season in the draft, having traded away both their first- and second-round selections long ago.
Still Raptors president and GM Bryan Colangelo was busy working the phones Wednesday on the eve of what promises to be a frenzied draft day around the league.
The opportunity is certainly there to acquire a pick, said Colangelo - even as high as in the top 10. But the price may be simply too steep.
"You have to look at what you're giving up," Colangelo said. "It just doesn't make much sense for us, and we're going to stay the course with where we are."
What the Raptors would most likely be giving up is Spanish guard Jose Calderon. Colangelo said 15 teams had called about his availability. But the GM insisted the Raptors are not shopping around Calderon who, paired with starter T.J. Ford, gave Toronto one of the strongest point guard tandems in the league last season.
"He's arguably a solid starter for perhaps 10 to 15 teams in this league, and we put a pretty high value on him too," said Colangelo. "He's a big part of what we've done here and he had a great year for us."
Of the 15 teams that called, Colangelo said three or four made legitimate offers.
"But not enough to make us do anything," said the GM.
Charlotte has Toronto's first-round pick, as part of the 2002 deal that sent Michael (Yogi) Stewart to Cleveland for Lamond Murray, while Portland holds their second-round pick in a deal that goes back to 1997.
In a draft that's being touted as being significantly deeper than last season, when the Raptors selected Italian rookie Andrea Bargnani with the No. 1 pick, Colangelo admitted there are players he likes that are projected top-10 selections.
But he's also happy with his existing roster.
"Although it's a deep draft, the more you look at it the more you start to look at our team and say, `just how deep is it?"' Colangelo said. "We're going to try to take a prudent approach to this and not do it just because we're getting caught up in the frenzy of the draft-related trades."
The more likely route to improve the team, Colangelo said, is through free agency. The Raptors have about US$6 million to spend with the mid-level exception, so they won't be adding any superstars, just a piece to the core group of Chris Bosh, Ford, Calderon and Anthony Parker.
Teams can formally begin talking to free agents on Sunday, and Colangelo has a list of between eight and 10 players he's interested in - Orlando's Grant Hill, Luke Walton of the Los Angeles Lakers, Golden State's Mickael Pietrus and James Posey of the Miami Heat are reportedly on the list.
The future of Raptors swingman Morris Peterson will become clearer come Sunday. The veteran player saw his role reduced this past season in Toronto, and consensus at the end of the season was that he'd played his last game as a Raptor.
Colangelo said there were a few teams interested in Peterson, but that the Raptors "haven't ruled out whether Morris Peterson will be with us or not with us."
Meanwhile, the GM was keeping close on tabs on the rest of his roster. Ford is attending summer school and working out in Austin, Texas, while Bosh is at home in Dallas preparing to play with the U.S. team in the FIBA Americas Olympic qualifying tournament in Las Vegas.
The Spanish national team named Jorge Garbajosa to its 15-man roster for the European championships, despite a gruesome ankle injury that ended the forward's season in late-March. He was expected to be out up to six months.
"If I'm the coach in Spain, I'm doing the same thing, but I do so on the outside chance he is ready to play," said Colangelo. "It's a shrewd move on his part. Garbo is definitely going to try to play, but whether or not he does will be based on whether or not he's ready."
Colangelo said a member of the Raptors staff had spent four of the last five weeks with Garbajosa in Spain, helping him with his rehabilitation, and that he's now able to walk on a treadmill.
The GM was also excited about a photo he received of Bargnani on Wednesday. The Raptors forward lost a lot of his strength after undergoing an appendectomy late in the season.
"It shows somewhat of a progression of where he is physically compared to where he was even in early May," said Colangelo. "You can see he's working on his body physically and doing well."
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