LAS VEGAS — When it comes to finding really good players in atypical places, the Toronto Raptors could use a win. After an exceptional run of success in talent identification — a development that led to their championship year — the well has run a bit dry of late.
If Markquis Nowell has his way, he’ll reverse that trend, single-handedly. The form of the electric Kansas State point guard who went undrafted in June, signed a two-way contract with Toronto in July and will likely be the starting point guard for the Raptors’ entry in NBA Summer League — which kicks off Friday afternoon with a game against the Chicago Bulls, the first of five for Toronto’s entry of NBA hopefuls over the next 10 days in the desert.
From Nowell’s perspective, expectations are simple, and very high. You don’t adapt “Mr. New York City” – the nickname attached to him as the Harlem product was starring on the New York high school scene and summer playground tournaments – without a healthy amount of self-regard, and you don’t make it to the cusp of the NBA while standing five-foot-seven in socks without a whole load of self-belief.
“I expect to win. Win five games, and we come home with a trophy. Win Summer League MVP, and bond with my brothers a little bit more,” Nowell told me after the Raptors’ opening workout, held in the team’s custom-built practice facility in a ballroom at the Wynn Hotel. “The goal is to win every single tournament every single day, every single minute. A successful trip would be us winning and me getting my contract bumped up (from two-way to full roster).”
You can’t put anything past him. The now-five-foot-eight point guard has been overlooked most of his career – lightly recruited out of high school in New York City, an unheralded transfer to Kansas State after starting at little-known Little Rock and undrafted out of Kansas State despite winning the Bob Cousy award as the nation’s top point guard and setting NCAA tournament assist records in Kansas State’s run to the Elite 8. But he finds a way to come out on top.
The headliners at Summer League will be the big-name picks taken at the top of the draft. The Summer League debut of No. 1 pick Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs and No. 2 pick Brandon Miller and the Charlotte Hornets will be played out in front of a sold-out crowd of 17,500 on campus at UNLV Friday night.
And how Raptors No. 13 overall pick Gradey Dick does will be closely monitored too.
But the real success stories of Summer League are when players like Nowell use the platform to prove that they are ready for an NBA job.
Nowell’s confidence is something the Raptors gravitate to when they offered him a two-way contract after he passed through two rounds of the draft without being selected, which was good fortune from their view as Toronto didn’t have a second-round pick of its own.
“There’s a competitiveness about him that he’s got on both ends of the floor,” said Raptors assistant coach Pat Delaney, who will be the head coach of the club’s Summer League entry. “He’s a winner.”
The Raptors can only hope that Nowell’s considerable skills (he averaged 17.6 points and 8.3 assists last season, albeit while shooting 38.6 per cent from the floor and 35.5 per cent from three) translate to the NBA level. It’s been a minute since they’ve been able to find a rotation-level player outside of the draft lottery, which was a signature feature of their championship-calibre teams. Sure, those clubs had significant star power, but the quality of their overall depth set them apart and was the product of a remarkable run of talent acquisition and development from 2015 to 2017, players who often showed in Summer League that they were intent of being part of the NBA program.
In order, the Raptors added:
• Delon Wright, the 20th pick in 2015 who ranks ninth in his draft class in Win Shares
• Norman Powell, the 46th pick in 2015 and who ranks 15th in Win Shares.
• Jakob Poeltl, taken ninth in 2016 and ranks third in his draft class in Win Shares.
• Pascal Siakam, taken 27th in 2016 and a two-time all-NBA selection who ranks second in Win Shares.
• Fred VanVleet as an undrafted free agent in 2016 holds the Raptors’ franchise record for single-game points and single-game assists, was an All-Star in 2022 and ranks sixth in his draft class in Win Shares.
• O.G. Anunoby, the 23rd pick in 2017 who ranks 10th in his class in Win Shares and earned all-NBA second-team defensive recognition in 2022-23.
• Chris Boucher, who signed to a two-way contract in 2018 after being undrafted out of Oregon in 2017. The Montreal forward would rank ninth in Win Shares among players drafted in 2018.
Managing to find and develop seven starter- or rotation-quality players in the space of four years – three of whom earned either All-Star or all-league recognition – with only one pick in the lower half of the lottery is a run that is unlikely to be duplicated.
But what’s happened since, where the Raptors have failed to add a single rotation player outside the lottery in the four years since (though the book on Christian Koloko, the 33rd pick in 2022, is still wide open, and we’ll see if Jeff Dowtin Jr. can crack the rotation this coming season) is unsustainable for a team hoping to win without going through a complete rebuild.
The Raptors could use a talent hit.
Which is why Nowell – the highest-profile recruit to the Summer League roster – is such an intriguing story. The Raptors were weak at point guard last season, without a viable back-up behind VanVleet, and now – having lost VanVleet via free agency – have even more question marks at the position, even after the addition of veteran playmaker Dennis Schroder.
Which is why there is a path to playing time for Nowell, who, at age 23, should be more physically and mentally prepared for the pro level than most NBA rookies.
Nowell’s height is obviously an issue. Will he be able to finish in the lane against longer NBA defenders? Will the Raptors be able to switch defensively if it means Nowell will get buried at the basket by NBA bigs?
But it seems unfair to make it the first point of reference for someone as talented a playmaker (whose signature NCAA Tournament moment was a single-game-record 19 assists in the Wildcats win over Michigan in the Sweet 16), scorer (who had a career-high 36 points in a win over Texas last season) and defender (who averaged 2.6 steals in his senior season).
But it’s relevant. A few inches taller and he would have undoubtedly been drafted, a few more and he’d likely have been a first-rounder who didn’t stay for five college seasons (the pandemic having gained him an extra year of eligibility).
Being undersized has been something Nowell has dealt with his entire basketball life, and quite successfully.
“As a smaller guard, you can’t back down,” he said. “You have to be fierce, competitive, you have to have the heart of a lion. I’m just going to come out here and compete. People might look at my size as a (disadvantage), I look at it as an opportunity. I use it to my advantage.”
The Raptors are giving Nowell an opportunity because they believe he can do just that and give their team a jolt of creative playmaking not many guards are capable of at any size.
But they want it to be more than just a Summer League thing. The Raptors need good young players to earn jobs and build up the franchise’s depth. It used to be a team trademark, but it’s been missing in recent years, to their detriment.
So, they would love it if Nowell can turn his Summer League opportunity into regular NBA minutes. They need Nowell to come up big in Vegas almost as much as Nowell does.
