Toronto’s NCAA star Zach Edey works out for Raptors ahead of NBA draft

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Six or seven years ago, Zach Edey couldn’t imagine pulling on a Toronto Raptors jersey.

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Sure, like most high schoolers, maybe he could imagine one day playing for his hometown team, but back then it was more likely Edey would be thinking the Maple Leafs or Blue Jays than the Raptors.

Edey only had taken up basketball in Grade 10 because of his immense size, but nobody anticipated he’d go on to grow to 7-foot-4 and put together the best collegiate career ever by a Canadian baller.

Edey, who turned 22 last month, returned to Purdue in Indiana as the defending NCAA national player of the year to lead the Boilermakers all the way to the final. While they fell just short, losing to UConn, Edey repeated as the top player in the U.S., won a bunch of other trophies and improved as a player while slimming down.

A potential second-round pick a year ago, Edey now has a shot at cracking the first round on June 26.

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Which brings us to the first Tuesday in June. There Edey was, sporting a Raptors jersey after going through a draft workout with the club he grew up supporting. It was Edey’s first-ever NBA workout, with five more scheduled at the moment.

But this one was special. After joking about Toronto traffic, Edey brought up supporting the team when it won it all.

“It’s cool. I mean, just when you grow up watching. It’s not that long ago, but I remember driving around downtown after they won the championship, like downtown was going crazy. Now I’m in here working out, like it is really cool,” Edey said.

Toronto enters the draft armed with the 19th pick of the first round and the first pick of the second round (31st overall), which now goes at 4 p.m. the following day.

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While Edey would be thrilled to land at home, he knows that there are plenty of other teams in the NBA, so the odds of it happening aren’t tremendous, though there’s always a shot.

“Obviously getting drafted anywhere would be a blessing, but drafted by Toronto, it’s the team you grew up watching. It’s a team all my buddies are watching, my family watch. It’d be real cool,” he said.

After performing like Shaquille O’Neal in the post while at Purdue, Edey knows he’ll have to adjust to get minutes in the NBA. That’s why he has been working tirelessly on his three-point shot and has slimmed down.

“I think I’m still kind of the same type of player, I’m still strong, I like to bang inside, like to get my position, like to travel in space and dominate in the paint, but I think I’ve improved my foot speed and improved my conditioning,” Edey said. “I improved a lot of things — my touch, my feel for the game.

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“And this year is different than last year because I know I’m in (this draft, vs. being able to pull out as he did last year). Last year, I wasn’t sure. This year, there was no doubt in my mind I was going to the NBA.”

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Raptors assistant general manager/vice president of player personnel Dan Tolzman spoke highly of Edey on Tuesday.

“He seems to be playing with a lot more confidence. And I think that’s from years of success in college and having one of the greatest careers in college history. He’s probably improved his body more than last year, which then overall probably improves him as a prospect just for where he’s at now versus a year ago,” Tolzman said.

“But, skill-wise, game-wise, it’s kind of been the progression of him as a player, I would say, has been somewhat as expected, just with the amount of work that he’s put into it.”

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Tolzman believes there’s still a place in the game, even with a league that has gone three-point crazy above all else, for giants like Edey.

“Without question, I mean, look at like some of the top players in the league every year are still the big guys like it’s, it’s such an important part of how the NBA is played from as little [a thing] as just like setting great screens,” he said.

“It’s like it changes the face of the game and yeah, there’s always a need for those guys and rebounding is so important. Protecting the paint is so important with how the best teams play.”

Edey has taken stock of how some of the league’s skilled centres play and believes he can do some of that too, pointing out Jonas Valanciunas, Nikola Vucevic, Ivica Zubac and even how MVPs Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid bang in the post.

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But he also recognizes he is his own player, just as they are different themselves. He recognizes that he’s relatively new to the game and with as much as he has accomplished, it’s possible this is just the start.

“I don’t even think I’m close to my ceiling. Still doing things in practice I’ve never done. Still trying to add things to my game that I’ve never done before,” Edey said. “I don’t think I’m a finished player by any means. I can still get better at every part of my game.

@WolstatSun

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