TheToronto Raptors have made 35National Basketball Association (NBA) draft selections during their draft history. The Raptors began as anexpansion team in 1995 and first participated in theNBA draft on June 28, 1995, at SkyDome, now known asRogers Centre, in Toronto,Ontario, Canada.[1] In 1989, the NBA agreed with the National Basketball Players' Association to limit drafts to two rounds, an arrangement that has remained the same up the present time.[2] Before each draft, anNBA draft lottery determines the first round selection order for the teams that missed theplayoffs during the prior season.[2] Teams can also trade their picks, which means that in some drafts teams may have more or less than two draft picks, although they must have at least one first-round pick every other year.[3]
The first pick in Toronto Raptors' history wasDamon Stoudamire, apoint guard from theUniversity of Arizona, who was the seventh overall pick in the1995 NBA draft. People in the crowd were surprised by this pick because they expected the Raptors to pickEd O'Bannon fromUCLA. In their second pick of the same draft,Fab Five memberJimmy King fromMichigan was drafted in the second round.[1] The Raptors won the first overall pick in 1996, but they had to give that up due to the expansion agreement with the league.[4]Chris Bosh was selected by the Raptors as the fourth pick overall in the2003 NBA draft, and he went on to play in threeall-star games, while starting in two.[5][6][7][8]Andrea Bargnani, who was selected by the Raptors with the first overall pick of the2006 NBA draft, became the first European to be picked first overall in the NBA draft.[5][9]
