<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Raptors: I predicted the Raptors would take Andrea Bargnani No. 1. For those of you writing in and saying there's no way Colangelo would do that, here was his response. "He's clearly a candidate for the No. 1 pick," Colangelo said after finding out he won the lottery. "He was before the Raptors got the No. 1 pick and he continues to be." The circumstantial evidence that Colangelo might select Bargnani is strong: He has (a) heavily scouted Bargnani the past two years, ( been one of his Bargnani's biggest fans for a while, © shown when at Phoenix that he is very open to international players and (d) been in the process of wooing Bargnani's boss, Benetton GM Maurizio Gherardini, to the Raptors. Colangelo, however, said both before and after that rumors that he's made up his mind about Bargnani or anything else are inaccurate. "We have some real holes at point guard and center," Colangelo said. "But I'm not sure the way to fill them is in the draft. I don't think there's an impact player at those positions, so we might not address our weaknesses in the draft. We're not good enough to draft around the young players we have. What you have to do is draft the best player in the draft and worry about things like positions later. We've got to keep the focus on both the short and the long term and the draft is really about the long term." Colangelo said there is a good possibility they'll use trades and their cap flexibility this summer (roughly $13 to $15 million, depending on what the cap is) to address their needs at center and point guard. "We have a nice young core," Colangelo said. "Do we really want to add more young players? I think we need to add some good veterans to the mix right now." With that said, Colangelo made it clear that the ability to trade the pick was one of his greatest assets. "What getting the No. 1 pick does," Colangelo said, "is allow you to control your destiny. We might be willing to make a deal to get more assets -- either multiple picks or cap flexibility. Or it guarantees that we get the guy we want in the draft."</div> This came from Chad Ford's Blog.
