After being signed in August, guard Malachi Smith has now joined the team on a two-way contract as of today, September 21st.
On social media, Smith thanked God before asking where the best places to eat are in the city. It’s this kind of mentality, starving for a chance, that will make Smith fit in well on the Raptors this year.
Smith played his first season in the NBA last year, having started out in the G League in 2023, and earned the collegiate Sixth Man of the Year award in the West Coast Conference in 2023. He is a shooting guard in the most literal sense of the term: roughly half of his shots last year were from the three point line, and he made 43% of them on solid volume for a bench player on the Brooklyn Nets. More shooting is something that the Raptors could always use, and it seems that between Jamison Battle, Ja’Kobe Walter, and now, Malachi Smith, we’re assembling some solid firepower on our second unit.
In last year’s second-to-last game against the Milwaukee Bucks, Smith was slotted into the starting lineup and exploded for a near-triple-double of 19 points, 10 assists, and 8 rebounds. Now, the last week of regular season basketball is always filled with inflated statlines, but Smith’s facilitation looked solid, making the open passes but knowing when he had to knock down a shot, not turning away from the need to contribute to scoring. In their final game of last year’s regular season, the Nets played the Raptors, where Smith contributed eight points, six assists, and five rebounds, shooting 33% from three.
Smith should be able to contribute well both to the Raps and the Raptors 905, bringing some extra offensive juice to a team that needs to develop itself on that side of the ball.
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