Fred Van Vleet didn't have long to wait after the NBA Draft to find an NBA home.

Van Vleet was not picked in the two-round draft, which ended around 11:15 p.m. Thursday, but he quickly signed with the Toronto Raptors, according to Jonathon Givony of DraftExpress.

The former Auburn All-Stater was a two-time Missouri Valley Conference player of the year at Wichita State, which won at least one NCAA tournament game in all four of his seasons with the Shockers, including reaching the Final Four his freshman year, the Sweet 16 his junior season and starting out an NCAA-record 35-0 his sophomore season. In high school, he led an Auburn team with zero starters taller than 6 feet to third place in Class 4A, the second-highest finish for a NIC-10 boys basketball team in more than 50 years.

Van Vleet said Thursday that he turned down two chances to be drafted midway through the second round because those teams wanted him to spend two years in the NBA Development League at an annual salary of $20,000. He said he had far more lucrative offers as an undrafted free agent, and quickly backed that up by signing with Toronto.

Van Vleet will play for the Raptors' summer league team in Las Vegas and is expected to get an invitation to the team's training camp in the fall. The Wichita Eagle reported that Van Vleet will get to play at least three summer league games in Las Vegas, which starts July 8. That should serve not only as an audition for the Raptors, but for any other NBA team in search of a point guard in the case that Toronto doesn't add Van Vleet to its roster in the fall.

At Auburn, Van Vleet was a two-time NIC-10 MVP who led the Knights to back-to-back NIC-10 titles his last two seasons. His junior season, he propelled Auburn to the first undefeated NIC-10 season by one of the league's nine public schools since East 30 years earlier. He averaged 6.9 assists (or more) each of his last three seasons at Auburn, yet also finished as the all-time leading scorer for any of Rockford's four public high schools (Auburn, East, Jefferson and Guilford).

At Wichita State, Van Vleet scored 1,439 career points and finished as the school's all-time leader in assists (637), steals (225) and assist-to-turnover ratio (3.08).

Van Vleet would make history if he makes an NBA roster. Freeport's Kim Hughes (932 points in 1977-81) is the only area basketball player to score at least 50 points in the NBA. Rockford West's Mark Sibley scored 46 points in 1974, Stillman Valley's Dan Godfread 13 in 1991 and Boylan's Chad Gallagher six in 1994. East's Skip Thoren was an All-Star in the ABA and scored 2,239 points in three seasons in 1967-70, but never played in the NBA.

That's it for local basketball players at the highest levels. And now Fred Van Vleet has a chance to join one of the NBA's best teams.

Toronto reached the Eastern Conference finals this year, losing in six games to the eventual NBA champion Cleveland Cavaliers.

Van Vleet said before the draft that he would actually have more choices if he wasn't picked and would choose whichever team he thought gave him the best chance of making the roster. Point guard Kyle Lowry averaged 6.4 assists last year and was Toronto's second-leading scorer (21.2 points), but he is also a nine-year veteran who is 30 years old. That was also easily Lowry's best season; his career averages are 13.5 points, 5.7 assists and a sub-standard .419 percent shooting. Backup Cory Joseph, 24, averaged 8.5 points and 3.1 assists in 26 minutes a game, shooting .439 percent.

Many draft experts had worries about Van Vleet's size, but he is 6-foot-1 to Lowry's 6-foot. Joseph is 6-3. Third-stringer Delon Wright averaged 3.8 points and 1.1 assists as a 24-year-old rookie.

The Raptors did not add any guards in the draft, going big with 7-foot Australian center Jakob Poeltl and 6-foot-10 Cameroon forward Pascal Siakam.

Van Vleet could not be reached for this story.

Matt Trowbridge: 815-987-1383; mtrowbridge@rrstar.com; @matttrowbridge