Toronto Raptors forward Patrick Patterson is going to be making a beeline from the court to the couch Sunday night to catch the 88th Academy Awards.

When he’s not draining three-pointers on the team’s practice court, he’s at the movies (Scotiabank and the Yonge-Dundas Cineplex are his favourite theatres in The 6).

With the Oscars just a day away, we asked him to pick the winners in the major categories and got his thoughts on #OscarsSoWhite.

Your favourite film of 2015, Sicario, was not nominated. So who are you picking for best picture?

The Revenant. One, because both Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy are phenomenal. Two, the director (Alejandro Inarritu) won last year for Birdman and he’s made another stellar movie. I also enjoyed The Martian, but a lot of it was green screen. Probably over 90% of that movie was just green screen. The Revenant was a powerful story matched by incredible acting, scenery and music. Everything about that movie was just outstanding.

Last year you selected Rosamund Pike for Gone Girl. Who do you like for best actress this year?

I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve heard nothing but good things about it (so) I’m going to go with Cate Blanchett in Carol.

I know you are a big Benicio del Toro fan, but he’s not nominated. So who do you think is going to win best actor?

You already know who I’m going to say, it’s Leonardo DiCaprio. Hands down, he’s going to win. He’s finally going to win his first one.

You mentioned liking Tom Hardy, so I assume you’re picking him for best supporting actor?

I’m going to throw a curveball. I’m saying Sylvester Stallone in Creed. Rocky was such an iconic film series and he did a fantastic job in those movies and then Michael B. Jordan comes in playing Apollo Creed’s son and it turned out great. It was good to see Sylvester Stallone in that role again as Rocky and he played it extremely well.

Who do you think is going to win best supporting actress?

Jennifer (Jason Leigh) for The Hateful Eight. Quentin Tarantino did a great job with that film, and overall the cast was funny and strong. Jennifer’s character was one that at times you didn’t know whether to laugh, get mad, feel sympathy for or get upset at. At times she had me believing she was innocent, at other points I wasn’t sure. That’s what made her great. She does a great job at convincing the audience into different ways of thinking about that character.

Will The Revenant win best director?

I want to say The Revenant, but I feel like that’s too many for The Revenant to have, so I’m going with (Lenny Abrahamson) for Room. I felt like the book was great and when you have situations like that where the book is phenomenal and the movie is phenomenal as well, it shows the director was able to get every idea and every creation in the book into the film and I thought he did a great job. It was an emotional powerhouse of a movie and, like I said, the book was great and normally when you have a great book, the movie seems to be subpar. But in this instance, the movie is right up there with the book. He did a great job of making that book translate to the screen.

What do you think of the lack of diversity at the Oscars? Was there any one film you think got snubbed?

Of course, Straight Outta Compton got snubbed. I feel like that should have been nominated for at least one major award in addition to best screenplay. It didn’t need to be nominated in all five of the major categories, but I think it should have been nominated for something else.

But at the end of the day, you look at all the black actors that are out there, what types of roles are they getting? They’re starring in comedies, a lot of b-rated movies. Rarely do you see any of them in inspirational, powerful movies. Concussion was good, I feel like Will Smith should have been up there. But the majority of the time, black actors – with the exception of Will Smith and Denzel Washington – they’re starring in comedies. It’s rare to see movie like 42 or 12 Years a Slave, really most of the time black actors are starring in just an average movie. So in order for black actors to be Oscar nominees they have to change what they’re doing. But I feel like there were a few films that were definite snubs.

At the end of the day it comes down to, what types of movies us as black people are doing.