NEW YORK — There's been a lot of Canadian hoops history made at recent NBA drafts.

Thursday brought even more, as Jamal Murray and Thon Maker, former high school teammates at the Athlete Institute in Orangeville, Ont., both went within the top 10 picks at the Barclays Center.

For Murray, it all seemed predestined. For Maker, well, what a story, the type more suited for Hollywood than the NBA.

Murray, who starred as a freshman at Kentucky, averaging 20 points per game, went seventh to the Denver Nuggets. Maker, born in Sudan, raised in Australia and then in Canada for two years, first with Murray, then with his brother Matur, went 10th to the Milwaukee Bucks.

They became the first NBA selections out of Canadian high schools — in other words, didn't finish at American high school or prep schools — since Jamaal Magloire 20 years ago.

Maker famously challenged his way into this draft, doing so despite not playing in college or overseas because he said he had graduated last year, but returned for a fifth year of high school. He was expected to go late in the first round, or even in the second round, before a meteoric rise.

“It's an amazing story. He's an amazing player, and he deserved all of it,” Murray said when asked by Postmedia about Maker's saga up at the podium.

“I'm just happy for him. I can't wait to see him go and get started. He's a great player, great person, hard work ethic. He's going to be something special. He wants it, and you can tell. I love playing with guys that have the same fire.”

Internationally, Maker will compete for Australia, but Murray will be a key piece for Canada moving forward. His focus is on Denver, though, and on proving the teams that let him slide wrong.

“I always believe I'm the best player, and when a team really sees the No. 1 choice, like Denver did, then I just want to play for them more,” Murray said. “I want to give them all I've got, and I just want to learn and be ready to compete.”

Murray will team with another big guard in Emmanuel Mudiay with the Nuggets.

“Me and Mudiay, we played in the Hoops Summit together for one year,” the Kitchener native said. “So I kind of got to see what he's like. He's a great player and he's a great guy. Family person, and we'll be a good team. We'll be working together and playing off each other.”

Murray set freshman scoring and three-point records while at Kentucky and head coach John Calipari raved about him all season and ever since, saying he was one of the best players he has ever coached.

Murray starred at the Pan Am Games in Toronto last summer, despite being far younger than the competition, and does not lack confidence.

“Just going to be an all-around player, the player that you can't leave open, the player you've got to pay attention to on the court at all times,” he said of his NBA projection.

Maker is out to prove people wrong as well.

“People usually say nowadays that playing hard is the new skill, or having a motor is a new skill. For me it was just always having that work ethic and just continuing to work hard,” Maker said.

“My skills have always been just work on them, and you never know what you're going to use them in the game. So just work on them, have them in your pocket, and then when required, use them. “

Maker was asked about his journey.

“It took a long time in a short time period, I can say that, because it's five years — it's going six years now,” was how Maker put it.

“It was five years when I decided I first wanted to be a pro and take basketball serious. So it's been a long time because I've put in a lot of games, a lot of work, and to finally see it pay off, really — I lost words. When I was walking there, trying to say 'thank you' to my family, just took lots of words, and I speak with them every day. It was a different situation. Mentally you just can't wait. Physically you're trying to control yourself, and at the same time it's unreal.”

The Raptors had hoped Murray or someone else in the consensus top eight would fall after Ben Simmons and Brandon Ingram went first and second, but Marquesse Chriss was selected one spot before Toronto's ninth selection, which was used on Austrian centre Jakob Poeltl.

Poeltl said he is excited to backup Jonas Valanciunas and rejoin Utah teammate Delon Wright, the team's third-string point guard.

Backup centre isn't a huge position of need, even though Bismack Biyombo's return is unlikely. However, the team was impressed by his skill and toughness.

It was a wild and unpredictable night here in Brooklyn.

A fan outside sported a green leprechaun outfit, complete with hat, and a sign that read: “Thanks for the gifts, Billy King.” That, of course is a reference to the disastrous trade the former New Jersey Nets general manager made years ago to land Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce that handed the Celtics a boatload of juicy picks, including No. 3 overall in 2016.

The deal bombed and to make it worse, the Nets organization, now in Brooklyn, had to watch Boston come away with a coveted pick in its own arena.

Arvydas Sabonis, the legendary, 7-foot-3 Lithuanian centre killed time by ordering snacks an hour beforehand. His son, Domantas, was picked 11th by Orlando, but the Magic stunningly surrendered Sabonis, former No. 2 overall selection Victor Oladipo and Ersan Ilyasova to Oklahoma City for Serge Ibaka, in a heist for the Thunder.

Toronto had tried to make a move for Ibaka using the ninth pick and more, but couldn't match Orlando's huge offer.

NO NEED TO HEAD SOUTH

Canadians used to have to head down south to pursue NCAA Division I and NBA careers. Not anymore.

The Athlete Institute in Orangeville, Ont., a relatively new institution saw two of its players selected in the top-10 of Thursday NBA Draft: Jamal Murray and Thon Maker.

“It's big for Canada, they’re setting the trend right now,” Murray's father, Roger Murray, told Postmedia about an hour after his son's dream came true.

“It's really good for the country right now.”

Jesse Tipping, the president and director of high performance at Athlete Institute tweeted: “20% of the top 10 2016 draft class are ours.”

Who would have seen that coming?

And more could be on the way. Though nobody at the school is coming, it is expected that some Canadians playing high school in the U.S. will make their way back next season.

RAPTORS GO OFF THE BOARD

The Raptors went off the board a bit in selecting Pascal Siakam at No. 27 at Thursday’s NBA Draft.

It was a classic Masai Ujiri pick, however, and Postmedia even included Siakam on a list of potential choices there a day earlier simply by connecting some dots.

Bismack Biyombo almost certainly will leave as a free agent, though the Raptors love him and desperately want him back. Financially, that just isn’t workable, barring considerable maneuvering that now looks less likely with the team drafting two big men, with Utah centre Jakob Poeltl being taken at No. 9.

Siakam, like Biyombo, is a fierce shot-blocker with a motor that never quits. He also discovered the game late, so isn’t advanced offensively (though he has good shooting form already) and was born in Africa (Cameroon).

“Great person, work ethic, long, defends well, rebounder,” was how New Mexico State coach Paul Weir described Siakam to Postmedia late Thursday.

Weir, who will become the first Canadian head coach in NCAA Division I this season, was the associate coach in 2015-16, when the 6-foot-9 big man averaged 2.2 blocks, 11.8 rebounds and 20.4 blocks per game for the Aggies. He also shot 69% from the free-throw line.

As a freshman, Siakam averaged 12.8 points, 1.8 blocks and 7.8 rebounds and shot 77% from the free-throw line.

Unlike Biyombo, it appears that Siakam is a power forward, not a centre.

“He’s a four that can maybe play some five (in the NBA),” Weir said.

After the pick, Jonathan Givony of Draftexpress, the best draft evaluators, tweeted: “Teams were talking about Pascal Siakam as a kind of Tristan Thompson-lite in weeks leading up to the draft. Energetic. Mobile. Tough as nails.”

The Raptors feel mobile defenders that can switch all over the floor will be golden moving forward and that Siakam fits the bill and can still get better once he spends time with the team’s player development staff, perhaps in Mississauga with Raptors 905 to start.

Email: rwolstat@postmedia.com

Twitter: @WolstatSun