Vivek Jacob

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The NBA’s biggest playoff selling point is that there’s nothing bigger or better than a Game 7.

What really is a Game 7, though? It’s an elimination game. That’s what people love about it. The idea that one team lives to fight another day or will be experiencing championship glory while another is left dwelling on what could have been creates some of the most visceral feelings both athletes and fans can experience.

My first love when it came to sports wasn’t basketball. Growing up in Asia, my favourite sports were futbol (soccer), cricket, and tennis. The events that first captivated my attention in each of these sports were tournaments like the World Cup and Grand Slams. What do these events have in common? Tournaments that include the thrill of single-elimination.

So, what better way for the NBA to embrace that concept beyond the post-season than to have an In-Season Tournament that raises the stakes of regular season games before a bracket-style knockout phase. With four quarterfinals, two semifinals, and a final, fans are going to be treated to a bonus seven “Game 7’s,” and likely more for teams that will enter its final group phase game with win-or-go-home implications.

“It’s kind of like the Champions League or whatever league where different teams compete for something while the season’s going on,” Raptors centre Precious Achiuwa said. “It just brings a different type of intensity compared to regular season games, different level of attention to detail, and every possession matters. We just gotta go out there and play with that intensity and understand there’s something at stake in a short period of time before the playoffs get here.”

Toronto will open its group play action against the Boston Celtics on Friday. The other teams in the group are the Brooklyn Nets, Chicago Bulls, and Orlando Magic. Each team plays four group games including two at home.

As part of promoting the NBA Cup, the games are played on a different themed court. The Raptors’ colour scheme is inspired by the team’s City Edition Drip Gold uniforms – pulling the charcoal grey and gold colours forward. It is the darkest of the NBA In-Season Tournament courts and features the Raptors logo across the larger-than-life NBA Cup at centre court as well as on the baseline.

“I’m excited to see the court,” head coach Darko Rajakovic said. “I miss Cup competition from Europe, I think this brings extra excitement to the league. We had a talk today with our guys just understanding that every possession matters…coming off a tough loss in Boston we’re very motivated to have another crack at that team.”

There are six groups total, meaning the winner of each group advances while only the two best second-place teams across all the groups, based on record and point differential, will join them in the quarterfinals.

For a Raptors team looking to learn as much as possible about a new coach, a new system, and how players fit within that system, the NBA Cup presents a golden opportunity to test all of those aspects with major stakes well before the playoffs.

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In-Season Tournament

As it poured down outside on Monday morning, one can only hope that’s a sign that Gradey Dick, the newest member of the Raptors after being selected 13th overall in the 2023 NBA Draft, will make it rain in Toronto.

After an introductory presser with members of the media where he announced he’d be wearing jersey No. 1 and took photos with head coach Darko Rajakovic, front office members, as well as his parents, Dick had a sit down at OVO Athletic Centre with Raptors.com for a brief chat.

Here’s the Q&A to help you get to know the 19-year-old a little bit better:

Raptors.com: Who’s on your Mount Rushmore of NBA shooters?

Gradey Dick (GD): Oooooh… Steph [Curry], Larry Bird, Ray Allen… who am I not saying? Reggie Miller.

NBA matchup you’re most looking forward to?

GD: My idols growing up were LeBron [James] and MJ [Michael Jordan] and I watched a lot of LeBron so being on the court with him would be kinda cool.

You’re more than just a shooter. GM Bobby Webster said that one thing that stood out about you is your basketball IQ, have you always had a natural feel for the game?

GD: I think a lot of times with the IQ stuff it kinda comes with playing and seeing live reads, just playing game-type situations where you’re kinda forced to be put in those kinda tight spots in a game. Fail a lot, I think that’s one of the most important things when growing up and still now, that’s the time you learn the most. Coming in as a rookie not being afraid to fail in practice and maybe some points in games can really help you in the long run, for those times at the end of the season when it’s gonna really count. Getting those down first and then setting yourself up for success.

GD: Obviously I didn’t like failing as a really competitive kid and still am. A game could alter my mood for that week so I kinda had to learn through my dad and his principles for our family of keeping a good body language through everything and that’s what I tried to maintain going into my Freshman year at college. Knowing that on the court and off the court my personality is one that fans are gonna get into me with some stuff but that’s what I like the most. That brings out my competitive spirit, when I have that excitement around.

We saw that you got a silver bengal cat named Milky after Kansas beat Missouri (Missouri’s mascot is a Bengal tiger), can we expect any good natured mascot-related ribbing in the NBA?

GD: Ooooh, I don’t know if I need any more pets. I wanna get a puppy some time in the future but if I have him and Milky it’s gonna be a bit of a full house so I don’t know about that.

GD: I really like Australian Shepherds. They gotta run a lot so we’ll see, I think I need more of a house dog.

GD: My grandpa. He can speak it clearly, sometimes if I don’t do it for a while it’s a little shaky but his is perfect.

How does one even begin to learn the Donald Duck voice?

GD: I don’t know, he’s goofy. I just remember being little and him talking like that.

What made you want to become a math tutor (taught middle school students while in high school)?

GD: It was just one of those things in high school where an opportunity laid out for me. I didn’t really ask for it but I’m glad they put me in that because it’s something where I could make an impact on the youth where they looked up to basketball players that are in high school. Some of those kids who aren’t so little anymore, I go back to Wichita and see them around and remember just messing around with them teaching simple math so it’s cool to see.

GD: I take pride in that, I’ve learned from my parents how to read different people and what point you can get across to different personalities and knowing how to talk to different groups of people.

With all the math in your life would you consider yourself a basketball analytics guy?

GD: Of course. My dad and I made a principle when I was younger that everything you do or want to do, write it out on paper so you can see it come to fruition. It started with chores, keeping responsible, finishing your chores. Turning it into my shooting, once I got consistent with that, knowing how many days I’d shoot, percentage I’ve shot for the day, knowing the days of the week where I shot good, I shot bad, why I did that, being able to go back to those papers and still see it.

What will make you a good learner at the NBA level?

GD: First and foremost just the attitude and willingness to go out there and just try to take everything in and be coachable in the first place. Secondly, really just taking the importance of just being here in the facility. Your alone time, when guys have that free time to go along with their days, kinda walk back into that homework part where you’ve gotta learn different things where you can kinda get it in your head what really works for you.

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Q&A with Gradey Dick

The Toronto Raptors will have several choices to make on Thursday. To trade or not to trade, to move up in the draft or not to, to draft one player over another.

For this time of year, it’s standard practice as the NBA Draft plays similar tunes to that of the NBA trade deadline. Talks over certain players will gather steam, debates over certain prospects will escalate, and finally, most of it will be left on the cutting room floor as observers try to make sense of what wasn’t as much as what is.

This is the beginning of a crucial off-season in Raptor land as what the franchise doesn’t do could speak as loudly as what they do with regards to the draft, potential trades, and a couple unrestricted free agents come July 1st in Fred VanVleet and Jakob Poeltl – now that Gary Trent Jr. has elected into his player option for the 2023-24 season.

There’s a case to be made for making a selection with the 13th overall pick, working around the margins, and believing new head coach Darko Rajakovic along with his coaching staff can make the necessary in-house changes to strategy, tactics, and culture to make the 2022-23 season seem an underachievement rather than reality.

Complete evaluations will also have to be made of potentially moving up or down in the draft whether it be in favour of maximizing the long-term high-end talent, taking another step to win now, or even replenishing the draft pick cabinet. This choice between present and future was deferred at the last trade deadline when team president Masai Ujiri emphasised that big decisions were for the summer rather than the middle of February and instead of being sellers, like many outsiders predicted, the Raptors addressed a glaring weakness by adding Poeltl.

Whichever direction the Raptors lean towards on Thursday, assistant general manager and vice president of player personnel Dan Tolzman suggested that all the ways in which the roster could shapeshift during this time will have little bearing on Toronto’s priorities wherever they end up picking on Thursday.

“You can’t deny talent when it’s all said and done with the draft picks because you never know what the team could look like two weeks later, a month later, six months later,” Tolzman said. “You just kind of plan for what’s the [best] decision long-term, at least we do, what the best decision is for us long-term regardless of what our current roster situation is.”

Who that best long-term fit is for the team comes down to a process that has largely remained unchanged during Tolzman’s tenure with the team, and while appropriate respect is given to the advancements in analytics, tracking data, and even the ever growing online coverage of prospects, nothing matters more to their assessments than what they’re able to see in person.

“Scouting, the eye test is always a big part of having a sense of if we see someone fitting in a Raptors uniform,” Tolzman said. “It’s probably gonna weigh the most.”

The core focus is on players who will likely be available at 13, but the entire operation is based around knowing things can change in a hurry on draft night and so they need to be aware of options within every range of the draft whether it be the top five, top 10, or even well beyond the 13th pick. The Raptors currently do not own a second-round pick in the 2023 NBA Draft.

Playmaking has emerged as the primary skill set on offer in this year’s draft and Toronto could certainly benefit from improving its guard depth with the uncertainty over VanVleet’s return as well as the struggles to create off the bounce the last couple seasons. After a few years of prioritizing length, the lack of depth at centre was addressed in a major way through the drafting of Christian Koloko and the trade for Poeltl.

While the Raptors take immense pride in their method and ability to identify young talent, they’re also open minded to new ideas that could help enhance what they feel they already do at a high level. Adding a fun wrinkle to the established process is new head coach Darko Rajakovic, who has made a career of player development and has several years of experience as a former international scout for the San Antonio Spurs from 2004-11.

Rajakovic has been involved in the process as much as possible – one that has seen 20-odd players come through OVO Athletic Centre for workouts – and is helping inform the current views of the franchise in their process.

“I think that's kind of a positive of bringing in someone like Darko is he's going to have different ideas and different perspectives of what works,” Tolzman said. “We've been doing things a certain way for quite a while now to where having a little bit of a fresh perspective on it could go a long way in improving our process. I don't think we need to change a tonne of it, but at the same time, having a new set of eyes and some ideas as to what can be done I think it could actually benefit a lot.”

Melding minds to nail this draft takes on even greater importance as the Raptors won’t have a first-round pick in 2024 unless they end up with a top-six selection (that’s the protection on the pick sent to San Antonio in exchange for Poeltl) or acquire one via trade.

Conversations both internally and externally are about to get very real as the draft tips off the Raptors’ off-season in earnest and plenty of questions surrounding the near future are going to start to get answered. That’s what’s key to remember here, that this is only the beginning of figuring out what next season looks like.

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Current roster won't dictate Raptors' draft choice

Walking up to Maple Leaf Square just outside Scotiabank Arena, the sense of anticipation was palpable. Usually, these press conferences are held indoors and behind closed doors, but with an outdoor setting courtesy of a lukewarm June afternoon, fans and staff could celebrate Darko Rajaković, the 10th Toronto Raptors’ head coach in team history.“Since the day I started coaching, for me, the biggest thing I enjoy is seeing players get better, players improve,” Rajaković said while looking extremely stylish in his three-piece navy blue suit. “You are going to win games, you are going to lose games – definitely we want to win every single night – but seeing the team grow, seeing the players grow, seeing people throughout the organization grow is something that has always been my biggest reward and that’s how I operate. I try to wake up every single day with that on my mind – How can I help? How can I serve? How can I improve everyone in the organization.”

Rajaković’s development as a coach began at a hardly believable age. It’s not every day you see a 16-year-old decide that coaching is the route they’d like to take, but the Serbian coach was forced to face the reality that his playing career as a point guard had topped out since bigger guards like Marko Jaric – who played in the NBA for seven seasons – were being preferred in his native Serbia. Rajaković quickly learned that coaching was his next best option because he knew, more than anything, his passion for the sport was too intense to do anything else.

In Europe, coaching requires schooling, and Rajaković received a basketball coaching degree from the Belgrade Basketball Academy as well as a degree in sports management from Alfa BK University in Belgrade two years later. When he transitioned his career to Spain, he had to earn the same coaching degree all over again but this time in Spanish. The teaching methods there are all-encompassing, including biomechanics, sociology, and even psychology.

Having started so young, Rajaković is now approaching 30 years of coaching experience – including 17 as a head coach – across Serbia and Spain before coming to the NBA and putting in time as an assistant coach with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Phoenix Suns, and most recently the Memphis Grizzlies. Between 2004 and 2011, he also served as an European scouting consultant for the San Antonio Spurs. He also has some FIBA experience, as an assistant coach for Serbia at the 2019 FIBA World Cup in China.

“We did have many incredible candidates and we wanted to go through a process because of the stage of which our team is,” Ujiri said. “I think Darko just hit all of it and depending where our team could be, we’re excited. We’re excited to have his knowledge, his experience, being so studious of the game, his journey, diversity, everything, to me, his incredible family, it all comes together in some kind of way. The process was long and tough but we know we came up with the right candidate here.”

How does Rajaković put in all that time and perform at a high level? Espressos. A self-proclaimed espresso connoisseur, Rajaković’s daily dosage is set at three on practice days and goes up to six on game days, all made at home with his own espresso machine. Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler may have a full-fledged business going with Big Face Coffee and Raptors GM Bobby Webster has his own espresso machine that he even brought to the bubble in Orlando, but Rajaković reckons he can give both some friendly competition.

There’s no escaping the fact that Rajaković eats, sleeps, and breathes basketball, and though he even found time to co-author an academic journal style article on the evolution of the pick-and-roll for FIBA Assist Magazine during his time with the Spurs, he’s not just about the X’s and O’s. As mentioned earlier, at the heart of the 44-year-old’s coaching philosophy is player development, and within that development is a deeply embedded desire to connect with his players.

“First of all, I want to be very invested in them as human beings,” Rajaković said. “I see every player as a person with a family, whatever is going on in those lives I want those guys to know and to feel that I really care about them. I really want to connect with those guys on a personal level, when they know how much I love them and care about them, I have a strong belief that we’re gonna come together as a group and be ready to take it to another level.”

Family and faith is the cornerstone of everything Rajaković does. He has been with his wife Gaga for 19 years now and was blessed with a son, Luka, five years ago. Quality time with them is all he needs to disconnect, and he has some close friends whether back home or now across the border who he maintains regular contact with. His agent, Spencer Breecker of CAA, has become one of his closest friends, and the two share many conversations about life instead of basketball.

All these qualities have made Rajaković the type of coach who drives players to be the very best they can be within the framework of the role he envisions for them, and the role advertised is always one that seeks to maximize what the team can be. His knowledge, attention to detail, and emphasis on team has stood out since he first interviewed for the job the day after the Grizzlies were eliminated from the post-season and steadily took him to the top of the Raptors’ list.

When speaking at the end of the season, Ujiri didn’t mince words when he said he didn’t enjoy watching his team play over the course of the season, that there was an air of selfishness that he didn’t appreciate and that the culture that they had built since his arrival had deteriorated. The hiring of Rajaković is an effort to correct course and return to a version of the team that embodies the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. That seems a Rajaković specialty.

“This is not about me,” Rajaković said at a press conference specifically about him. “This is about those guys, about the team, how we’re gonna get to the next level. My goal is not to get one player better but all 17 players on the roster, how we can improve those guys and help those guys. My core belief is [that] when you improve players, it’s much easier to improve strategies and tactics, and that’s gonna give you results, that’s gonna be your outcome.

"I always operate like that, for me, the season doesn’t start in October, it started three days ago when I was appointed the head coach and I’m trying to win every single day.”

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Raptors welcome Darko Rajaković as the 10th head coach in franchise history

Sports have a unique way of daring kids to dream, and athletes are superheroes that can be seen in the flesh.

For six months a year, and even more in the best of times, children are completely absorbed by the manner in which NBA players can make the impossible seem routine. That’s why, when the likes of Pascal Siakam or Scottie Barnes stop by a school, it can light up a kid’s face instantly. Looks of wonder and amazement spread across the room and a child’s year, let alone day, can be made.

In more recent years, gun violence has increasingly ruined many a bright future and it needs to stop. A year ago, the Toronto Raptors took a step in addressing it by launching a petition urging Canadians to observe a national day against gun violence in Canada, and now like the U.S., the first Friday in June will represent that.

“Sports is a protector, I think sports brings people together, I think sports brings peace in an incredible, incredible way, and sports is a connector.” Raptors president Masai Ujiri said. “We have to be voices, you can say here, ‘Why does sports participate in these things?’ This is our community. The youth, we are a huge part of them, we are a huge part of this community and it affects us in every way.”

On Thursday, the Raptors hosted Government officials, civic leaders, student athletes, the NBA, and representatives from 30 community organizations to commemorate this legislation being passed.

None of this would be possible without community leaders such as Shamso Mohamoud and Shamso Elmi, who both lost their sons to violence and created ‘Mending a Crack in the Sky,’ a program consisting of a dedicated group of mothers looking to address youth radicalization to violence and the alarming rates of youth violence.

There is the One By One Movement that assists organizations from the grassroots level up to the government level with strategy and social programming development in an effort to decrease extreme acts of violence while the Zero Gun Violence Movement, led by Louis March, has collaborated with over 40 different community organizations, agencies and programs across Toronto to address structural and socioeconomic conditions that contribute to gun violence.

“I think the first thing was talking to community members,” John Wiggins, Vice President of Organizational Culture and Inclusion for the Raptors, said of the biggest part of the process in making this day of awareness happen. “We couldn’t inform ourselves or our strategy without talking to the people that have been doing it since 2005 and the ‘Summer of the Gun.’ We had to bring people into our war room where we do drafts and have two, three-hour conversations about what’s going on in the community, how we can help, what we can do, that really informed us.

“It allowed me to have conversations with the Liberal Black Caucus, go out to Ottawa and talk to the Prime Minister’s office, really just advance what we’re trying to say on why this issue is important.”

While those aforementioned programs were able to help Wiggins and the Raptors organization as a whole better understand the needs of the community and better understand and feel the pain some of these individual members have gone through, Canadian Doctors for protection against guns (CDPG) was crucial in providing concrete data and statistics to support the argument for magnifying awareness on this subject. The organization represents physicians working in collaboration with nurses, paramedics, rehabilitation specialists, psychologists, researchers, and other front-line health care professionals, all of whom have witnessed first-hand the emotional and physical trauma caused by guns.

Canada ranks third among the G7 and eighth among the G20 for age-adjusted, standardized gun related mortality and research clearly shows that countries with stricter gun ownership and safety laws have significantly less injury and mortality from guns. In 2020, per Statistics Canada, handguns were involved in approximately 75 percent of violent robberies, along with 60 percent of homicides and other violations causing death and attempted murder.

This is the type of information that was presented to James Cadogan, Executive Director of the NBA Social Justice Coalition last year during meetings at Summer League to gain full support in pushing for this policy, and once the green light was given, the Raptors led by Wiggins drove the train and ran with it.

“To see the growth and development of this initiative from this time last year to now where you have Canadian federal recognition of a day against gun violence is just unbelievable,” James Cadogan, Executive Director of the NBA Social Justice Coalition said. “Things don’t usually move that quickly, especially not in public policy, but a year to get something like that done is lightspeed and so couldn’t be happier to be supporting the Raptors in their work.”

Much of what happened this week will be judged by what comes next, how efforts are continued in helping the community address this problem, how consistently the government is engaged in furthering policy to create stricter measures against guns, as well as how socioeconomic factors that contribute to violence are further addressed.

The youth in not just Toronto but Canada need to continually be shown they’re sincerely valued and the image of student athletes going through several drills and playing basketball after the adults had their say needs to be front of mind.

“Gun violence is something we must fight on many different fronts across the country,” Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. “One of the most important fronts is prevention, education, and awareness. I know that’s particularly important to you, Masai. You’ve used your voice and this organization to talk about these things, these issues, bring them forward, make them real in the community, bring young people from the communities here to learn, to be empowered, to grow confidence, to seek paths forward and solutions. That’s how, Masai, you and the Raptors continue to show that you’re a winning team not just on the court but throughout the community and across the country.”

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Stop Gun Violence

The end of November was the beginning of the end. After entering the 2022-23 season with the belief that the Raptors could beat anyone, consecutive blowout losses in New Orleans and Brooklyn that included giving up 40-plus points in each of those first quarters alarmed the Front Office.

By season’s end, a dismal exit from the Play-In Tournament, after coughing up a 19-point lead and missing 18 of 36 free throws along the way, summed up the tone and tenor of the entire season.

“To watch us play this year was not us,” Vice Chairman and President Masai Ujiri said at his season ending press conference. “I did not enjoy watching this team play. I think that spoke loud and clear to everything that went on this year.”

Barring the championship winning season, this was the longest Ujiri waited to address the media. He spent the past week meeting with General Manager Bobby Webster and head coach Nick Nurse to figure out the best path forward, arriving at a conclusion that will serve as a wake up call for anyone associated with the team.

While Ujiri acknowledged that accountability for a disappointing season extends from himself to the players and beyond, it was Nurse who was first to pay a price, being relieved of his duties as head coach after five years at the helm. Despite an underwhelming 41-41 season, Nurse leaves with the best winning percentage in team history at 227-163 (.582), won Coach of the Year in 2019-20 where he also coached the All-Star game, and became just the ninth rookie coach in NBA history to win a championship in his first year in 2018-19.

He leaves behind a legacy of winning and ingenuity, but not everything has a happy ending. Or else, it wouldn’t have ended.

Inconsistency, a term that has been foreign in these parts for the better part of a decade, became a theme this season and what Ujiri wants more than anything is for the Raptors to resemble the type of team that has become commonplace during his tenure. That means playing unselfish basketball, showing real togetherness as well as spirit, and threading the needle of winning while developing players at the same time.

In pursuing wins the last couple seasons, development was put on the backburner. Ujiri bluntly stated that he wasn’t happy with how much time was made for the development of younger players on the roster.

While Christian Koloko received more playing time than many anticipated coming in and even started 18 games, the likes of Malachi Flynn, Dalano Banton, Jeff Dowtin Jr., and Ron Harper Jr. all sparingly figured into the action, if that. Justin Champagnie entered the season with high hopes but was waived. The synergy between Raptors 905 and the senior club was a hallmark of this franchise’s success and that pipeline getting clogged is something the Front Office will have to reckon with as well.

Ujiri said he expects to begin the process of finding a new coach late Friday evening and perhaps have one in place before the 2023 NBA Draft on June 22. In search of that lost culture, Ujiri highlighted the traits that he feels the top candidate will have:

“Character. Quality of a person. Energy,” Ujiri said. “What kind of energy are we going to get? Because we need that. Discipline, style of play.”

It suggests a major shift from a style predicated on chaos preached by someone affectionately known as a mad scientist, one that both worked and didn’t work. Toronto finished atop the league in forced turnover percentage but second-last in effective field goal percentage allowed, suggesting that if they couldn’t force the ball out of the opponent’s hands, they couldn’t force a miss. They were sixth in transition scoring efficiency but 25th in half-court offence, showing just how much they struggled to score without a running start.

All of that can’t come down to one person, and Ujiri mentioned that examining the fit of the roster and addressing the outside shooting woes would be major points of emphasis. The Raptors finished 20th in three-point shooting a season ago and 28th this season, and with hardly any personnel changes during that time, it’s hard to look past the lack of internal development.

“Look at the roster maybe in a different way,” Ujiri said. “We have to figure out shooting on this roster in some kind of way. We have to figure out who fits and who doesn’t fit. On the overall, maybe manage people better and maybe see things a little bit deeper because when we hire people I let them do their jobs. That’s been a strength of ours the last 10 years here but I pay attention now a little bit more.”

Parting ways with Nurse represents a major change both on and off the court, and whether that turns into a domino effect remains to be seen. The pieces who help this team who play the right way and want to win, those are the ones that will stick around. On a day the team let go of a man who built a reputation on strategy and innovation, the Raptors made it clear they are hell-bent on re-establishing the intangibles that gave it such a strong base.

“The culture here has been, honestly, we love it, it’s incredible,” Ujiri said. “I think we follow the culture of an incredible city, people, humility, everything we stand for here, togetherness. We lost some of that but I don’t think it’s something you cannot build right back up again. Some of this stuff, sometimes, when these things happen not winning pronounces it a little bit more.

“We believe we’ll be right back, even if it’s slowly, back to where we feel we can be as an organization and as a team.”

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Re-establish the culture

The Toronto Raptors began the 2022-23 season with high expectations and ended it with a feeling of bitterness. After 48 wins in a year that signalled the beginning of a new era, they fell flat in their attempt to better it and missed the playoffs entirely.

Every which way they tried, consistency eluded them. Like a cat chasing a laser, no sooner than when they thought they had finally figured it out were they back at square one.

“Certainly, it was a difficult season,” head coach Nick Nurse said at his season-ending presser. “With what the team accomplished last year with 48 wins, you always want to take a step forward there and we never got to take a step forward. On the other hand, there were some challenges, there were quite a few challenges but guys hung in there. They were responsive, they were attentive, they worked hard, they were trying hard. All those things. And they tried to play through a lot of these outside distractions.”

Diversions were aplenty whether it be players in contract years, the head coach and assistants being linked to jobs elsewhere, and trade rumours surrounding virtually every member of the core. This is all part and parcel of the moving jigsaw that makes winning at the NBA level so difficult but hadn’t eaten away at this franchise’s on-court product for a long time.

For the ninth season in the last 10, the Raptors secured a record of .500 or better and the lone exception was the Tampa Tank. Humans are creatures of habit, and when you get used to winning at the clip Toronto has over the past decade, the goalposts shift. Excluding the 2020-21 season, fans saw the team average 51.4 regular season wins over nine years with eight playoff appearances, 46 playoff wins and a championship. For context, over the previous 11 years, the franchise averaged 32.5 wins and made the playoffs twice where they earned just three wins.

Masai Ujiri, Bobby Webster and co. have worked hard to redefine what success means for this franchise and now must work even harder to ensure that missing the playoffs for the second time in three seasons is an exception and doesn’t become the new normal.

When it was Fred VanVleet’s turn to speak, he expressed the need for a new identity, that the championship residue had worn off and that any hope or belief that it still resides in the air and would magically carry them in years to come needs to evaporate. Newness was a theme, and particularly how what was ingenious last season became antiquated this season.

Toronto created significant marginal gains last season with their innovative style of winning the possession battle via forcing turnovers and crashing the offensive glass. The league as a whole saw an opportunity to be had with offensive rebounding and reduced that advantage this season. The ball pressure and scramble aspect of their defence was picked apart far too often while their gains in the fast break offensively were negated by their transgressions defensively.

“We didn’t execute at a high level, we didn’t perform,” VanVleet said. “I don’t know how many games we came in talking about energy, and not playing hard enough or tough enough or smart enough. So, there are a lot of things that we could’ve done better, obviously, in hindsight. But when you’re in the moment it’s just funky like that sometimes. All in all, like I said, just a disappointing season from our standards and where we want to be and the tradition that we’ve built here. We just didn’t meet that mark for this season.”

If someone were to name traits of the organization’s identity over the past several years, hard-nosed and defence-first would be among them, but the whole being greater than the sum of its parts would likely be right up there, too. That was perhaps the most puzzling absence of all, and speaks volumes of why the second-half collapse in the Play-In Game against the Bulls was more a theme than an anomaly.

The best teams have a swagger to them but also humility in not taking anything for granted. There is a ways to go in terms of the team as a whole understanding the value of each possession and recently acquired centre Jakob Poeltl lamented the team going “too much into cruise control.”

“We're just at times a small step behind,” Poeltl said. “It seems like a tiny adjustment that we need to make. I feel like we have everything we need, we’re just not quite there. It's about figuring out what that is to put us in a spot where we are really good on a consistent level. What those adjustments are, it’s not always easy to figure out. Maybe a small change of mindset here, it might be a small tactical change. I don't know, I couldn't tell you that. It's about figuring that out to become a winning team, a really winning team.”

Poeltl was a big part of the positive note the Raptors finished the season on (15-11 record), the presence of a seven-footer at centre with strong rim protection skills and a soft touch around the basket addressing a major need. The starting group posted a plus-9.5 net rating after his arrival, and re-signing him will play a huge role in the team’s hopes of success in 2023-24.

There were arguably no bigger individual positives than the play of Pascal Siakam and O.G. Anunoby with both expected to contend for end-of-season awards, the former for what could be a third All-NBA appearance and the latter for a first selection to an All-Defensive team. Anunoby led the league in steals on both a cumulative and per game basis, while Siakam finished as one of just five players to average at least 24 points, seven rebounds, and five assists alongside Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and LeBron James.

Again, the starting pieces are there, but how they can be complemented to get the team better results is the main challenge that lies ahead. A major component in putting it all together is Nurse, who expressed his passion for both the franchise and how to get it back to the level of success it’s become accustomed to.

“Listen, I love it here. I love it here and we have built a really strong culture,” Nurse said. “That is what Masai is doing. That is what Bobby is doing. That’s what I’m doing. We’ve got to all evaluate how we can get that culture back where we need it and get back to being a playoff team and then getting to a level of winning it all. That’s what we want to do. That’s what we get up and go to work for the last 10 years.”

From players to coaching staff to front office, this is a summer for serious reflection and evaluation. What are the minor details that are missing? Who will look in the mirror and acknowledge their own shortcomings?

Failure can be a great teacher, and the action or inaction this summer will show exactly what the team has learned.

a-time-for-new-laurels

A time for new laurels

The Toronto Raptors, in the midst of figuring things out in a new era of the franchise, having to go through one of their favourite sons in DeMar DeRozan on Wednesday and Kyle Lowry, arguably the greatest player in franchise history, on Friday in order to make the post-season.

As both Nick Nurse and Fred VanVleet emphasized after practice on Monday, Wednesday can be the only focus currently and as much as the storyline will surround DeRozan going up against his former team in an elimination game, the Raptors have a game to win versus the Chicago Bulls.

“Every game's a must-win,” Nick Nurse said Monday. “Every game we play we’re going out there to win, so we got another one in front of us Wednesday.”

Toronto’s reputation is no secret at this point: apply a tonne of ball pressure to help force as many turnovers as possible (ranked second in turnovers forced after the trade deadline), play in transition as frequently as possible, and attack the offensive glass (third in offensive rebounding after trade deadline).

Chicago, on the other hand, hangs its hat on the defensive end, posting the third-best defensive rating (112.0) after the all-star break while relying on their Big Three of DeRozan, Zach LaVine, and Nikola Vucevic to carry the offence.

What should you expect between these two teams in an elimination game? That’s exactly what we’re about to break down:

Since the acquisition of Jakob Poeltl, the Raptors starting group of Poeltl, Pascal Siakam, Scottie Barnes, O.G. Anunoby and VanVleet have posted a plus-9.5 net rating in 313 minutes. That’s certainly impressive, but the Bulls starting quintet of Patrick Beverley, Zach LaVine, Alex Caruso, DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic is a plus-14.7 in 267 minutes.

The two teams faced each other once after Toronto got Poeltl and Chicago got Beverley, the Raptors emerging victorious 104-98 courtesy a spectacular fourth quarter for Barnes.

Defensively for the Raptors, they began with VanVleet guarding LaVine, Siakam on Caruso, Barnes on Beverley, Poeltl on Vucevic, and Anunoby on DeRozan. The Bulls meanwhile switched things up a bit, having DeRozan match up with Barnes on the other end, LaVine on Anunoby, Beverley on VanVleet, Caruso on Siakam, while the centre matchup remained the same. This caused quite a few cross-matches in both transition and semi- transition, and one key will be to see who can take better advantage of those mismatches.

What’s worth noting from the film is that Poeltl didn’t close this game. Nurse opted for Trent Jr. instead of the Austrian, and the Raptors’ activity and length were key factors in winning the fourth quarter 34-26. Though Vucevic finished the game with 23 points including 4-of-6 shooting from deep, Toronto was able to force him into six turnovers as well. Over three games against the Raptors, Vucevic and DeRozan have combined for 25 turnovers while LaVine has had seven turnovers in two games. As we know, that’s what the Raptors live for.

After practice Tuesday, Nurse explained his thinking behind whenever he turns to Barnes for minutes at the centre position:

“It probably enabled us to switch the mid ball screen,” Nurse told Raptors.com. “That’s usually what we’re doing there with that when Scottie’s playing the five. He’s capable of switching and we’ve got two kinda bigger bodies defending the ball handler and the five but they’re also agile enough to guard the ball handler. Then, whoever gets switched onto the five, they’re big and strong enough not to get buried in the paint.”

Beyond the Raptors regular starting five, expect to see Trent Jr., Boucher, and Achiuwa in action off the bench. Whether any of Will Barton, Malachi Flynn, or Christian Koloko see the floor will come down to specific demands of the game.

For Chicago, Ayo Dosunmu, Coby White, Andre Drummond, and Patrick Williams will make up the main bench options, though Derrick Jones Jr. could figure if head coach Billy Donovan opts for some length on the wing to better match up with Toronto.

The biggest individual matchup is undoubtedly Anunoby going up against DeRozan. Anunoby has been quite successful in the head-to-head so far this season, focusing on prevention rather than cure by putting in as much work as possible to push DeRozan as far out to the perimeter as possible or deny him completely before he can receive the ball. Help defence has always been ready and waiting as well. In three games against the Raptors, DeRozan has averaged 14 points – 10.5 below his season average, 3.7 assists, and 3.3 turnovers. He averaged just 8.7 field goal attempts and 5.7 free-throw attempts, showing the degree to which Toronto has prioritized getting the ball out of his hands.

Another priority for Nurse heading into this game is to attack not just DeRozan, but LaVine (averages 24.8 points per game) as well on the other end to make sure they’re exhausting as much energy as possible and perhaps even getting into foul trouble.

“It’s always important for scorers, I’ll put LaVine in there, too, their top two scorers, we’ve gotta make sure we’re making ‘em work at the other end,” Nurse said. “That’s always a little tricky because you’re maybe having to adjust your sets and things like that which you gotta do, but, it’s not like, ‘Oh, yeah, sure, we automatically flow into that,’ you gotta take a look and you gotta see where it is and see where to move pieces and things like that and try to get to stuff.”

For the Bulls, how Caruso fares matched up against Siakam will be a huge factor. Siakam only played in the Feb. 28 encounter between these two teams, missing the previous two. He scored 20 points on 7-of-18 shooting and shot 5-of-6 from the free-throw line to go along with eight rebounds as well as three assists against just one turnover. While the shooting percentage was less than ideal, Siakam’s process throughout the game was quite good.

Against Caruso, Siakam relied on a steady diet of backing the Bulls guard down before either rising up for a fadeaway or going up strong if he was close enough to the basket.

“I think he’s a good defender,” Siakam said. “I feel like, especially [among] those guys that are smaller than me, he’s strong and can hold his own, it’s always going to be tough but I do feel like it’s going to depend on where the help’s coming from and those types of things. But I think they have a variety of people that can guard and they’ve done a lot of different things so it should be interesting and fun.”

Patrick Williams would be the other best option to defend Siakam from a Bulls perspective, and it’s easy to envision how Donovan might look to stagger them and give his team the best shot possible at limiting Toronto’s all-star.

In Caruso and Anunoby, this game will present two of the best defenders in the league and it should make for intriguing viewing to see how Siakam and DeRozan handle their respective challenges.

Chris Boucher has had some great moments against the Bulls, none bigger than a 38-point, 19-rebound performance almost two years to the day.

The Montreal man had an impressive performance off the bench last season as well, and hit three crucial 3-pointers in the Raptors’ most recent win over the Bulls. He finished this season with the second-most blocks of any bench player in the league, and his ability to make highlight plays on both ends of the floor could be a huge spark plug in an elimination game.

For the Bulls, it’s hard to look past Play-In tournament king Pat Beverley. He’s provided a boost to his hometown team since arriving after the all-star break and will do everything in his power to get under the skin of the Raptors.

“That’s his game. I like it, I don’t mind it,” Siakam said of Beverley. “That’s what he does, he’s always had that energy and (you) like to play against those types of guys, guys that give everything and they want to do everything they can to win the game and sometimes don’t care about their offence and this and that. I think it’s great, I think he’s a good guy. Every time we play, it’s fun.”

Toronto barely got to the free-throw line after the all-star break, ranking 28th in free-throw attempt rate. Only three teams foul less than Chicago, and so freebies at the line should be hard to come by. Throw in the fact that the Bulls force the fourth-most turnovers and the Raptors will do well to be disciplined offensively and not get discouraged when the Bulls’ best defenders are able to cleanly knock the ball away.

“We’re gonna have to run some good next action offence,” Nurse said. “This team’s playing very well defensively, they do a lot of switching, we can’t let the switching – they switch so they can keep the ball in front – we gotta keep getting it into our next actions and have good offensive possessions.”

Despite both teams being strong in forcing turnovers, the Raptors were much more effective than the Bulls in imposing this strength when facing each other, garnering a 36-to-59 turnover advantage over the three games played. Achieve something similar on Wednesday and that’ll be half the job done.

Toronto finished as the third-worst three-point shooting team in the league after the trade deadline but 10th in shooting within four feet of the basket. Chicago was 19th in both shooting at the basket and at the three-point line and so how the paint and the arc shooting plays out will be the biggest deciding factor.

The Raptors finished the regular season with a 27-14 record at home while the Bulls finished 18-23 on the road. Toronto won both home games against Chicago during the season.

After the all-star break, Toronto allowed the second-fewest points per game (108.6) while Chicago allowed the fewest (107.9). The Raptors finished the season 31-6 when allowing 110 points or fewer.

Since the inception of the Play-In tournament, the No. 9 seed has gone undefeated against the No. 10 seed with a perfect 4-0 record. No pressure.