The hardest part of being great is normalizing it. Can you make what would be considered spectacular to the masses routine? Can you provide excellence, then enter a new day with the resolve to make it even better than the day before?
Pascal Siakam had a tremendous 2021-22 season that saw him make the All-NBA Third Team. He set lofty expectations for himself entering ‘22-23 and, in reaching for the moon, looks to have landed upon a star once again.
The 29-year-old is averaging career-highs in both points (24.2) and assists (5.8) while also impressively recording a career-low turnover percentage (9.6%). Rebounding has always been a strong suit for Siakam and that remains solid with 7.8 per game. The best regular season night of his career came at Madison Square Garden where he dropped 52 points, nine rebounds, and seven assists with just one turnover, shooting 17-of-25 from the field as well as 16-of-18 at the free-throw line.
“All-NBA,” Fred VanVleet said when asked to sum up Siakam’s season. “He came in and wanted to be top five, he looked that way to me. He’s put the numbers up, had big performances, he’s carried us all year, he’s been outstanding.”
Though it’s been a trying season for the Raptors as a whole, Siakam has been nothing short of a beacon of hope, leading the league in minutes per game (37.4) and serving as a buoy for a team that has struggled for consistency. This was encapsulated perfectly in the team’s Wednesday defeat in Boston, where Siakam was the standout performer with 28 points, 11 rebounds, and four assists, including a brilliant third quarter where he scored 16 with the team struggling for any kind of offence.
Most renowned for his ability to spin and fake and feint his way around the basket, Siakam has shot an outstanding 75 percent within three feet of the basket which is also the best mark of his career. For some context, Jayson Tatum is shooting 74 percent from that range this season while Jimmy Butler (70%) and Julius Randle (68%) also trail him.
His work around the basket has also translated to earning more trips to the charity stripe, averaging nearly seven attempts per game this season after hovering at about 5.5 for the last three seasons. Siakam has explained in the past that he’s someone that has always focused on getting his shot off cleanly around the basket, but there seems to be a greater understanding this season of when his scoring odds are better by just drawing contact and going to the free-throw line.
As the Cameroonian has continued to elevate his status in the role of that of a primary scorer, it’s the mid-range that has proven the biggest barometer of success, improving to a career-best 47 percent from 10-16 feet. The noticeable change in Siakam’s approach in the mid-range is the increased degree of comfort he’s shown in the turnaround fadeaway. Last season, he was happy to rely on more of a face-up game, using a combination of dribbles and hesitations to get to his spot and rise up. This season, there’s been more backing down of opponents before turning and fading for a shot that’s simply impossible to contest. Tatum is shooting 39 percent from 10-16 feet while Randle is at 44 percent. Butler does have the better of Siakam here at 49 percent.
“I think the biggest thing that's changed over the years is just how comfortable he's gotten in his mid-range game,” Jakob Poeltl said when asked to compare the Siakam he knew during his first couple seasons in the league to the one he sees now. “That's something that stands out to me this season. Seeing it on a daily basis, how comfortable he's gotten in those types of situations between multiple moves and getting into his rhythm and mid-range shot is really impressive. The skill development there, I think that's the one thing that’s stood out the most.”
His growth as a playmaker is probably the most underrated aspect of his development this season, building off the last couple seasons of improvement but the results not showing as much for a team that has struggled shooting the ball all season. While his current assist average sits at 5.8, it jumps to 7.1 when adjusted for league-average shooting. The Raptors are currently 28th in the league in three-point shooting at 33.5 percent (league average 3-point shooting is about 36 percent), which makes not just Siakam’s playmaking difficult to stand out, but also ramps up the degree of difficulty when looking to operate in isolation as opponents feel free to show him as many bodies as possible and force the ball out of his hands.
“I come in every single day, do my job, and do it at a high level,” Siakam said. “I definitely think I deserve it (All-NBA) but, at the end of the day, there’s things I can’t control so I focus on my team and doing everything that I can to help us be successful.”
That All-NBA conversation is particularly interesting this year in light of the reports of a new CBA agreement that indicates a minimum of 65 games played will be required to obtain this elite status beginning next season. Will voters use that as even more of an earmark for how they make decisions this season or do they lean more on this being a last opportunity to make exceptions?
Siakam’s case for a forward spot on one of the All-NBA teams is certainly bolstered if games played is a bigger factor than usual, as Kevin Durant (47 games played), Kawhi Leonard (50 GP), and LeBron James (53 GP) would all be out of the mix. Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jayson Tatum seem destined for deserved First Team spots, while Jimmy Butler, Julius Randle, Lauri Markkanen, and Jaylen Brown look like the stiffest competition.
Realistically, Randle looks like a guarantee for a forward spot after bouncing back with a tremendous individual season as the Knicks flirt with 50 wins. Jimmy Butler has averaged 22.8 points, 5.9 rebounds, 5.3 assists, and 1.8 steals on a career-best true shooting percentage of 64.3. The Heat also have more wins than the Raptors. That leaves Brown, who has spent the majority of the season in a secondary role to Tatum on a Celtics team locked into the 2-seed, and Markkanen – who has also been outstanding but plays for a team that, despite exceeding expectations entering the season, will not make the Play-In tournament.
An X-Factor will be if Brown – averaging 26.6 points, 6.9 rebounds, 3.5 assists – sneaks in as a guard, where if the same 65-game logic were to be applied this season, both Steph Curry (54 GP) and Damian Lillard (58 GP) would miss out and thereby open up room to work with there.
This looks like a battle between Markkanen and Siakam for the final forward spot, one player who announced himself on the NBA stage as a great scorer with 25.6 points and 8.6 rebounds and shooting 50 percent from the field as well as 39 percent from deep, while the other has impressively added to a more established resume with 24.2 points on 48 percent shooting, 7.8 rebounds as well as 5.8 assists, and despite his Raptors falling short of expectations, the team still has more wins than the Jazz. Siakam has also played almost 350 minutes more than Markkanen, which based on the latter’s per game average would be about 10 games worth.
Voting this year will be less clear cut than years to come when we know there will be a minimum games played stipulation, and that makes it harder to know what to expect with Siakam’s standing for All-NBA. As he said, though, all he can do is control what he can control, and the evidence this season shows that he has certainly done that.
Siakam is steadily normalizing his greatness, and that’s something that shouldn’t be taken for granted.