If you haven’t read and watched part one of this series, please check it out.
Much has already been written and said about how much of a mystery Bruno Caboclo was before Adam Silver called out his name at the 20th pick, so there’s no need to get more into that here. But attending training camp did give me an opportunity to maybe find out a little bit more about the Raptors’ mystery man, which is why he was high on my list of people I wanted to talk to, despite not being sure just how much he would even understand my questions.
This was the interview he gave to the press two days after he was drafted, on June 28th:
So when the media liaison said his English wasn’t great, that’s close to what I was expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised by his level of English. He’s certainly not fluent, and he was sometimes confused by my questions, but there was no translator there and it was just the two of us. And, quite frankly, I’ve got a couple of neighbours who I have more difficulty communicating with than I did with Bruno, so I thought he did well.
Considering he’s also been kept busy with training all summer, it’s impressive that he could learn as much English as he did.
The two days that I was at training camp, Bruno was one of the last players to leave the court, which shouldn’t be surprising, since his work ethic was apparently one of his great strengths. You can’t be as unknown and raw as Bruno was, and still get picked in the first round without having a good work ethic.
And both players and coaches raved about his ability to pick things up quickly, despite the language barrier.
As you can imagine, most of the conversations I heard with players and coaches would eventually get to the 19 year old (who turned 19 just a couple of weeks ago), and while most were diplomatic they all appreciated Bruno’s ability to affect the game at both ends of the court and his willingness to learn.
For a guy who was completely unknown to most of the world just a little over three months ago, he seems to be handling things well. Despite the throng of reporters watching him, he claimed the extra attention didn’t bother him in the least, and it didn’t appear to.
It did seem that everyone was tempering expectations for Bruno as much as possible, whether to ease some of the pressure on the rookie, or because of a directive from above, and it’s really unclear, at this point, how much he’ll play in the big league next season. He’s got talent, definitely, but even the few dribbles he was asked to take during shooting drills were somewhat sloppy and it’s not difficult to see NBA defenders feasting on that weakness were he to play too many minutes against them.
I would expect Bruno to have several short visits to the Development League, so he can come back and work on things he learned and the staff can make sure he’s developing properly and under their watchful eye.
In the second of the video series, we hear from DeMar DeRozan, shooting coach, Jama Mahlalela, and trainer Alex McKechnie had to say about him before we get to hear from the man himself:
Tune in tomorrow for then third part and a discussion with Jonas Valanciunas.
