The Toronto Raptors are sending Bruno Caboclo and Lucas Nogueira to Raptors 905 of the D-League for the team’s inaugural weekend, the team announced Friday.
The pair of Brazilian sophomores will join the 905 for road games in Fort Wayne on Saturday and Sunday. That means they won’t be in the lineup for the parent club against the New Orleans Pelicans on Friday, leaving the Raptors with as few as 11 healthy players if DeMarre Carroll misses a fourth consecutive game.
Caboclo and Nogueira bring the 905 roster to 13 players after 11 broke camp with the club. Ronald Roberts is still expected to join the team at some point and push the non-NBA portion of the roster to the maximum of 12. Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun tweeted Friday that Roberts “will be there,” though it’s unclear if Woz was referring to the team’s season opener on Saturday or just with the team in general at some point.
You can read more about the rest of the roster in our post-camp roster breakdown here. The rotation, likely to be fluid given the abbreviated nature of camp for head coach Jesse Murmuys et al., probably looks something like this to start the year:
PG – Shannon Scott, Jay Harris, Ashton Smith
SG – Scott Suggs, Melvin Johnson, Mike Anderson
SF – Bruno Caboclo, Axel Toupane
PF – Ronald Roberts, Michael Kyser, Walter Pitchford
C – Lucas Nogueira, Sim Bhullar, Keanau Post
Caboclo and Nogueira drawing early assignments isn’t at all surprising, as the expectation is that both will see ample D-League time this year. Teams can assign up to three players at a time, for as long or as short a stint as they like, as many times as they want, so long as the player is in the first three years of his career (players with more seniority can be assigned with permission from the player and the NBPA). You can read more about the rules governing the D-League roster in our Raptors 905 primer.
While Nogueira has played at a high level before in the Spanish ACB league, he’s struggled to stay healthy since joining the Raptors last summer and is low on formal experience. The affable 7-footer has 28 minutes of NBA action to his name, plus 329 minutes over three summer leagues, 17 preseason minutes, and 20 minutes in the D-League. The 23-year-old needs consistent playing time, both to develop and so the Raptors can see what they have with him – his development was never said to be as long-term a path as Caboclo’s, and the Raptors likely want to test his readiness in a larger sample of actual minutes rather than relying on practice results. He’s the Raptors third center, after all, and he’ll be forced into duty if Jonas Valanciunas or Bismack Biyombo get hurt at any point.
Nogueira should fit Murmuys’ vision for the 905. The roster has been constructed based on athleticism, positional versatility on defense, and a pace-and-space philosophy on offense, and while Nogueira’s a 240-pound center, he’s nimble enough to fit with that scheme. He showed in summer league this year that he’s comfortable hedging against guards on the pick-and-roll, can put the ball on the floor, can occasionally knock down an elbow jumper, and is generally pretty spry for a huge dude. Whether all of those individual talents can translate into in-game production will be one of the more interesting early-season stories for the 905.
Oh, you probably want to talk about Bruno.
Yes, so, The Face of the 5ive is finally in the D-League. Being behind the curve on adopting a D-League team is a criticism I’ve levied against the Raptors for several years now, but it matters little at this point. The 905 exist, and they exist in large part because Caboclo’s multi-year development plan requires him to get minutes at some point. And he stands to get a ton of them under Murmuys, who amounted to Caboclo’s personal development coach last season and is now tasked with leading the next step in Caboclo’s growth.
Drafted 20th overall out of Brazil with barely any professional basketball experience, the rookie spent most of his 2014-15 season sitting on a bench and working with coaches at practice. That was part of the plan, as simply being around the team was likely a major learning experience for Caboclo, who had scarcely seen NBA basketball to that point. It may have been information overload at times, and it’s perhaps for the best that he had an entire year to focus on gaining a better grasp of the game and doing skill work without much concern for on-court performance. Now it’s time to play.
Including preseason, summer league, the D-League, and the NBA, Caboclo still checks in at just 517 minutes of playing time since being drafted. In 2013-14, he totalled 270 minutes for Pinheiros/Sky in Brazil. Caboclo is not only a youngster by age and facial hair growth, he’s an absolute baby in terms of professional basketball experience. Playing time is the next frontier for the 20-year-old.
From glimpses in summer league, we know Caboclo has an unblockable shot, one he’s ready to let fly from the corners the second he touches the ball. He’ll shoot them from above the break, too, and his natural athleticism makes him a threat in transition. His contributions in the half-court are a serious work in progress, as he’s spent most of his time spotting up or playing one-on-one. As the awareness improves, he has great potential as a cutter off the ball, and the tightness of his handle will probably be a major focal point as the 905 slowly give him more ball-handling duties. Defensively, Caboclo’s length makes him a natural ball-hawk for steals and blocks, and he should theoretically be able to wrap his checks up and keep them int font of him. The challenge will be keeping Caboclo tight to an off-ball player, where his awareness and decision making will need to grow sharper.
This is really fun, if entirely expected news. Bruno and Bebe join the 905! This is something fans have been waiting for to some degree since the D-League team was announced, and they’ll get a back-to-back look at the Brazilian Buddy Cops on the weekend. Caboclo and Nogueira will almost surely stay with the 905 through their Nov. 19 home opener, too.
