The Toronto Raptors will be without Jonas Valanciunas for an undetermined amount of time after the center fractured the fourth metacarpal in his left hand Friday against the Los Angeles Lakers.
The severity and location of the fracture will play a large part in determining Valanciunas’ timeline. He’s set to undergo further testing after the initial X-ray revealed the fracture, and there’s some cause for optimism. While Valanciunas missed 18 games with a similar injury in his rookie season, that injury was to his shooting hand. If this fracture is closer to the top of his finger, it’s presence on the non-shooting hand could allow for a quicker return to action.
This is all speculative, however. Valanciunas is out, and probably will be for at least a few games, and the Raptors need to figure out how to respond.
Bismack Biyombo and Lucas Nogueira
The primary fallout of the injury is that Biyombo is probably now the team’s starting center. That’s fine, and head coach Dwane Casey will probably want the defense he provides early in games rather than going with more offensively oriented lineups early. So long as it’s only the specifics, and not the scope of Biyombo’s role changing, this is an acceptable adjustment.
What the Raptors can’t do is shift the bulk of Valanciunas’ minutes to Biyombo. Biyombo was brought in as a defender, a backup who can provide a different look than Valanciunas and help against tougher interior assignments. He’s a strong rebounder at both ends, an agile pick-and-roll defender who can switch on to guards and recover back to his man, and his rim-protection numbers are some of the strongest in the league over the last three seasons.
Unfortunately, an experimental surgery left him with hands for feet and feet for hands, rendering the Raptors 4-on-5 on offense when he plays. He struggles to catch passes when stationary and his clumsy dives to the rim are made all the worse by his inability to corral a ball. He does some damage as a finisher around the rim, but the Raptors’ offense often gets gummed up when Biyombo takes the floor, as teams feel entirely comfortable doubling the ball-handler in the pick-and-roll or abandoning Biyombo outside of the restricted area. In 16.9 minutes, he’s averaging 4.4 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 0.9 blocks while shooting 40.4 percent, a mark that’s sure to regress but not to a high enough mean to make 30 minutes a night palatable.
The net result is that the Raptors have been 17.3 points per-100 possessions (PPC) worse with Biyombo on the floor this year. Some of that comes from him playing with bench units instead of the starters, but his impact is dramatic on shared lineups. Here’s a look at how the team plays with Biyombo inserted into Valanciunas’ six most common lineups:
Comparing lineup data like this is an exercise in very small sample sizes, so it’s difficult to learn too much. What’s clear, though, is that some lineups that are very effective with Valanciunas get hamstrung when Biyombo takes the court, most notably the team’s preferred closing unit – the starters with Cory Joseph in place of Luis Scola have been killing teams to the tune of 27.2 PPC, but they’re getting doubled up when Biyombo is out instead.
So it’s fine to star Biyombo, but his limitations are such that the team should probably cap his minutes around 25.
That means there will be minutes off the bench for Nogueira, who figures to be on a flight from Maine to Los Angeles right now for Sunday’s game against the Clippers. Nogueira has been itching for the chance to get some NBA run, and Casey mentioned before departing that the team thought long and hard about keeping him up for depth during the trip. The organization ultimately decided that minutes with the 905 were more valuable, and Nogueira’s responded by playing fairly well.
There’s a lot of Nogueira in our post-game breakdowns from Thursday (a near triple-double performance) and Friday (a lesser outing with some encouraging signs), so check those out. He’s averaging nine points, 7.8 rebounds, 3.8 assists, and 2.8 blocks while shooting 45.2 percent from the floor, and he figures to get at least 10-12 minutes a night while Valanciunas recovers.
That total could be inconsistent, as Nogueira’s own inconsistencies are liable to frustrate Casey. An obscenely long defender with quick feet, Nogueira, like Biyombo, is capable of hedging hard on the pick-and-roll and even switching on to guards for brief stretches. He’s still having some trouble adjusting to this year’s more conservative scheme that asks him to drop back, and he’s too often on his heels as the dribble-attack arpporaches. Pick-and-roll defense was a major point of emphasis for his trip to the D-League, so expect NBA teams to attack him to see if his awareness has improved. Offensively, Nogueira’s a gifted player with terrific passing vision and a solid mid-range jump shot, but he’ll need to play within himself. He can be a clumsy screener and his dribble is a little loose. At the same time, he’ll make a couple of plays that few 7-footers have any business making and he’s a major threat for a high-low feed from the elbow to a cutter.
This is a player who was getting regular run in the Spanish ACB league two years ago, one of the best leagues on the planet. At age 23, he should be ready for minutes.
Note on starter, Biyombo/Nogueira pair
There’s an argument to be made that Biyombo shouldn’t start and the Raptors should go with two power forwards. I can’t bring myself to get too upset about the starting lineup – I’m far more concerned with minute loads and who closes out games. Casey’s a defense-first guy and I’d expect he goes defense-first with Biyombo, and the starting group has been fine with Biyombo inserted in.
Nogueira could start, too, similar to how James Johnson started when DeMarre Carroll went out. That was done as a matter of role preservation, tasking Johnson with a big adjustment and keeping everyone else’s role the same. That doesn’t really apply with Nogueira starting here, because while it would keep Biyombo’s role similar, Valanciunas’ injury is going to force a ton of changes in the rotation. Casey also hates poor defensive starts, which starting Nogueira risks.
There’s also the matter of Biyombo and Nogueira playing together for an insanely long frontcourt that could be successful defensively. Count me out. As a bench unit when Valanciunas is healthy, the experiment could be worthwhile, because Nogueira can play far enough away from the basket on offense. But the team is already perilously thin at center now, and playing your only two natural options together seems a poor deployment of resources.
Let’s get weird
So if I’m only comfortable with Biyombo getting about 25 minutes and I’m unsure Nogueira will get more than 15 or so, that means the Raptors need another answer at center. The Raptors are probably looking at 8-10 minutes playing center-less basketball.
And hopefully more, because this could be a lot of fun.
When the Raptors signed Carroll this offseason and were rumored to still be in on Wesley Matthews, I wrote an in-favor piece that focused on positionless basketball. The logic at that time was that the Raptors didn’t have their pick of the market, so finding round pegs for round holes at efficient prices wasn’t realistic. Instead, talent was the most important thing, and if the Raptors could acquire talent, they could figure out fit later.
That same logic applies now. Valanciunas is hurt, and that’s something the Raptors can’t change; center depth was always going to be an issue if he got injured. That doesn’t mean the Raptors have to bow to convention and just shift everyone up a spot in the depth chart. Instead, Casey can get creative with center-less lineups that lean on the team’s athleticism and defensive versatility. It’s not the ideal way to run a team, particularly on defense, but ideal went out the window on Valanciunas’ second-quarter drive to the hoop. Get your best players on the floor and figure it out as you go.
To Casey’s credit, he didn’t give in to sticking with a center on Friday. Biyombo didn’t play at all in the fourth quarter, and lineups without a center outscored the Lakers by 12 points in 16 minutes.
| Lineup | Minutes | +/- |
| CJ-TR-DC-PP-JJ | 6 | +6 |
| KL-DD-DC-PP-LS | 3 | -3 |
| CJ-KL-TR-PP-JJ | 3 | +9 |
| CJ-KL-DD-DC-LS | 2 | +5 |
| CJ-DD-DC-PP-JJ | 2 | -5 |
| TOTAL | 16 | +12 |
Extrapolating results from a game against the Lakers isn’t wise, but the Raptors have dabbled with no-center groups for short minutes throughout the year.
That’s encouraging, and there are two specific looks I think we’ll see a fair amount of.
Luis Scola at center
Scola is the most natural of the power forwards to shift to center. He’s only 6-foot-9 but he’s 240 pounds and plays a more ground-bound style. Offensively, it seems a natural fit given his post game, and his ability to step out to the 3-point line (he’s 10-of-20 on the year) could really stretch defenses. It’s a riskier proposition on defense, where Scola lacks the quickness to cover much ground in the pick-and-roll and isn’t a strong shot blocker, but the Raptors may be able to gameplan around that or deploy Scola at the pivot based on opponent substitution patterns, avoiding the most egregious mismatches.
Of the 52 minutes referenced above, Scola was the de facto center (there’s not really anyone playing center) for 37 of them. That includes seven minutes in Valanciunas’ role with the closing unit – essentially, the starters with Joseph in place of Valanciunas – and that’s a look I think you’ll see a fair amount of.
Patrick Patterson-James Johnson frontcourt
With the exception of one minute with a super-small lineup, the non-Scola minutes referenced above had something in common: Patterson and Johnson shared the frontcourt. This, I think, may be the key to getting through a prolonged Valanciunas absence.
Each player has their shortcomings, but they prove complementary parts. Patterson’s shooting ability lets Casey invert the offense and have Johnson play more inside, and Johnson is an active enough rebounder and on-ball defender that Patterson’s weaknesses are covered for to a degree. Johnson has proven capable of guarding most any player type, and Patterson is smart enough to help and recover where necessary while guarding multiple positions. Most importantly, they can switch and cross-match as needed.
In 81 minutes with those two on the floor together this year (a lot of it at the forward spots rather than the frontcourt positions), the Raptors have outscored opponents by 18.1 PPC.
The suggestion here is to shift those two down a position, unlocking a versatile position-less defense. If Carroll is on the floor, too, even better, as those three can change assignments on the fly. That extends some to DeMar DeRozan and Terrence Ross, too, though those two need to be protected from the bulkier opposition. Johnson-Patterson is going to be a common reserve duo and could really help goose secondary scoring and force turnovers to push the transition game. It’s susceptible as a set defense, but there are no perfect answers when you lose your starting center.
Basically, Casey should throw positions out the window and go with a “best five” mentality more often, with a quick hook for both of his traditional centers. Playing someone just because they fit a positional definition at the expense of the five-man unit is hardheaded at best, as is Casey’s occasional assertion that he has to match lineups to an opponent’s choices. Forget that. You’re at a disadvantage anyway, so play an unorthodox style that best suits your talent and figures to make an opponent uncomfortable.
Let’s get weird with Valanciunas out.
Other Notes
*This could mean minutes for Anthony Bennett. He’s been bad when he’s played but he’s big enough to help inside and he fits with the Patterson-Johnson strategy outlined on the defensive end. He’s also an active rebounder, something the Raptors may need.
*Don’t even bring up trades. The Raptors have 15 guaranteed contracts, few workable trade assets, and nobody is going to value their prospects more than they do. Plus, there’s a small silver lining here in getting to see what they have in Nogueira. A panic trade for an injury that may only be in the two-to-four week range is not how you should be responding to the news.
*This should also mean even more of Lowry-Joseph. Going small in the frontcourt shifts everyone “up” a position, and Joseph has proven capable of guarding twos. The early success of this duo has allowed Lowry to focus more on scoring, and the Raptors are killing teams (+17 PPC) when they share the floor. More of this, please.
