The Golden State Circus has mercifully left Toronto, leaving all of us aghast at the terrifying beauty of Steph Curry, the unimpeachable quality of the Warriors, and the reality that “what ifs” and moral victories only exist to ease the pain. The Raptors may not be broken from another Adonis Creed-like loss at the hands of professional sports’ most formidable juggernaut, but it’s going to take some time before the Curry transition pull-up PTSD flashbacks go away.
Where there is yin, there is yang, and with the Warriors departing, a circus of an entirely different kind has come to town. Where the Warriors are life and beauty and ethereal basketball magic, the Los Angeles Lakers are time and sadness and moribund basketball drudgery.
They are no less a circus, however, as 17-time All-Star, former MVP, and five-time NBA champion Kobe Bryant announced recently that this season will be his last, meaning Monday marks his final game against the Toronto Raptors. That means every Kobe fan in the GTA will be paying through the teeth for a ticket – he hasn’t played in Toronto in nearly three years due to injury – media will be en masse as they were for Curry, writing lengthy goodbyes and thinkpieces about Bryant’s complicated legacy and place in basketball history, and Bryant will be…well, he’ll be playing if he’s walking, he said Sunday, but it’s tough to expect more than that.
That’s because, sadly, time has taken away most of what made Bryant the player he was. The 3-point jump shot lacks lift, the jab step fools few, the quickness of the first step has abandoned, and the fadeaway has, well, faded away. Bryant’s averaging 15.9 points, 3.9 rebounds, 3.2 assists, and 1.1 steals in 31.3 minutes, fine production if it were coming in a smaller role. Instead, Bryant’s firing 17.9 shots per game and hitting 29.6 percent of them, numbers that stand out as awful until you notice his 21.8-percent mark on 7.8 three per game. He’s in the process of putting up one of the worst volume seasons of all time, and the only thing about his game that remains true to the Kobe legacy is that he’s still shooting.
Whether or not that’s right is more a philosophical than a basketball question. In basketball terms, the Lakers would be best-served by Bryant taking on a smaller role in the offense, acting more as a facilitator, and mentoring the team’s young guards in D’Angelo Russell and Jordan Clarkson. In part because he’s been Black Mamba for 20 seasons now, in part because clueless head coach Byron Scott enables him to do so, and probably in part because the Lakers need to lose a lot this year (their pick conveys to Philadelphia if it falls outside of the top three), Bryant hasn’t scaled back his usage. The Lakers are 3-17 as a result – to be clear, they wouldn’t be good no matter Bryant’s role but they could be less objectionably bad – and no team has a worse net rating than their -10.5 mark.
The Lakers are OK with losing games, even if they won’t admit as much, as the next chapter for their franchise, the first post-Kobe, is to build around Russell, Clarkson, Julius Randle, and a lottery pick this summer. They’ve mostly rolled over their cap space in their lean years, and the thinking is probably correct that a talented young core in a marquee market could help attract free agents. Failing that, they’ll have attractive trade chips to land a star through another avenue. The fact that Randle, who missed all but 14 minutes of his rookie season, and Russell look like solid pieces but maybe not foundational building blocks (it is too early to make that call and I really like both prospects) is fine, though the plan goes quite awry if the Lakers lose their pick, something there’s a 35.7-percent chance of even if they finish dead last. However it plays out, the Lakers have clearly, if not expressly, given their consent for Bryant to do him during his final year, flanked by some talented youngsters and a Scott-led sideshow to the Bryant circus.
And that’s fine, and totally their prerogative, and there are probably a lot of Bryant fans who are fine seeing him go out like he’s spent his whole career, gunning in isolation as a landlocked island, an individual in solitude amid a team. There are probably some, like me, who originally thought that Bryant’s swan song would be most enjoyable if he changed, went the Vince Carter or Kevin Garnett route, and became his best possible 37-year-old self. I’ve come to change my mind on that and now agree with Bryant that there’s great beauty in his struggle. His battle with time and age is a mortal tragedy playing out before us, and while stubborn, it’s fitting that the most polarizing, self-assured athlete of this generation is staying entirely true to who he is and what he’s been.
Having said all of that, there’s a game to be played Monday, too, and how Bryant and the Lakers are treating the season helps make the Raptors 13-point favorites.
It’s not necessarily going to be a cake walk. For as much as it seems the Raptors lack the ability to quit, they also lack the ability to put their feet to an opponent’s throat. The Raptors recently visited these same lowly Lakers and got a scare, trailing at the half and losing Jonas Valanciunas, only to figure things out in time with their usual big third quarter. Their poor starts have been a major problem, one that had head coach Dwane Casey contemplating a lineup change last week, and they’re yet to decisively put an opponent away early – they’ve led at the half just six times and by more than six points just twice, when they nearly coughed up a 29-point lead to the Clippers and when they handled the Bucks mostly with ease, their lone blowout victory of the season.
So for as laughable as the Lakers have been, the Raptors haven’t shown a corresponding ability to end a game quickly.
They’d be well-served to do so Monday. Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan, and DeMarre Carroll have been tasked with heavy minutes loads, and with the San Antonio Spurs coming Wednesday, it would be nice to get them a bit of rest. Opening a big lead early would also afford Casey an opportunity to give the emerging Lucas Nogueira extended run, adding to the somewhat small but encouraging sample Casey is evaluating him from, and to experiment with new or lesser-used lineup iterations. Blowouts are also a time to get young players like Nogueira, Norman Powell, and perhaps even Delon Wright some run, something the Raptors haven’t been able to do because 17 of their 21 games have been decided by 11 points or fewer and they’ve led by double-figures entering the fourth just four times.
The Lakers offer plenty of exploitable areas, not the least of which is that their offense is brutal, full stop. The Raptors’ defense should be able to suffocate the Lakers attack summarily, and so help me shammgod if DeMar DeRozan bites on a Lou Williams’ “drive into the corner, get trapped, and try to draw a foul” play. Bryant’s rarely sustained hot shooting, even when starting well, the team’s shooting worse than 32 percent on triples, and they can’t get offensive rebounds. They do manage to get to the line an average amount – we see you, Lou – and they protect the ball fairly well. Given the Raptors’ standing as an average defense (they’ve slid to 14th) and the Lakers’ No. 28 offense, locking down should come naturally.
Somehow, the Lakers are even worse on defense than they are on offense, ranking 29th as they play a conservative scheme that limits free-throws to some degree but also forces few turnovers and few, you know, stops. They’re also terrible on their own glass. The Raptors have struggled on the offensive glass since Valanciunas went down, in part because Casey preaches getting back in transition, but there will be opportunities here, especially when the Lakers go smaller, as they often do. Otherwise, the Lakers simply lack the man-to-man defenders to slow or stop opponents.
I’d break down the positional battles but we’re already 1,400 words deep, and you can figure it out yourself: The Raptors have an edge most everywhere, but there’s a reason the games get played. Monday provides a chance for fans and mentees like DeMar DeRozan to say goodbye to Bryant, and it provides a chance for the Raptors to finally assert themselves from the opening buzzer and show they possess a killer instinct when they smell blood.
The game tips off at 7:30 on Sportsnet One.
