With a 78-72 victory over New Zealand on Saturday, Canada now awaits the winner of France-Turkey in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament final on Sunday morning (9 a.m. ET on TSN 2/4) (Box Score). Led by 20 points from Cory Joseph and buoyed by enormous efforts from Melvin Ejim and Tristan Thompson, Canada was able to hold off a very game, scrappy, and energetic New Zealand squad that nearly caused flashbacks to the FIBA Americas semifinal a year ago.
Following the Haka (swoon), the game opened with what was easily Canada’s worst defensive quarter of the tournament so far. New Zealand really pushed the tempo to make Canada uncomfortable in transition, and the result at one point was seven consecutive made field goals for the Kiwis. They shot 9-of-21 overall but went 4-of-8 on threes and forced five Canadian turnovers.
Meanwhile, the Canadian offense was effective scoring but a little scattered and careless with the ball. They needed all of Joseph’s eight pace-settling scores, including a ridiculous spin move baseline. Ejim had a great sequence, too (not surprising), where he helped kill a Tall Black run with a three and a cutting layup sandwiched around a big post stop. And Khem Birch provided a massive block that keyed a Brady Heslip transition run to tie the game, only for Canada to sleep on Shea Ili for a bucket to secure the lead through one.
The Toronto Raptors have officially signed their first-round picks, Jakob Poeltl and Pascal Siakam, the team announced Saturday.
Standard contracts for first-round picks include two guaranteed years followed by two team-option years, each of which has to be exercised by Oct. 31 the year prior (so they’ll need to make decisions on the third year of these deals next October), though the options are nearly always no-brainers. That’s because the rookie scale insures that players are relatively cheap in their first four seasons, especially right now, with the salary cap taking off and rookie contracts stuck at a fixed dollar amount rather than a percentage of the cap.
There is some wiggle room on salary, but players almost always sign for 120 percent of “scale,” the set salary for each draft slot. For the purposes of cap estimates, we always assume 120 percent of scale unless told otherwise. The most interesting part of this news for the Raptors is that by officially signing Poeltl and Siakam, those players will now count against the cap at their actual salaries rather than their cap holds (which are set to scale).
*Pascal Siakam sat out the scrimmage due to the left knee sprain he suffered Friday. He doesn’t seem to think it’s a big deal and is considered questionable for Sunday.
*DeMarre Carroll was at the gym working out as the Raptors scrimmaged.
*Lucas Nogueira was on-hand, too, and even participated in the scrimmage. He’s not participating in the tournament in an official capacity to provide opportunity for the team’s five other youngsters (Nogueira’s been in Summer League three times already), but he’s been practicing with them regularly. He was tasked with guarding Thon Maker for this session. He also stole my mic to take over reporting duties.
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Summer League Scouting Report | Wolves vs. Raptors | Minnesota Timberwolves
Key Matchup: Kris Dunn vs. Normal Powell
After lighting it up in his first game against second-year guard Emmanuel Mudiay, Dunn will go up against another guard who has already spent a year in the NBA.
Powell had a solid first Summer League game and was a solid player for the Raptors in his rookie season. In 49 games, he played 15 minutes per game and averaged 5.6 points, 2.3 rebounds and one assist per game. Those numbers aren’t off the chart, but the fact that he got minutes on a team that advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals is telling.
Dunn’s game starts with his defense, and while Powell might not be as dynamic as Mudiay, he’s still guy who shot 40.4 percent from the 3-point line last season.
Raptors Cory Joseph Carries Canada Past New Zealand | Pro Bball Report
The Tall Blacks strategy was obvious from the jump. Hit, hold and foul at every opportunity and they made it tough on the referees to call everything. New Zealand was tagged with 27 personal fouls and Canada was sent to the free throw line 25 times, but it didn’t cost New Zealand. The Canadians missed 11 free throws and failed to take advantage of their opportunities to build a lead that would have made this a much easier game.
New Zealand also took advantage of Canada on the perimeter, hitting on 11-29 three-point attempts. Canada, on the other hand, continued with their tournament long struggles from the outside hitting just 4-20 from three. The usually reliable Brady Heslip failed to connect from deep for the second game in a row going 0-3. Anthony Bennett was 1-5, Thomas Scrubb and Joseph both went 1-4.
Where Canada found their advantage was in the paint as Melvin Ejim (13 points, 7 rebounds, 2 blocks) and Tristan Thompson (13 points, 10 rebounds) embraced the physical play. In limited minutes Khem Birch (6 points, 5 rebounds) came in and impacted the game with his size and toughness. The trio accounting for 12 of Canada’s 18 offensive boards.
Raptors Sign First Round Picks Poeltl & Siakam | Toronto Raptors
Poeltl, 7-foot, 248 pounds, played two seasons at Utah and one season (2013-14) for the Arkadia Traiskirchen Lions in his native Austria. He was the 2016 Pac-12 Player of the Year, an Associated Press second-team All-America and the recipient of the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award for the nation’s top centre. Poeltl averaged 17.2 points (second in the Pac-12), 9.1 rebounds (fourth in the conference) and 1.6 blocks (eighth in the Pac-12) in 36 games this past season. He ranked first in the Pac-12 and seventh in the nation in field goal percentage (.646). As a freshman, he contributed 9.1 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.9 blocks in 34 contests. He earned Pac-12 All-Freshman team honours and was named to the CBSSports.com Freshman All-American team. He led the conference and ranked fourth in the nation in field goal percentage (.681).
Siakam, 6-foot-9, 230 pounds, played two seasons at New Mexico State. He averaged 20.3 points, 11.6 rebounds and 2.2 blocks in 34 games in 2015-16 en route to unanimous Western Athletic Conference Player of the Year honours. He led the nation with 27 double-doubles. The native of Cameroon was the 2015 WAC Freshman of the Year, averaging 12.8 points, 7.7 rebounds and 1.8 blocks in 34 outings. He paced the conference in field goal percentage (.572) and blocked shots.
Canada one win from Olympic berth after tough victory over Kiwis | Eh Game – Yahoo Sports Canada
“He’s our energy guy,” said head coach Jay Triano. “We feel comfortable going to him in the fourth quarter.”
Ejim has been getting it done on both ends for Canada and could be auditioning for another NBA job after summer league stints with Philadelphia and Orlando the past two years didn’t lead to a contract.
“We keep talking about how we have to be so good defensively because there could be a game where you don’t make shots, well we’ve had three games where we haven’t made shots,” Triano said.
“We keep defending, forcing tough shots, keep forcing teams to shoot a low percentage and that gives us a chance until we’re going to start making shots.”
Shooting was a definite issue for the Canadian side who made a brutal 14-of-25 free throws, and again struggled from beyond the arc going 4-of-20 where they’ve shot just 26% this tournament. They missed their final 13 attempts from three point range.
Toronto Raptors Officially Sign Jakob Poeltl and Pascal Siakam
With both draft picks now under contract, it opens up questions about the Raptors salary cap. DeMar DeRozan is still not officially signed, but if the team was to sign him in the coming days, they would lock themselves into being over the cap, meaning they would be limited to their mid-level and bi-annual exception should they want to bring another player in. This would likely only happen if Masai Ujiri feels he can’t complete a trade and the extra cap space is no longer needed.
Considering how thin the free agent market is, it seems more likely that the Raptors will opt to stay above the salary cap and will sign DeRozan whenever they see fit. By doing that, they would maintain their rights to James Johnson (early Bird rights), Luis Scola (non-Bird rights), Jason Thompson (non-Bird rights), and Nando De Colo (early Bird rights/RFA rights). They would also still have their mid-level and bi-annual exceptions, which are approximately $5.6 million and $2.2 million.
Where Raptors Stand Against “new” East
In the Raptors’ camp, free agency has been a relatively quiet one this summer. It’s understandable that fans were hoping for more excitement, but, at the end of the day, we have more than enough to be content with. The Raptors are most likely heading into next season with the same core that’s brought them consistent improvement year by year. There’s a possibility of cutting loose the services of a couple players deemed removable Like Luis Scola, James Johnson, Jason Thompson and Terrence Ross. Johnson, Scola and Thompson are UFAs so the team will most likely not offer them returning contracts as they are not vital assets to the team’s growth in 2016-2017. Ross signed a 3-year contract extension last summer but has been the subject of multiple trade rumors since. One of the Raptors’ main priorities since the arrival of Kyle Lowry has been to take one step forward every year. The gradual betterment of the team’s regular season record and the growth of the team’s starting back court is clear evidence for this fact. For this reason, it is expected of the Raptors and their all-star duo to return stronger and ready to go to war against the new and improved teams of the Eastern Conference, most notably, the Atlantic division.
