Leading up to Wednesday’s season opener, there was a hope that the continuity on the Toronto Raptors’ roster could give them an edge out of the gate. It stands to reason that teams with less turnover would be better equipped to hit the ground running as teams with more tumultuous offseasons found their footing and searched for chemistry. The logic is strong, even if the Raptors “only” ranked eighth in John Schuhmann’s continuity rankings – Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan, Terrence Ross, Patrick Patterson, and Jonas Valanciunas have been together for years, and Cory Joseph, DeMarre Carroll, and Norman Powell now have a year under their belts.
That familiarity seemed to help against the Detroit Pistons, with the Raptors tipping their season off with an emphatic 109-91 victory. This, despite injuries forcing two relative unknowns in rookies Pascal Siakam and Jakob Poeltl into the mix.
The decision to start Siakam was somewhat of a surprising one, although maybe it shouldn’t have been. Siakam drew starts in Jared Sullinger’s absence during the preseason, but head coach Dwane Casey threw out mixed signals in the days leading up to the opener.
“Well, we’ll see. Patrick, right now, is our leading candidate,” he said when Sullinger was announced as out for several months. “Love Pascal. So it’s probably going to be a back and forth between those two. Pascal brings energy and defensive flexibility where we like, Patrick’s got the veteran leadership and veteran experience at that position…I like Pat coming off the bench but I also like experience in the game, too. So we’ll see.”
At shooraround Wednesday, Casey teased that the starter “won’t surprise you,” which was a safe claim – either he was being earnest with the Patterson suggestion earlier, or none of us should have been surprised at him holding the status quo with Siakam starting and, more notably, Patrick Patterson coming off the bench. The team loves Patterson in his sixth-man role, and while Patterson doesn’t express a preference either way, there are good arguments to be made for him starting (he’s the better player and a great two-way fit with the starters) or coming off the bench (it balances the units and prevents Siakam and Poeltl from playing together). Bringing Patterson off the bench also gives the Raptors a sort of safety valve, in that if Siakam struggles, they could quickly shift to Patterson, where the opposite might be more difficult to put off (it didn’t matter in this one, as Siakam more than held his own).
“He was active. He played his role to the T,” Carroll said of the rookie. “He was getting rebounds. Was out there helping us defending, getting the ball in loose balls. That’s what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to play your role. You’ve got to understand who you are. And I think he understands that at an early age.”
Perhaps the best argument in favor of starting Siakam is that, though he’s new to the team, doing so provides another form of continuity: Rotation continuity.
Casey went forward with what amount to a nearly identical rotation to the one the team used in 2015-16, save for a slightly early first-quarter hook for DeMarre Carroll on account of foul trouble. The starters played the bulk of the first before the bench was slowly staggered in, DeRozan and Lowry swapped rest periods around the quarter break, and the starters more or less closed the half.
“We have a good look at our rotation and a good feel for it,” Casey said before the game. “A lot of things go into that, whether it’s foul trouble, missing shots, making a multitude of mistakes, and that’ll change some of that, but right now we have a pretty clear plan of how we wanna do it. There’s a lot made out of DeMar and Kyle, watching their minutes, we want to do that but not at the expense of losing games.”
The only noticeable difference may have been random or based on the game flow, but Lowry remained on the floor for longer than usual in the first quarter, taking just 100 seconds of rest before returning. He then sat to close the second quarter and returned to his “normal” rest in the third before making an early exit in the fourth with the game in hand. DeRozan’s minutes, meanwhile, more or less followed their usual form, and the Raptors were able to limit their All-Star pairing to 72 total minutes thanks to pulling ahead late. Casey had hinted at a potentially small tweak to his star’s usage, and it will be interesting to see if Lowry’s broken up rest in the first half – perhaps aimed at creating better starts and getting Lowry multiple short rests instead of fewer, longer breaks – is a new pattern or a one-night blip.
Staggering Lowry’s breaks would also put less of an onus on “DeRozan-plus-bench” lineups, which sometimes struggled last year, at least in comparison to the vaunted “Lowry-plus-bench” groups. Those four-man bench units should remain an effective weapon for the Raptors, particularly when Lucas Nogueira is healthy, but they weren’t particularly effective Wednesday.
These are extremely small samples, so don’t make any conclusions yet. We’re more looking for the pattern and logic than results after just a few minutes, and it certainly seems as if the Raptors are going to rotate to form.
There are two smaller rotation notes worth making, as well.
Carroll didn’t play any power forward. Given the size of the Pistons, the Raptors opting to go with two traditional bigs throughout the game made sense. There wasn’t one second the Raptors tasked Carroll or another wing with playing de facto four, which could have been tough with Tobias Harris, Marcus Morris, and Jon Leuer around, plus a triumvirate of massive centers. Avoiding smaller groups is probably what helped the Raptors win the rebounding battle.
I’d guess this is a game-by-game situation. Casey said all week that he won’t hesitate to use Carroll at the four, and Carroll himself bristled at being identified by a position rather than just as “a basketball player.” The Cavaliers can go big or small, so it’s tough to guess how that one may go. The starting lineup with Joseph in place of a power forward is probably going to be a popular and effective look for the Raptors, it’s just a matter of finding the right opponent to deploy it against.
Powell only played in garbage time. Some people seemed surprised by this, but I had tried to warn that Powell was well behind Ross leading up to the game. Ross had a terrific preseason and the team is very confident in him at both ends right now, and Wednesday’s game did little to dispel his momentum.
“Right now, T-Ross is ahead as far as just, before his injury I thought he was playing some of his best basketball. So, it’ll be his situation to lose,” Casey said before the game. “Norm is still gonna be an important part of what we do, just because of his toughness and his grittiness, and we’re gonna need that.”
Powell is once again stuck waiting for his turn, and it may come whenever the opportunity to play small presents itself. Carroll shifting to the four opens up additional wing minutes, and the Raptors were a lot of fun with Powell (or any small group) a season ago, especially in the playoffs. It shouldn’t be long before Powell gets another chance to contribute.
