If you’re interested in attending the 905 opener, you can use this link and promo code REPUBLIC905 to get a few bucks off.
The Toronto Raptors are heading out on the road a little shorthanded. The team will embark on a five-game, nine-day road-trip Thursday, and they’ll do so without Fred VanVleet and Bruno Caboclo on the team charter to Denver.
VanVleet and Caboclo have once again been assigned to Raptors 905 of the D-League, the team announced late Wednesday, and it seems unlikely they’d re-join the team at any point on the trip, barring an injury. That means the Raptors will roll with just 11 healthy players (Jared Sullinger and Delon Wright remain sidelined), and they may even be down to 10 at one point thanks to a Sunday-Monday doubleheader that DeMarre Carroll could sit a leg off.
The move makes all the sense in the world and was always the expected approach for at least Caboclo. Road-trips don’t provide a great deal of full practice time, and even with the Raptors banged up, Caboclo and VanVleet have combined for less than a minute of playing time this year. The assignment not only provides them with ample practice time during a stretch where they’d otherwise be getting limited work in, they’ll also get the chance to play in three actual games – the 905 play Nov. 18, 20, and 23 during the Raptors’ trip, and again Nov. 26 as the Raptors return home. That means the youngsters will be in for well over 100 minutes of real-game playing time over the next week-plus.
“Case ain’t going to run those guys too long. It’s not even like he’d get a ton of reps in practice either. It’s all individual work. Him being able to come down here and play games and keep a game feel, I think it’s going to be great for us,” head coach Jerry Stackhouse said at media day last week.
As tough as that may be to accept initially, it’s probably made a lot easier with Norman Powell and Lucas Nogueira presently contributing in the rotation following 2015-16 D-League stints of their own. Not that the players would have much choice, but the Raptors believe they’ve drafted, signed, and hired the right type of people to insure everyone gets the absolute most out of their assignments.
For at least the next few games, here’s what the 905 rotation might look like:
PG: Fred VanVleet, Brady Heslip, John Jordan
SG: E.J. Singler, J.T. Terrell, Negus Webster-Chan
SF: Bruno Caboclo, Axel Toupane, Will Sheehey, Antwaine Wiggins
PF: Jarrod Uthoff, C.J. Leslie
C: Yanick Moreira, Goodluck Okonoboh
(There’s also the matter of Edy Tavares, who still isn’t officially on the roster, and for whom someone will need to be waived to make space.)
It will be interesting to see if Caboclo maybe starts at the four rather than the three. The team is starting to see him as more of a power forward long-term, and he spent a lot of time there down the stretch last year. He and Uthoff may essentially just start as “forwards,” with Toupane back in his sixth-man extraordinaire role, but Toupane also sounded confident during camp that he’d be starting this year (not that he seems to mind, either way). The 905 have a lot of options with positional fluidity and a switch-heavy approach, as VanVleet, Jordan, and Tavares are really the only players on the roster who can’t man multiple positions.
If you’re interested in attending the 905 opener, you can use this link and promo code REPUBLIC905 to get a few bucks off.
