Heading into the new Toronto Raptors season, there’s a lot of hope for the young player who’ve been developing inside the organization that they can step up and fill the holes left by the veterans who’ve departed over the last several years. Two years ago, the Raptors went on a 14-1 stretch through January and February spurred in large part by a lineup consisting of Kyle Lowry and four bench players who routinely dominated early second and fourth quarters with stellar defensive play and teamwork. That group went through many nicknames, but my favorite was always the Jurassic 5. Despite the winning record over that stretch, the starters routinely gave up leads early in games only to have the bench pull them back into it, and those four bench players who accompanied Lowry are now all departed, which brings some urgency to the task of figuring out a new reserve rotation for the team.
While each of those four players brought a lot to the table, from Bismack Biyombo’s mobility, shot blocking and defensive presence, to Cory Joseph’s stability at the point allowing Lowry to play off-ball and preserve energy while Joseph also was a stalwart defender, to Terrence Ross’ streaky scoring and athleticism that allowed him to be a mobile, if not always consistent defender, Patrick Patterson was the rock of the reserve unit. Biyombo and Ross are now in Orlando though, Joseph was moved to Indiana as part of the deal to bring in CJ Miles, and Patterson left in free agency to join the Oklahoma City Thunder.
In four seasons as a member of the Toronto Raptors, Patrick Patterson gave the team about 8 points and 5 rebounds per game each season. He started just 19 games, and despite shooting an effective 37.3% from the three point line, it was never easy to feel comfortable seeing him tee up an open shot from outside, given that he was sometimes subject to what felt like extreme hot and cold streaks as a player. Eight points and five rebounds feels, though, somehow completely inadequate at summing up his impact on the court for the Raptors.
Pat could never seem to quite grab hold of the starting role for the team, despite his being a consistent net positive. In those four years, the differential between his on-court and off-court net rating was never worse than +4.5 in 2014-15, a solid indicator that the team was far, far better off with him out there. There are a lot of factors that have been pointed to as contributors here, from his playing more against bench players due to his own role as a reserve, to the struggles of other players who played the power forward position for the team, whether Luis Scola, Amir Johnson, Pascal Siakam, or Serge Ibaka was starting ahead of him. Even accounting for those things though, one thing is consistently true about his time with the team, and that’s that Patterson frequently had the unenviable task of coming into games where the score was starting to run up against the Raptors and find a way to correct it.
In each of the last two seasons, despite the Raptors being one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference, their starting lineup had a negative net rating. The frustration was palpable many nights as the starters would once again give up a deficit and the fans would begin to look to the bench for a spark to turn the game around. That, as much as those eight points and five rebounds was what Patterson brought to the table, as his entrance to the game would have a calming effect both for the fans and, seemingly, for the players on the floor as they would turn games around with regularity.
The hope this season has to be that this won’t be an issue to start with. The known starters of Lowry, DeMar DeRozan, Ibaka and Jonas Valanciunas will be joined by one of Norman Powell and CJ Miles, and either of those configurations has zero starts for the team in previous years, with Miles having only joined the team this summer and Ibaka also being a recent acquisition. Perhaps the new starters won’t have the same struggles as previous groups and the bench will be tasked with merely holding the leads that are built in the early game. But if not, if those familiar struggles of old return, the solution we’ve become accustomed to having at hand is no longer available. Patterson won’t be sitting on the bench, available to bring the game back from the brink of disaster.
I’m a big believer in the young players in the Raptors system, and I think they each have a chance of becoming at the very least good rotation players in the league. Norman Powell has proven himself on the biggest stages in the playoffs, and has more than once changed a playoff series for the team. Delon Wright showed signs of being ready late in the season last year, looking confident and composed running the offense. And in Pascal Siakam, Jakob Poeltl, and Lucas Noguiera, Dwane Casey has a trio of big men who each have some NBA experience and have shown the ability to play real minutes. This is a good group of players, but they’re still young, and some of those intangibles are much harder to provide for a young player than simply contributing those points and rebounds.
Without him, one of the young players who has been waiting in the wings will have to step up and find a way to deliver. Not to replace Patterson’s eight points and five rebounds, but to bring the team back together and keep them in games that perhaps they shouldn’t be able to bring back. You can find someone to score a few points and grab a handful of rebounds, but that type of leadership from a role player isn’t all that common, and is, at least in my opinion, one of the most interesting questions for the Raptors going into this season. Who becomes that leader on the bench, or is this the season that if the starting lineup for the Raptors can’t get it done, the bench can’t close the gap?
