Teammates rebound better with Ibaka than Valanciunas
Obviously, an 80.7 xDReb% is much higher than any lineup would realistically post, which speaks to the confounding variable of guys rebounding worse when Valanciunas is on the floor. This isn’t a criticism of Valanciunas but rather a likely psychological effect of how a team approaches rebounding in general with an elite defensive rebounding presence in the middle.
To illustrate this a bit further, here’s a quick look at defensive rebounding rates alongside each player so far:
Some of that might be noise, but it’s pretty extreme in the cases of some players, particularly Leonard, who has essentially assumed the rebounding duties of a nominal power forward even though more than half of the Ibaka/Leonard minutes have included Siakam (who also sees an Ibaka bump). Whether this is a hard matter of strategy or a natural instinct on the part of the wings and guards is hard to discern so early, but it would stand to reason that Nick Nurse has emphasized greater help rebounding with a weaker rebounding centre on the floor.
This is small-sample noise and it will normalize
Yes, this is absolutely the answer.
Does any of this mean anything?
Of course it does. It would be extremely out of character for me to do all of this just out of curiosity. (Disclaimer: It would not be.) The potential strategy element of a more gang-rebounding mentality when Ibaka is at centre, some level of comfort that Valanciunas lineups will begin to rebound better, and clarity that Anunoby really needs to improve his rebounding to make him work as a permanent power forward are all worthwhile takeaways, even if they conform to logic to a degree. The Raptors’ biggest weakness this year, on paper, is defensive rebounding, and how they attack that problem will remain worth monitoring in the coming weeks.
The Raptors Finally Look Like a Complete Contender – The Ringer
The Raptors are now 4-0, with victories against overmatched Cleveland and Charlotte teams sandwiching an impressive back-to-back sweep of the Eastern-favorite Celtics in Toronto and the playoff-hopeful Wizards in D.C. Through the season’s first week, the Raptors have been one of three teams to rank in the top 10 in both offensive and defensive efficiency in non-garbage-time minutes, according to Cleaning the Glass, joining the new-look Bucks and the Warriors. And only the rampaging Pelicans and suddenly stout Nuggets have posted higher net ratings than Toronto, according to NBA.com/Stats. They’ve been, by both eye test and analytics, one of the three or four best teams in the NBA thus far.
But you can never quarantine the past, so let’s reckon with it: you’ve heard this before. You have, in fact, heard some version of it in each of the past five seasons, all of which have featured a Raptors squad with a credible claim to being The Best Team In Franchise History, and none of which ended with Toronto playing for a title.
You definitely heard it last season, when the Raptors won a franchise-record 59 games, finished the regular season second in net rating, and wholeheartedly believed that they were good enough to finally dethrone LeBron James and win the NBA championship. They weren’t even close—and the shock to the organization’s system was so severe that even the best basketball team Toronto had ever seen was broken up in the offseason.
Out went Coach of the Year Dwane Casey, and up stepped Nurse, the assistant lauded for overhauling Toronto’s offense. And then, in what could wind up being the most important decision in Raptors history, out went DeMar DeRozan, an All-NBA scorer who’d grown into the Raptors’ heartbeat, in exchange for Leonard, a former MVP candidate who’d just missed 73 games with a mysterious quad injury, and who might look for, if not greener pastures, then warmer climes, at his first opportunity next summer, when he can decline his $21.3 million player option for the 2019-20 season and enter unrestricted free agency.
Raptors’ Serge Ibaka adjusting to full-time move to centre – Sportsnet.ca
That’s not to say there aren’t still adjustments to be made. Ibaka has been moonlighting at the five dating back to his time with the Oklahoma City Thunder but was still used to playing alongside a traditional centre like Kendrick Perkins.
“It’s been so long since I’ve played the five full-time like this,” Ibaka said. “I’m getting back to that, and I feel like I’m getting better and better every day.”
The early returns have been very encouraging. Although his minutes are only just barely up from last season, his scoring is up from 12.6 to 15.3, and his rebounding rate and shooting percentage have risen as well. And while his three-point shot hasn’t been falling he’s been attempting nearly half as many as last season as the team and coaching staff work to get him more shot opportunities closer to the basket. The changes have been hard to ignore.
According to NBA.com, the majority of Ibaka’s shots last season — 53 per cent — came off catch-and-shoot opportunities, while 13.7 per cent were pull-up jumpers and 29.6 per cent attempts were taken within 10 feet of the hoop. So far this season his catch-and-shoot attempts are down to 38 per cent, just seven per cent of his shots have been pull-ups and now the majority — 52.4 per cent — have come within 10 feet.
As Ibaka seems to be finding his rhythm and improving his shot selection, it’s not like Valanciunas has become the odd man out in the equation. The two have been a potent one-two punch. While Ibaka has been getting the lion’s share of fourth quarter minutes, Valanciunas has been effective when he’s on the floor, averaging 10.8 points and 8.5 rebounds in just 18 minutes per night.
Nurse promised his rotations would be fluid, especially early in the season, and he’s certainly been true to his word. The two bigs have each started twice in four games. Any on court adjustments to playing exclusively at the centre spot aren’t difficult — Nurse even said that playing at centre makes things easier, at least on the offensive end of the floor. But coming in and out of the starting lineup has been a new experience for Ibaka, and one that’s going to take some getting used to.
“I’m going to be honest with you, it’s not that easy,” Ibaka said. “It’s been tough. But if it’s good for the team — we’re winning right now — I have to focus on that and be ready when my name is called.”
The Whiteboard: The Toronto Raptors look like a legit title contender – FanSided
Thus far in the 2018-19 season, all of those risks have paid off in grand fashion. The Raptors are 4-0 and they’ve outscored other teams by 11.3 points per 100 possessions, the best mark of any team in the East or of any team to play at least four games thus far. Leonard looks like the old Kawhi and is averaging 25.7 points, 8.7 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 1.0 steals per game while essentially knocking the rust off of his game.
Lowry has continued to prove he is one of the best few guards in the East and is averaging a double-double through four games played. The addition of Danny Green to what was already a nice group of wings has made Toronto a terror on both ends, as the Raps rank in the top 10 both in offensive and defensive rating.
The Raptors have looked like a team that could run the table before, but there’s one huge difference between then and now. These Raps have a superstar in Leonard, and that makes all of the difference. Toronto might finally make it to the NBA Finals for the first time ever, and anything could happen once they get there.
Kawhi Leonard reminds us all of his superstar pedigree | SI.com
It’s not really about stats. The way Leonard’s moving and asserting himself is what’s most encouraging. If he stays healthy he’s only going to get more comfortable, and he’s going to be a problem for teams all year long. And if that player is who we’re watching in Toronto, it’s a win for basketball fans everywhere.
He’s just so much bigger than most wings—6’8″ and 230 pounds, with a 7’4″ wingspan—and he can get whatever he wants on offense. He does a lot of his work in isolation, and that may look odd next to the motion offenses in the modern NBA. But when he’s healthy, Kawhi is never really settling for tough shots. He’s just calmly leveraging his size and footwork into open looks, and then rising up to knock them down. The best version of his game is like Kobe Bryant with the DNA of Tim Duncan. There’s no star quite like him.
Now, obvious disclaimers: it’s October. It’s been four games, one of which Leonard sat out for rest. Nobody is launching an MVP campaign here. Continued health is not guaranteed. Anything can happen.
Any Raptors story is always fraught. There’s an extended history of playoff disappointments (albeit mostly at the hands of LeBron), and for NBA fans everywhere, that frustration is compounded by the annual ritual of spending another five months debating whether Toronto can actually make a Finals run. The team has always been good enough to be in conversations about May and June, but there was never one player who was great enough to capture imaginations in the meantime. In some ways, debating the ceiling was inevitable. It was the most interesting conversation anyone could have about the Raptors.
After that Boston game, there are reasons to believe in this year’s Toronto team as legit Finals contenders—Danny Green looks fantastic, Kyle Lowry is playing out of his mind, Fred VanVleet remains a truly elite role player, and with a collection of rangy athletes like Green and OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakim, Nick Nurse has weapons to harass anyone his team faces in the playoffs. There are also reasons to be cautious—Lowry’s playoff history isn’t great, Siakim and OG remain a work in progress on offense, and the best big man on the roster is Serge Ibaka, who will be a wild card all year long. Ibaka looked great against Boston, but trusting him in the postseason will be its own adventure. Also, the Celtics should be much better in May.
Raptors’ Ibaka excelling in new centre role as a full-time five – TSN.ca
Ibaka’s move to the five had been a long time coming. He and the team first talked about it in his exit meeting following the 2016-17 season, and then again after they re-signed him a few months later. With the league trending towards a smaller, quicker, more versatile brand of basketball each passing year, both parties agreed it was becoming Ibaka’s optimal position.
The only thing that stood in the way of making it happen a year ago was Toronto’s frontcourt depth. With three traditional centres on the roster, Ibaka was almost exclusively a power forward last season, whether he – or the team – liked it or not.
Only 13 per cent of his minutes came at centre, according to basketball-reference.com, with the rest of them coming alongside one of Valanciunas, Jakob Poeltl or Lucas Nogueira.
With one of the seven-footers occupying valuable real estate in the paint, Ibaka was relegated to the perimeter, on both ends of the court. Defensively, he would often be tasked with guarding the opposition’s stretch big, pulling him away from the bucket and essentially negating his biggest strength as a rim protector. On offence he was asked to create space, which usually meant waiting to spot-up on the elbow or at the top of the arc and launching threes.
The evolution of Ibaka’s jump shot is certainly not a bad thing, especially in the modern NBA. It’s given him another valuable weapon that he didn’t have earlier in his career. However, it can also take away from some of the things that made him such a dominant force around the rim during his time with Oklahoma City.
“It’s hard when you have to play in a way you are not used to playing,” he said of the last few seasons, having been converted to a stretch big after years of playing off his athleticism in OKC. “And it’s like ‘Oh, you have to do this’ when you feel like you can do more than just that. It’s good that people think I can shoot, but I can also roll, I can finish inside, I can shoot two pointers. And same with defence: I can switch, which is good, but I can also protect the paint, too. So it’s just giving me more flexibility to play my game.”
STINSON: Sure, it’s early, but the Raptors have been full marks | Toronto Sun
Would Nurse be able to find minutes for all of his guys?
After the season-opening win over Cleveland last week, the new coach was quick to mention that he was proud of players who had accepted new roles, singling out Serge Ibaka and Jonas Valanciunas, who each started last year but are now spelling each other at the centre position. Valanciunas was a force playing mostly with a bench unit against Charlotte, piling up 17 points and 10 rebounds in just under 20 minutes, but he was also on the court in the fourth with Lowry and Leonard in a new-look closing lineup. Ibaka seems reborn, playing with an energy that was often absent last year, and he leads the NBA in post-block celebrations per 100 possessions.
The broader question that loomed about this team, though, was whether the changes that were made would help it address the problems that have habitually plagued it during the post-season. And again, the early returns are promising. Toronto struggled to defend elite offences last season, and they were often torched from the perimeter by those teams.
The Cleveland Cavaliers shot 41% from three-point range against the Raptors in the playoffs last year, and 46% from distance in the previous playoffs. In related news, the Raptors were 0-8 in those games. And so, on Monday night the Hornets came into Scotiabank Arena having set an NBA record for most three-pointers through three games (39) – and the Raptors promptly snuffed that part of their game. They didn’t make a single three until the second quarter, and finished nine-of-28, or 32%, from distance.
Nurse said after the win that when hot-shooting teams come in, there’s an emphasis on trying to anticipate the kickout pass, and getting out to the perimeter half a step sooner or jumping a little quicker to disrupt it.
It also helps that he has Leonard and Danny Green, his former San Antonio teammate, on hand to help with that disruption. On their own, they are defensive game-changers on the outside. Green, though, said that running out to defend the three is about knowing that someone else will pick the guy up if he runs around you.
“A big part of defence is trusting the guy behind you,” he said. He said he had played on teams like that before. Oh, yes: That one that won a title.
Podcast: Locked on Raptors #402 – What the hell is up in Minnesota? w/ Tim Faklis – Raptors HQ
In Episode 402 of Locked on Raptors, Sean Woodley chats with Tim Faklis (A Wolf Among Wolves, The Athletic) about the soap opera unfolding in Minnesota as Jimmy Butler’s trade demand saga carries on. They discuss what the ultimate conclusion of Butler and the Wolves’ relationship might look like, whether Karl-Anthony Towns
Raptors’ Wright set to return from injury to face Timberwolves | Toronto Sun
Without Wright (and maybe missing Poeltl, too) the second unit coming in after the starters this season hasn’t been the elite group they were a year ago.
Unlike last season when the bench mob rivalled the output of Toronto’s starting five, this year through four games the starting lineup has changed nightly, but those groups with Lowry, Leonard and Green have been far more productive than any of the second-unit combinations.
Wright’s shoulder injuries – he dislocated his shoulder in 2017 and missed another 12 games last year with another shoulder injury – have been his most serious injury issues. He had a slight muscle tear during his pre-draft workouts but other than that has avoided muscle injuries for the most part during his career.
Without Wright, Nurse has gone with a 10-man rotation, but sounded Tuesday like he would bump it to 11, stealing minutes from the 10 who played in the first game to get Wright some run.
“It probably depends on who is playing well and how it goes,” Nurse said. “I think all of the guys who have been playing will probably still get an opportunity, maybe it’s a little bit of a shorter stint of an opportunity, and they’ll have to make the most of ’em.”
Watching from the sidelines, even when your team is winning, is hard for a professional athlete so the past week has been tough for Wright, but he sees the positives, too.
“It’s been very difficult,” he said. “Especially with it being the beginning of the year. I was working all summer just for the beginning of the year. But it’s only been four games. So it’s not too bad. I still have 78 more.”
Fast road to NBA wasn’t always better for Miles | The Star
“Not being around anybody your age, when all the guys have families. People don’t realize that as busy as we do get, there’s a lot of time when there’s nothing but time. And that’s when you get into trouble,” Miles said. “Because you’ve got to learn how to fill that time. You’ve got to learn to fight urges and temptations. You’ve got to learn how to do the right thing.”
He wasn’t the only one who found his NBA growing pains challenging. Utah’s Hall of Fame coach Jerry Sloan didn’t always exhibit patience with Miles’s inconsistencies.
“We can’t put diapers on him one night, and a jockstrap the next,” Sloan famously said.
“That’s the best quote in the world — it was on the front page of the paper,” Miles said Tuesday, smiling. “That was Coach Sloan. He was right. I tell people all the time: That’s a major part of the reason I’m still in the NBA. He taught me how to work. He taught me how to be professional.”
Exactly how Bazley will progress as a basketball player without a looming schedule of games is anyone’s guess. He likely won’t play another contest of note until July, when he presumably joins the summer league team of the NBA franchise that drafts him. Until then, he’ll partake in strength training to beef up his slender frame and skills sessions to hone his craft. Will it be enough to maximize his potential before the draft?
“I hope the best for him. I hope he can find a way to improve his skills still, because playing is still king,” Miles said. “Being away from that for a year basically in a different world, it’s a different thing, too. I think the more you’re able to play the more you’re able to deal with everything. Not just the basketball side. Not just dealing with the coach. It’s being around players that are just as talented as you are. All the things that come with that … People take that for granted a little bit. Having a skill set is one thing. But there’s a lot of skill sets walking around every city (without NBA jobs).”
Watch the Tape: Reviewing the Raptors’ Sportsnet commercial – Raptors HQ
So the Raps got their as quickly as anyone in the modern expansion era, and while their rate of getting to the playoffs (43%) is on the lower end, it’s not dramatically so compared to everyone but Miami (who are legitimately an amazing NBA organization).
Add it up, and you have, perhaps a slightly disappointing NBA franchise. But not an awful one. Not an embarrassing one. Not one that justifies a video that takes shots at three of the most talented guys to ever put on the jersey (and bully-like ones on guys like Hoffa and Fields.)
Maybe it’s the Maple Leaf effect — after so many lean years by the Pucks, Toronto decided it was a shitty sports town, and therefore any team that had any stretch of poor play was somehow just as hopeless as the Buds. Except of course the Leafs weren’t even hopeless. They had several stretches of interesting, or out-right good teams every decade (except for the 80’s. The 80’s were in fact, awful).
Long story short, I like what the video wanted to say. I just didn’t love how it tried to say it.
Did Carter, Bosh or T-Mac get us the ultimate prize? No, but they gave us some damn fine memories. Let’s respect that. Let’s respect our city, and the fact it’s clear why anyone could want to live here. Let’s respect ourselves.
Stop cutting the legs out from underneath your past, Toronto. Those are the legs you’re standing on now, to see that brighter future.
Gameday preview: Wolves try to end 14-game losing streak at Toronto – StarTribune.com
Preview: Having evened their record at 2-2 with Monday’s victory over Indiana at Target Center, the Wolves travel to Toronto where they have lost 14 straight games. This is their second of three straight games vs. Eastern Conference teams and the third in five games vs. the East. Last season the Wolves were 13-17 vs. the East. So far this year they are 2-0. This is the second of three straight home games for the Raptors, who are 4-0 and have the benefit of playing five of their first six games at home. That 4-0 mark includes an impressive victory over Boston. The Raptors tied Houston with the best home record in the league last year (34-7).
Game Preview: Raptors vs Timberwolves | Toronto Raptors
Extra Assists
Lowry lighting it up: Kyle Lowry had another brilliant performance in Toronto’s 127-106 victory against the Charlotte Hornets on Monday. Toronto’s point guard scored 16 points on 5-for-9 field goals to go with a game-high 14 assists in 32 minutes. He added two rebounds, two steals and a blocked shot and turned the ball over just once. “Man, he’s been amazing,” Danny Green said. “He’s very efficient, he’s been setting the tone start to finish. He compliments everybody very well.” The Raptors were a +25 with Lowry on the floor. He is averaging 21.5 points, 10.0 assists and 1.0 steals per game while shooting 60 percent from the floor and 58 percent from the three-point line in Toronto’s first four games of the season. His 10.0 assists per game are an NBA-best.
Kawhi rolling: Through the first week of the season, Kawhi Leonard continues to look more and more comfortable alongside his new teammates. Leonard had it going again against the Hornets, scoring 22 points in 31 minutes while making each of them look effortless. He shot 9-for-14 from the floor, 4-for-7 from three and added four rebounds, three assists, and two steals as he was a team-best +27 on the night. Toronto recorded 36 assists in Monday’s victory and have 102 assists over four games. “Kyle and Kawhi started that off,” Fred VanVleet said of the ball movement on offence. “[They] kind of lead that charge and it trickles down to the rest of us.” Leonard is leading the Raptors in scoring, averaging 25.7 points to go along with 8.7 rebounds and 2.7 assists per contest.
Locking down: Through the first week of the season, only the Charlotte Hornets have connected on more three-point field goals than the Raptors. Heading into Monday’s game, Toronto knew it needed to keep the Hornets — especially point guard Kemba Walker — off the three-point line. Charlotte finished the game shooting 9-for-28 (32 percent) from deep, compared to Toronto’s 15-for-39 (39 percent) performance. Walker still scored a game-high 26 points for Charlotte, but only six of those came from beyond the arc, where he finished 2-for-7 from the floor. The Raptors were on fire from start to finish against the Hornets, shooting 58 percent from the floor while holding Charlotte to 43 percent shooting in the game.
Did I miss something? Send me any Raptors-related article/video to rapsfan@raptorsrepublic.com.
