56-23 – It’s all about Siakam
Why Raptors’ Pascal Siakam is undoubtedly NBA’s most improved player – Sportsnet.ca
The player who, by definition, has improved the most is Siakam.
The most improved aspect of his game was on full display Wednesday, as Siakam shot 3-for-7 from three-point range. Three-point shooting for Siakam has improved more than any part of Russell’s game. As a rookie, Siakam shot 14.3 per cent from long distance. This season, Siakam has increased that to 35.8 per cent. He’s also shooting 40 per cent from the corners. At one point last year, he was shooting 19.2 per cent from three and went entire months without hitting one. But he kept working and kept shooting.
The amount of assisted baskets he scores has gone down more than 15 per cent this season, meaning Siakam is doing more to get his own buckets and not just feasting off of the prosperity of playing with better players as a full-time starter.
Spicy P’s 16 double-doubles is a vast improvement on the zero he collected last season. This season, he’s put up five 30-point games – again, a huge improvement from last season when he had none.
This season Siakam is averaging a career high in points, rebounds, field goal percentage and three-pointers made. And even though his minutes, shots and offensive usage has gone up, his effort and intensity on defence hasn’t gone down.
Russell’s numbers are nice, and he would be the winner if you handed out the award based on narrative. The infuriating debate argued by Richard Jefferson and Tracy McGrady on ESPN’s “The Jump” underlines the point that the award is often handed out for reasons other than who actually improved the most. Thankfully, Zach Lowe was there to add some logic to the discourse.
Brian Windhorst: If I were Pascal Siakam’s agent, I’d be looking for max money – Sportsnet.ca
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Head coach Nick Nurse also said after the game that the progression of Siakam from an athletic defender and transition scorer to someone who can take spot-up jumpers — and shoot his way out of slumps — began when he was still a bench player.
“I think I would give our entire organization credit for some of that,” Nurse said. “It hasn’t been just this year. He has shot really poorly, as you guys know, in the past, and we have encouraged him to keep firing away.”
The coach said the 25-year-old from Cameroon, who famously has only been playing basketball for a decade, has continued to work and develop the proper shooting mechanics. He’s up to 36 per cent from distance this season, and though he is still a little streaky, he’s had multiple months where he has been over the 40 per cent bench mark from three-point range.
“He’s legitimate now,” Nurse said. “I think you are going to see this continue to climb year after year, because he’s got it now, mechanically, and he’s starting to get it psychologically to where he really believes in himself as a shooter.”
He might even believe in himself a tad too much. Siakam said post-game that he was quick to shoot from deep when he saw how much space the Nets were giving him.
“I kind of got thrown off in the beginning of the game just seeing how they were guarding me and I kind of got a little bit excited,” he said. “I had to calm down a little bit and let the game come to me and just be me.”
And the reason he can just be himself is because there are so few players in the league like him: a big body with speed and natural athleticism and moves that often look like he’s not entirely sure what he is doing until he has done it.
“He’s hard to guard because he’s so, like, elusive,” Nurse said in Brooklyn. Then he gave a description of Siakam’s game that was at once kind of rambling and yet also quite accurate: “He’s one way and another way and he’s this way and he puts his back on you and spins around on you and he stretches out underneath.” Pretty much, yeah. “So, there’s a lot of problems he presents,” Nurse said. “I don’t know what else to say, he’s a good player, man. He’s good.”
During the Raptors’ last three postseason appearances, Lowry has converted on 43.3 percent of his field-goal attempts to go along with 6.6 assists per game. He actually shot a career-high 50.8 percent during their postseason run last year. Compare that to his numbers during the first two years of this postseason run (37.3 percent field goals, 4.7 assists) and you can see how much better he’s been as of late.
With LeBron and the Cavaliers officially out of the Eastern Conference playoff picture, the Raptors have revamped their entire personnel structure. The results have been nothing but positive as newcomers such as Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green have changed the culture along with first-year head coach Nick Nurse.
Toronto will enter the 2019 NBA playoffs as the No. 2 seed and in better health than the No. 1-seeded Milwaukee Bucks, although the Bucks are getting healthier at the right time.
While the Raptors aren’t exactly expected to defeat the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals, it would be a massive disappointment if this squad can’t at least reach the Eastern Conference finals. That said, if Lowry fails to once again help lead Toronto to the NBA Finals, he’s 100 percent correct, the narrative won’t change regarding his playoff shortcomings.
Gasol’s vision marks see change for Raptors | The Star [$$$]
It’s hard to think of a scenario in which another great athlete has found a way to suddenly strengthen his strong suit while shoring up a weakness that was heretofore unknown. Imagine Tiger Woods, in his prime, announcing to the world that he’d been secretly using ancient feather-stuffed golf balls while romping to those 14 major championships — and only now was he going to level the playing field by teeing up a fresh sleeve of state-of-the-art tour stock. Or maybe it’d be the equivalent of Alex Ovechkin, the greatest adjusted-for-era goal scorer in history, admitting he’d actually been using a carefully concealed wooden stick during those eight 50-goal campaigns — and now he’d like to try a few one-timers with one of those rocket-ship composite models. That, at least, seems to be roughly the parallel impact of Curry trading in his old eyes for his new, optically corrected ones. Or maybe Curry’s simply on one of his occasional hot streaks.
Which brings us back to the Raptors’ trade-deadline acquisition of Gasol, acquired from the Grizzlies in early February in the deal that sent a trio of beloved players — namely Jonas Valanciunas, Delon Wright and C.J. Miles — to Memphis along with a 2024 second-round pick. As Toronto entered the final days of the regular season this weekend, it was becoming crystal clear that the addition of Gasol could prove to be a key move in the lead-up to what is undoubtedly the most promising playoff run in franchise history. Though he’s been with the team for less than two months, his impact has been something to behold.
As former Sixers executive and analytics expert Ben Falk pointed out on Twitter this week, citing numbers heading into Friday’s game at Charlotte, the Raptors have been awfully impressive with Gasol on the floor, putting up a point differential of plus-16 per 100 possessions. As Falk pointed out, that kind of dominance is the stuff of a 73-win team. That Gasol has provided a bump in such short order has left teammates agog.
“It’s just weird that he stepped in day one and he was right on point … He doesn’t need a learning curve,” Raptors guard Fred VanVleet told reporters recently. “He stepped in from day one and was able to adjust to pretty much everything we did. So that just speaks to his basketball IQ.”
The seven-foot-one Gasol, at age 34, is a good shooter and a competent rebounder and a savvy defender. But he’s been especially fun to watch because he does for the Raptors what contact lenses do for Curry: He improves their vision. The man knows how to move a basketball. His career average of 3.4 assists a game ranks fifth all-time among players seven-foot or taller, according to Basketball-Reference.com. And it’s probably not a coincidence that his insertion into the lineup has been accompanied by a noticeable improvement in the Raptors’ passing game. Before the all-star break — which came a few games into Gasol’s tenure — Toronto’s assist percentage ranked 20th in the NBA at a relatively stagnant 58 per cent. Since the break, heading into Charlotte, it ranked fourth at 65 per cent. That’s a ball-sharing awakening that’s been obviously good for business. And Gasol, who was averaging four assists through his first 23 games as a Raptor, has provided a necessary injection of headiness.
“This time of year, that’s what we’re preaching — keep moving that thing and it’ll find the right guy — and the right guy will get the shot,” VanVleet said. “So passing up good (shots) for great (shots) sometimes … It’s not always going to be perfect. But as long as we share it, we like our chances.”
And suddenly the team the Raptors have been hinting at being all season has been showing itself in glimpses that are more and more convincing. Everyone knows Kawhi Leonard is among the game’s finest one-on-one destroyers in isolation. Nobody needs further evidence that Pascal Siakam is the league’s most improved player, not to mention a budding star. But it’s only lately that the Raptors have consistently knitted together a string of games in which the explosiveness of Leonard and Siakam has been made all the more threatening by a supporting cast that shares the ball and stretches the floor with a credible and consistent three-point threat.
Toronto Raptors: Team’s biggest weapon against each contender – Hoops Habit
Milwaukee Bucks: Playoff and championship experience
It might be funny thinking of the Raptors as the experienced ones when it comes to the playoffs, but in this matchup, it’s like putting a rookie against a 15-year veteran.
Toronto’s starters have played a combined 320 games in the postseason throughout their respective NBA careers — definitely on a completely different level when you put it next to Milwaukee’s starters, who have a total of 88 playoff games played.
The Raptors’ roster a combined of four NBA championships, while the Bucks only have two — from their midseason addition of Pau Gasol.
Playoff experience often becomes a major factor in deciding the winner of a series. Playoff basketball is slightly different compared to those 82 regular season games. Rotations are shortened, defenses tighten up and players like Giannis Antetokounmpo often struggle to dominate they way they did before.
So even though picturing the Toronto Raptors as the alpha dogs in a matter of playoff experience does sound hilarious, this new Raptors team could flourish under the leadership of Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green, who could implement a winning mentality.
That’s Pretty Interesting: The farcical notion of ramping up for the NBA playoffs – CBSSports.com
Marc Gasol’s selective hearing
Marc Gasol has played in the NBA for a decade, and he swears he has never — not once in his 792 games or 59 playoff games — experienced one of the most elemental aspects of basketball.
“I’ve never heard any trash talk,” Gasol told me.
I was skeptical. Gasol is a famously expressive and emotional on the court. He is one of the smartest players in the league. I figured he might engage in some verbal warfare from time to time. Even if I was to accept that he never talks trash himself, the idea that he has never heard it seemed ludicrous, not only because I’d never heard anyone make a similar claim, but because he is a big man who played in the era against Kevin Garnett.
Gasol didn’t waver when I mentioned Garnett. He is aware that players do a lot of talking, and he knows which ones have a reputation for it. When he’s playing, though, none of the chatter registers.
“My ear, or my mind, doesn’t really process those things, I guess,” Gasol said. “Like, I don’t know. I might be deaf to it.”
Perhaps this is just a reflection of how Gasol’s brain works on the court. He is the type of player who sees plays develop on both ends faster than others. He is a master of reading what the other team is doing and communicating instructions to his teammates. To do this requires extreme focus, so it makes sense that he would ignore the insignificant stuff. Gasol made it clear, though, that he is not trying to tune anything out. He did not choose his trash-talk-free existence.
“I feel bad about it because it would be so much fun,” Gasol said.
Your First Look At The Puma Uproar Spectras With Toronto’s Danny Green – Uproxx
The shoes, without any question, make a statement — not many sneakers are a vibrant yellow (a shade Puma calls “Limelight”) with hints of black, blue, gray, and red mixed in. They’re the kind of kicks that jump off the screen when you see them on television, or cause heads to turn when a player wears them on the floor.
“The bright colors are the ones that make a big splash,” Raptors wing Danny Green says. “So the Clydes — the Court Disrupts, the orange ones — everybody loved those. You can see them from afar. They kind of made a big splash. I think these are gonna do a similar type of deal.”
It’s been a big year for Green in general, as he’s made major moves on and off the court. Months after he was traded from the San Antonio Spurs to his current team, the Toronto Raptors, Green hopped on board with a number of rookies and veterans like DeMarcus Cousins to be a part of Puma’s reemergence in the basketball game — he says there’s “for sure” a sense of camaraderie among its athletes as they’re part of the sneaker game’s new kids on the block. Even now, months after that decision, the opportunity to be a part of its roster of players is something Green finds exciting.
“You feel special,” Green says of his experience as a Puma player. “Everything I’ve asked for, they’ve done, they covered it tenfold. Everything I’ve asked them to do, they come up with it, they figure it out. They get it done and they get it done really fast.”
5 reasons the Toronto Raptors can win the NBA Championship – FanSided
4. Defense
The Raptors have not had the best defense in the NBA this season, but they’ve been close, finishing fifth in defensive efficiency. However, I cannot help but believe that the Raptors may have the highest defensive ceiling of any team in the playoffs. While neither Kawhi Leonard or Marc Gasol are at their Defensive Player of the Year-winning peaks, both are still respectively capable of great perimeter defense and rim protection in bursts.
Siakam, Ibaka, Anunoby, and Danny Green have also been reliable defenders for Toronto this season and, again, Nick Nurse can arrange them in a number of different ways to throw off opponents. The Raptors will almost certainly be a very difficult team to score against these playoffs, which will aid them tremendously as they try to take the Eastern Conference crown.
So, uh, the Raptors have been pretty good with Marc Gasol on the court.
In a little over 500 minutes with him playing they have a point differential of +16 per 100 possessions, the equivalent of a 73 win team.
— Ben Falk (@bencfalk) April 4, 2019
University of Guelph study proves NBA player salaries affect playing time | The Star
Someone earning $27 million (U.S.) playing alongside a comparable player earning $10 million got almost a minute more court time per game.
“Intuitively, you would think the amount of time a player spends on court would solely depend on how well they perform,” said Sun. “But it doesn’t work that way in practice. We found that salary does have a positive impact on how long they play.”
They analyzed 465 NBA athletes between the 2013-14 and 2016-17 seasons, looking at key markers such as free-throw percentages, points-per-minute and blocks-per-minute, as well as age and experience.
Their study also accounted for “unobservable player characteristics,” such as a player’s popularity or leadership, which can also affect playing time, as well as periods when players perform better alongside certain teammates.
Fans of the Toronto Raptors might not be surprised about who some of the best examples of the sunk-cost fallacy in the NBA were during the study period.
“Some of the names that came within the top few examples were Andrea Bargnani and DeMarre Carroll,” said Hinton. “They were classic examples of a player who came in on a big contract and the team made a deal about it.”
Bargnani averaged 15.2 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 1.3 assists over 30.3 minutes per game in his seven seasons with the Raptors. He earned more than $46.8 million in that time, including $10 million his final season.
Carroll averaged 9.4 points, 4.1 rebounds, and one assist over 27.2 minutes per game in his two seasons in Toronto. He earned $27.8 million in that time.
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