https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUODsfkEloE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPbzn9VPBBg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jhZkiOywmQ
Raptors finally at centre of ring in NBA’s free-agency spectacle – Sportsnet.ca
And at the head of it, leading the parade, as it were?
Leonard, who will be a Raptor until 5:59 pm Sunday and who knows how much longer after that.
In any circumstance, a free agent of Leonard’s stature would represent a league-smashing domino, but this is a different order of magnitude.
If he stays in Toronto, the Raptors will likely keep their band together, add around the margins and enter 2019-20 as solid favourites to repeat. Internally, the Raptors remain cautiously optimistic. Even the noise around the Lakers meeting with Leonard is consistent with what Leonard’s camp told them would happen before he left Toronto.
The Raptors will get last crack at Leonard – likely on July 2 or 3 – and will only have to remind him of what he already knows: he won a title in Toronto, he was healthy and – in his words – it was the most fun he’s ever had in his career.
If that’s enough to keep Leonard, it would be a chance for every layer of the Canadian basketball firmament – from the grassroots to the tallest towers on Bay Street – to consolidate and build on the emerging story of the sport.
All the momentum that gathered over the course of the Raptors two-month playoff run could be captured, leveraged and multiplied.
The NBA would be different, but Canada even more so, potentially.
If Leonard leaves? He could join LeBron and Davis with the Lakers and form what might be the most talented three-headed monster the league has ever seen. The Lakers could win now and win for a while even as LeBron ages out – Davis and Leonard are just 26 and 28.
And the Raptors? Good but no longer great. The future would arrive in a hurry.
Wherever Leonard ends up will change the league.
The Raptors and Canada will be changed to.
We just don’t know how.
That’s the thing about Christmas – maybe Basketball Christmas especially. The hardest part is the waiting.
The Lakers star won’t waste time telling the two-time Finals MVP why it could be a bad idea to sign with the crosstown Clippers, whose business and basketball brand still pales in comparison to the storied purple and gold. He won’t dissect the Toronto Raptors in any kind of unseemly way, even if there’s a conversation to be had about whether the reigning champions can remain among the elite for the long term. Nor will he bother to break down the Knicks, who are still harboring hopes of pulling off the longest of long shots with Leonard.
No, this high-level hoops discussion that could lead to the formation of the league’s next Super Team will be far more positive and introspective than that. James, the 34-year-old who knows full well how Leonard’s arrival would send shockwaves through the league’s landscape, will make it abundantly clear that he’s ready to start sacrificing again.
Only this time, with Anthony Davis already in tow and the wounded Golden State Warriors in everyone’s rearview for now, that means the prospect of him taking even more of a complementary role than ever before. If Leonard wants to come their way, to leave a title team behind in order to form the kind of trio that this league has never seen, then he can expect a level of deference from LeBron that we haven’t seen since his Miami days. And then some.
Of all the times when LeBron has shown a willingness to share the spotlight, to walk that fine line between deferring and dominating in the kind of way that empowers those around him, none are more informative than that first season with the Heat in 2010-11. It was Dwyane Wade’s team and Dwyane Wade’s city, and so it was that LeBron went to great lengths to make sure his close friend felt as if he was respecting his resume’ and his well-earned reputation.
James took fewer shots than ever, while Wade and Chris Bosh saw dips in their personal production too. This was all part of their plan, the kind of thing that – after that stumble against Dallas in the 2011 Finals which so many believed was a product of James yielding too much – was all worth it when they raised the Larry O’Brien trophy up in 2012 and 2013.
When the news broke on Thursday that James had decided to give his No. 23 jersey number to Davis, and that he would return to the No. 6 he sported during those four Miami seasons, those who know him best were quick to point out this pivotal parallel. If ever there was a crystal-clear sign that James is ready to return to that ‘Heatles’ mindset, and to give up even more ground than before to his co-stars because he knows full well that Father Time just keeps coming, this was it.
LeBron knows that this is the only way this can work, with him convincing fellow stars like Davis and (he hopes) Leonard that he’s fully ready to put them and their talents above his own.
First off, a reminder, and this is very important: by all accounts, no one actually has jack shit in terms of information from Kawhi or his close circle of people. There’s not an insider in the league with a direct line to Leonard; every bit of reporting about him is coming from somewhere else, with all the ulterior motives of whomever is talking baked into whatever comes out in 280 character form. It’s possible, even likely, that the blustery confidence about the Lakers’ chances is coming from people directly inside the Lakers, the most hubris-afflicted operation in all of pro sports.
There’s a reason Leonard was painted as the villain during his final season in San Antonio. He doesn’t talk, the Spurs did, thus the coverage had a pro-Spurs lean. A year and a Kevin Durant torn Achilles later, Kawhi looks absolutely correct in taking his time to make sure he was healthy in spite of the Spurs’ medical team’s insistence that he was fine, and the Spurs are silent. Access journalism is a scourge.
So who the hell knows how real the Lakers are as a threat. On the surface, their candidacy seems flimsy. They have the LeBron-AD tandem, sure. But what else? This is the team that let Alex McKechnie walk because they didn’t want to pay him during the last lockout, clearing the path for the Raptors’ doctor in chief to make Kawhi feel like this all season:
Outside of wanting to win, and his desire for a medical team he can entrust with his health, we’re left to infer what it is Kawhi actually wants in the team he plays for. He’s proven he can win a title as a solo star surrounded by a strong supporting cast. Does being a third banana to LeBron James and Anthony Davis really sound like something that would appeal to him? How much does the draw of living in LA actually matter to him? Does the fact that everything New Balance posts to its site sells out in Canada in 30 seconds have any sway? Maybe he really was touched to receive the key to the city from Toronto’s lame ass mayor. We have no goddamned clue, because Kawhi is his own man, and doesn’t play the game of leaks. The result is a lot of hearsay, and a lot of folks who would directly benefit from a Kawhi-to-Lakers result passing off scuttlebutt as deeply sourced and reported fact. You’re kidding yourself if you don’t think the bulk of people at ESPN, an NBA rights holder, aren’t rooting for Kawhi to land on the Lakers.
With the Lakers now apparently in the mix, and the most lopsided super team ever assembled now a possibility, the stakes are pretty damn high right now.
Toronto Raptors vs. L.A.: The Pros and Cons for Kawhi Leonard – Sportsnet.ca
Los Angeles Lakers – Con
Off ball
After working his way back to the status where he is considered one of, if not the best player in the world, is Kawhi Leonard really going to be a three and D spacer? Why would Leonard want to watch James and Davis run pick and rolls while he stands in the corner providing offensive gravity. Neither James or Leonard specialize as off the ball players. Leonard got to take all the big shots with Toronto and got the majority of the credit when it won. Irving learned that even when you do get the chance to take and make big shots, all the credit goes to James. Players are often willing to sacrifice when they have yet to win a championship and/or they are ageing, not in their prime coming off a title.Dynasty killer
Leonard is building a legacy as the NBA’s Robin Hood. He’s been the super team, dynasty killer on two different occasions. It would be off-brand for him to join a dynasty with the most iconic franchise in the sport.Soap opera
The Lakers have been a soap opera this off-season. From Magic Johnson’s impromptu resignation, to the stories about their toxic culture, to Rob Pelinka’s revealed untruths and misremembering’s. Rob Pelinka and Jeannie Buss aren’t exactly who any star would feel confident entrusting their future with. And the drama may not end as the coaching staff is stocked with two assistants with previous head coaching experience as ready-made replacements in the event Frank Vogel fails. That’s not an ideal working an environment for a team where anything but a title will be a letdown. Leonard is the league’s most drama-free superstar so the reality show that is the Lake show isn’t a good fit. On the contrary, in Toronto, anything in addition to the title he delivered last season is extra credit.
The JV Hive is dead! Long live JV Hive!
Valanciunas’ season is the most interesting to me, not just of this group, but maybe of the whole team. The Lithuanian big man started the year by accepting coach Nick Nurse’s plan to platoon the centre position. It was a decision that made a ton of sense, but it would have been easy for Valanciunas, who has sometimes struggled to get consistent playing time in his career despite being the Raptors’ starting centre, to balk at a situation that would end up with him playing the fewest minutes a night in his career.
Instead, JV dominated. On a per-36 minute basis, he set career highs in points, rebounds, assists, and steals, while getting to the line more often than ever before, and shooting a career-high 61.1% from two-point range. At one point JV was in line to become one of the most prolific bench scorers in league history, hitting new peaks in his efficiency despite the drop in minutes and usage.
It wasn’t just on the offensive end that JV improved. He put up a career low defensive rating of 102.5 too. Valanciunas also held opponents to 58.7 percent shooting on shots near the rim (within five feet), a mark that put him just behind players like Tyson Chandler and Serge Ibaka, and ahead of rim-protectors like Jarett Allen, and even Marc Gasol.
Valanciunas’ thumb injury, the one that would ultimately end his Raptors career, remains one of the franchises greatest Sliding Doors moments. What if JV had come back three weeks earlier? Could he have played well enough to keep Masai Ujiri from making the Marc Gasol trade? Could the Raps have won the title anyway?
It’s an interesting thought exercise — JV would have squeezed out enough points in the Philly series to help end it in five and keep Kawhi fresh! JV’s defensive improvement would have been exposed by Milwaukee and the Warriors! — but ultimately it obscures the best thing about JV, something that could never be measured by numbers, Valanciunas is one of the all-time good guys in the league, and we all hope he can find success in a featured role in Memphis.
Given that Valanciunas’ per-36 minute numbers held up, or improved (especially in assists, play-making long considered JV’s main bugaboo), while his efficiency slid only marginally, that seems likely — and that should make Raps fans smile.
Toronto Raptors 2018-19 Player Review: Patrick McCaw, three-time NBA champion – Raptors HQ
Defense and Playoff Usage
Everyone remembers the Nick Nurse sales pitch: He’s not afraid to tinker. And tinker with Patrick McCaw, he did. McCaw was hurt at the end of the year, and missed the first three games of the Orlando series. He played three garbage time minutes in Game 4, and eight minutes in Game 5. He played a total of about 25 minutes over Games 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of the Philly series to a, uh, mixed effect. From there, McCaw moved to the inactive list for the Milwaukee series, and we would later learn that Patrick’s older brother unfortunately passed away. Be well, Patrick.
Nurse returned to McCaw after he came back for the NBA Finals in short two-minute spurts. These minutes came at the end of halves and quarters in the Norman Powell (or Jodie Meeks) role: Nurse wanted stops on defense, often forced to go to McCaw because of inane foul trouble. Unfortunately, McCaw did not provide defense. It had happened in the Philly series a few times when McCaw was tasked to guard Jimmy Butler, and against Golden State this trouble continued.
In his 12:35 played in the NBA Finals across four games (1, 3, 4, and 5), McCaw was a combined -14. They were sometimes momentum stopper-minutes and might’ve given away Game 5. But I’m being a downer. So, let’s talk about his best Finals game. Game 1.
Disregard the bad shot—we can do that now, selectively, one time—and we can see what McCaw provided this team: A capital-G Good assist to Fred VanVleet for one of his numerous threes, and then a shot-clock buzzer-beating three that counts as one of my, like, five favourite individual jump shots of the whole playoff run. (1. Kawhi you-know-when; 2. Serge pull-up earlier in Game 7; 3. All of Game 6 Finals Kyle; and then this.)
