Nurse said something that left me staggering on my heels, metaphorically, on Monday.
“We’ve been pretty unique, defensively,” Nurse said when I asked him how wacky these Raptors would be compared to previous seasons. “I think we’ve been pretty unique defensively. We’ll see. I’m not so sure we’ll be as unique with this team.”
At first glance, the comment makes no sense. The Raptors have been among the league leaders in playing zone defence, using different trapping schemes and varying their ball-screen coverage over the last few years. Nurse has gotten a reputation as a mad scientist type specifically because of that unpredictability. So now that he has a few kilometres worth of arms at his disposal, Nurse is suddenly going to conform to tradition more?
The point — again, very much remembering the “we’ll see” of it all — is that perhaps all that strategy-hopping was not so much how Nurse wanted to play as much as the way he felt the Raptors had to play in order to make the most of their roster. Now that the Raptors are Team Wingspan, and now that they have lost the internal understanding of past veteran rotation players, they might benefit from trying to do a few things at an elite level rather than many things at a solid level.
So, if length is their strong suit, what does that mean? A ton of switching, which is no longer a dirty word but almost a default setting in the NBA. A lot of trapping ball screens and scrambling back to recover, which the Raptors already did a ton of in the past. And yes, maybe more full-court press than we’re used to, because of the length of those arms and the youth of those legs.
Now, they are not going to eschew zone entirely, because putting Anunoby and Barnes up top, sliding in concert to deter both penetration and any entry pass in the air, is exciting to think about. However, the Raptors will probably benefit on that end if they maximize reacting and minimize “if this, then that”-type thinking processes.
“I guess it’s a little bit different. More wings this year,” Anunoby said Monday. “Usually we have more guards or more centres. We switch more actions this year. Even in the past, we’ve always tried to switch actions, (but) everyone’s interchangeable now. We all learn every spot (on offence). They make sure everyone knows everything. We haven’t done that in the past.”
It also helps when the guys who don’t fit the mould are willing to do their best within the framework, which is why VanVleet’s leadership mindset is so crucial.
“I’m telling you, I don’t notice it. I’m so crazy in my head, everybody is the same height,” the 6-foot-1 VanVleet said, stopping short of volunteering for the Embiid assignment. “It hurts me sometimes, but for the most part, I don’t notice it. And the only time I ever notice it — this is a true story — is when I go home to Rockford for the summer and I live for two or three months, four months, and I come back to the team. And it’s always Pascal — like every time, I look at him and I say, ‘Goddamn, he is tall. He is really tall, man. But when I’m here I don’t notice it because I’m just in the fight.
But this Raptors team is not like his other Raptors teams. The majority of the group does not have the base of knowledge, the years of exposure to the speed and talent, the shared experiences that may allow it to work through the inevitable tough stretches that come up in every single game.
So, he will remain true to his philosophy and personality, and the “foundational principles” as he calls them, that have allowed him to succeed with teams in leagues all around the world in 30 years on benches, while subtly adapting to a new Raptors reality.
“I think he’s going from … like, sit on the sideline and let everything flow to every little detail matters,” guard Fred VanVleet said of Nurse, who begins his fourth regular season as the Raptors’ head coach on Wednesday night.
The process of change may have begun last season, an aberrational and unsuccessful year spent in the purgatory of Tampa with a team that bounded from good to something less than mediocre. But this group — with only six players who’ve ever experienced a Nurse-coached practice or game — is different by an order of some magnitude.
“I think he figured that out last year, that certain teams have got to adapt and adjust, and with the group that we have you can’t let things go all the time. You’ve got to be more of a stickler, and he’s been doing that,” VanVleet said.
Nurse isn’t all of a sudden going to turn into some micromanager who calls every set, and blows two or three timeouts in the first half of games because the youngsters who are playing are messing up a little bit. He needs to give them freedom to fail because that’s how young players learn.
Still, he doesn’t have the luxury of a Kyle Lowry or Marc Gasol or Kawhi Leonard, whose basketball IQs were off the charts and had earned the right to figure it out.
Scottie Barnes and Precious Achiuwa and Yuta Watanabe and that ilk don’t have any measure of experience to draw on.
Toronto Raptors head coach Nick Nurse has coached with teams in leagues all around the world for three decades.
“They don’t have a point of reference,” VanVleet said of the inexperienced players. “Yeah, that’s one thing we talked about … I mean, Scottie is two years removed from high school.”
That’s where fans might see a bit of a change in Nurse.
“I think that you do probably play through a lot with a more experienced team. They want to play through it, too, as they probably think they can handle it and all that kind of stuff without (a break),” Nurse said. “It does (change things). You’re going to probably have to be a little quicker in areas to stop momentum and maybe get back on track, or any of those kinds of things.”
RAPTORS NOTEBOOK: Dragic putting that experience to work | Toronto Sun
Having only played in Toronto as a visitor to this point, Dragic has seen first-hand the bond this team has with its passionate fanbase and can’t wait to be on the receiving end of some of that love, particularly after experiencing the opposite treatment when he would come here has a member of the Heat.
As for his thoughts on this team, Dragic, like Fred VanVleet who preceded him to the media room on Tuesday, says every indication is there that this team can be successful, but until they show it in the regular season and then in the playoffs, how good they can be remains an unknown.
“I was surprised especially in some parts of the games this pre-season,” Dragic said. “We looked really long. It’s a young team with a lot of versatility, so I think that will make a lot of problems for the opponents. As long as we get on the same page and play together as a team, I think we will be OK.
“It’s going to be tough to beat us, especially at home,” he continued. “Probably the arena is going to be sold out and you guys didn’t play here last year, so it’s going to be a good opening night. Hopefully we get a W.”
As the longest-serving NBA player on the roster, Dragic is being counted on to share some of that experience with his younger teammates and he’s only too happy to oblige.
“I know for a fact that they are going to play with a lot of energy,” he said of the new, young Raptors. “Sometimes that is good, sometimes bad. So you just need to find the balance. I’m hoping we open the game on the right note. Not with a lot of turnovers. I think that is the key. And when you swing the ball a couple of times and run your actions and everybody settles in, then it is much easier.”
Raptors Player Preview: Whatever comes next for OG Anunoby, soak it all in. – Raptors HQ
Growing pains are going to happen for Anunoby this season. It’s the inevitability that all but the very greatest face as their games expand. They’ll probably even be amplified in OG’s case, considering the circumstances under which he’s set to begin his ascent to a new plane. Toronto’s incumbent best player, Pascal Siakam, is out for who really knows how long to start the year; early, mid or late November all seem like reasonable ETA’s for the former All-NBA Second-Teamer. He is Toronto’s most dynamic ball-handler and scorer, and the third-best passer on the roster at worst. If Anunoby’s near-25 percent usage rate in the preseason is any indication, the majority of the burden Siakam confronts each night as the team’s number one is about to be shifted OG’s way. I’d guess few up-and-coming guys with All-Star aspirations have faced the sort of trial-by-fire Anunoby is about to run up against in the weeks before Siakam returns to share the load.
That said, there’s a lot to pull from the preseason to suggest Anunoby just might be ready for all that responsibility. It could be that he weathers the extra attention defenses throw his way in month one admirably, if not totally flawlessly, and the return of Siakam sets him up for even more of an explosion than he might have been in line for with a fully-healthy roster from the jump; like dropping a difficulty level in 2K and becoming unbeatable to your piddly A.I. foes.
His work on the ball over those four warm-up outings does inspire hope. Clearly given the green light to test some stuff out, Anunoby continued the years-long trend of scaling up his workload without hurting his efficiency, and did so on a far more difficult diet of looks than he’s used to.
Per NBA.com, 97.1 percent of Anunoby’s threes in 2020-21 were assisted, with assists leading to 70.3 percent of his total baskets. Heap all the preseasony grains of salt onto these numbers you like, but those figures were down to 53.8 and 50 percent respectively over the exhibition schedule. His True Shooting percentage not only held steady, but spiked to 69.1 percent. Again, it’s four workshop games. But damn. His assist totals held steady at 2.2 a game, and he sported a turnover rate of just 14.3 percent, the same as Fred VanVleet.
None of these figures are to say that Anunoby is for sure about to take the East by storm. Plenty of guys shine under the dimmed and bizarre lights of the preseason only to not quite parlay that into sustained regular season success. Hell, Malachi Flynn looked better than LaMelo freaking Ball in the abbreviated lead up to their rookie years. However, the wildly altered shot profile, and the sheer comfort with which OG took on top scoring duties do lend credence to all the buzz from the broader NBA coverage world that has OG penciled in as one of the key swing characters of 2021-22.
What’s important now is to not let your expectations outpace reality. Even if Anunoby is loading up the springs for a leap, there’s almost no way the end product will be on display over the next six months. These things take time, and plenty of flashpoint learning moments. The first month will be a fast, extremely flavourful marinade to help out with the seasoning. But growth curves can’t progress without the rest of the league’s help. If OG comes out bombs away as a number on scorer early, the league will adjust, meaning he’ll have to in response, and so it’ll go until he maxes out his ability or slams through the ceiling. Jayson Tatum’s been going through the process Anunoby’s about to start for the better part of four seasons, and still isn’t anywhere close to finished. Most of the greats truthfully never are.
Toronto Raptors player preview: Sam Dekker solidifies the Raptors’ deep bench rotation – Raptors HQ
Dekker has bounced around a fair amount since being drafted by the Houston Rockets with the 18th pick in 2015. He didn’t play much in 2015-16, but had a successful 16-17 campaign where he averaged 6.5 points and 3.7 rebounds in 18 minutes a night. He then went to the Los Angeles Clippers as part of the Chris Paul trade in 2017, got dealt to Cleveland the next summer, then finally was traded to Washington in December 2018. When his contract option wasn’t picked up he spent two season playing overseas. He signed with the Raptors this past summer on a camp invite deal.
If you’ve been paying attention to the roster the Raptors are building this season, it’s no surprise that Dekker is 6’8” and 230 lbs. — just like almost everyone else on the team! Beyond that, though, there are questions as to whether Dekker fits the Nick Nurse mold.
Traditionally, Dekker hasn’t played as a stretch-the-floor forward — his career NBA three-point field goal percentage is just 29%. But, he did shoot 45% (!) from downtown on 4.5 attempts per game over 28 games in the Turkish League last season. Combined with his performance in that final preseason game, that might be an indication of where Dekker will best fit in on this squad. And the Raptors are generally very confident that they can transform suspect shooters into at least solid ones.
Of course, this is a Nick Nurse Raptors team, so players will have to make an impact defensively, regardless of how they shoot the ball. Dekker is fairly athletic for his size, but I wouldn’t say he has the foot speed to handle guards; he won’t be switching one through five like some of his teammates can. But with effort and intensity he should be able to acquit himself well enough in deep bench lineups and minutes.
Ultimately, unless injuries or the health and safety protocols derail the season, Dekker probably won’t see a lot of action outside of garbage time. But he has enough of the tools to not be a negative on the floor should he be pressed into action.
Attitude-wise, Dekker seems to be a good fit for the Raptors culture. He’s said and done all the right things during his time with the team, including that the players he’s playing with in Toronto, including and perhaps especially those he was fighting with for a roster spot, were high-character people and “the coolest group of guys that I’ve been around with in the NBA.” He also talked about how they’ve been cheering for each other, because “it’s the weakness of a man to root for someone to fail.”
That speaks to a certain kind of maturity, and it sounds like Dekker did some growing up when he played in Europe. He said he had to swallow his pride in Europe, where he realized a) that there’s an extremely high level of competition in basketball, not just in the United States but around the world, and b) that he didn’t have it all figured out.
“We’ve got to go through adversity. We’ve got to go through late-game situations, close games, ups, downs, highs, lows,” the sage VanVleet said Tuesday. “We still have to experience all that again for the first time, it feels like. We have obviously a core that’s been here but we have some new faces that we have to build that experience with. That’s the intriguing part.”
One thing for certain is that Masai Ujiri, Bobby Webster and Nick Nurse have constructed a roster like none other in the franchise’s 27 years of existence.
Of the 15 players on the roster to open the season Wednesday against Washington at the Scotiabank Arena, 11 are listed between six-foot-seven and six-foot-nine on the official roster. It’s an untraditional look, a team without anything approximating a hulking big man to fight off seven-footers but a group of long, young, athletes who may not know now how to play in the NBA but who possess so much raw ability, the entire league will be watching to see how, or if, it works.
If it works, or at least works more often than not, which is about all the Raptors can hope for given their collective inexperience, Toronto is definitely a playoff team.
If they can minimize the predictable mistakes and inconsistent stretches, it’s conceivable they will win more than they lose and a 42- or 44-win season should put them in the middle of the Eastern Conference.
If it all goes south, if they don’t score enough or defend big men well enough, if young players like rookie Scottie Barnes and second-year centre Precious Achiuwa struggle more often than not, if Pascal Siakam doesn’t return to form, if OG Anunoby doesn’t make another giant leap, it will be a long, hard season.
Ujiri and Webster know it will be up and down, the veterans like VanVleet and Goran Dragić know they’ll do as much teaching as leading, but there can be one constant.
Hard work.
It’s what Nurse will demand, it’s what the team showed in five pre-season games, they need it to be the franchise calling card.
