My first reaction to the the 121-foot screen was one of incredulousness. What are we doing that requires that big of a screen right on the practice court? What is on those screens? Stats? Heat maps? CNN? How much data are we throwing at our players, and more importantly, how much of it are they understanding, internalizing, and then acting on? Our practice court is starting to look like a NASA control room without the NASA scientists.
I ask this because in my professional world I deal with a lot of analytics (shout out Apache Spark) and most of it is noise, not because the data is inaccurate, but because the person whose job it is to distinguish the signal from noise is reaching the wrong conclusions. In fact, my hypothesis is that insights gained from stats follow a logarithmic curve and after a certain point there’s no benefit at all. In fact, there’s a greater danger of analysis-paralysis or just flat out making wrong decisions because of confirmation bias and deep-rooted incorrect assumptions. I guess what I’m saying is that with all this technology embedded everywhere, why is Raptors basketball so damn ugly to watch? Is the screen over-compensating for a lack of ideas? Is the screen the 2022 version of Dwane Casey’s rock? Probably not because data is the new oil and all that, but still, it seems a bit much.
It’s always good to set some context and I like to start with summarizing our post-championship journey:
- 2019-20: A strong regular season after retaining Serge Ibaka and Marc Gasol ended up in post-season disappointment as the Celtics neutered Fred VanVleet and Pascal Siakam.
- 2020-21: Tank season in Tampa where the attempts to fill the center void included Aaron Baynes and Alex Len.
- 2021-22: An average regular season followed by a playoff spanking where the Raptors won two consolation games.
No worries though since these were slotted as “bridge years” as the Raptors waited for the organic development of their core players to materialize into at least Tier-2 players. Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet and OG Anunoby haven’t emerged as the types of threat that Kawhi Leonard was. Those may be high standards, but that’s the leap required for the alchemy to produce something special. The Raptors acknowledged this by showing interest in Kevin Durant — had it been genuine — but the Nets wanted Scottie Barnes in return, which the Raptors were right to decline. The journey continues with organic development still the official doctrine for a return to contention.
This post isn’t about any of the core guys. It’s healthier to accept them as the players they are rather than getting high off our own supply. They’re projecting as one would have expected and are experiencing the growing pains of defenses adapting. I’m not disappointed or thrilled.
The surprising part about the Raptors’ rebuilding process is the failure of acquiring suitable role players to complement the main guys. Just look at this list of players we have thought would make some semblance of an impact and ended up fizzling out.
- Aron Baynes
- Alex Len
- Yuta Watanabe
- Freddie Gillespie
- Svi Mykhailiuk
- DeAndre’ Bembry
- Terence Davis
- Stanley Johnson
- Matt Thomas
- Isaac Bonga
- Paul Watson
- Patrick McCaw
- Oshae Brissett
- Rondae Hollis-Jefferson
- Armoni Brooks
And this isn’t counting the likes of Malachi Flynn and Justin Champagnie. Was the data wrong on all of these guys? Do we need a bigger screen? The common thread connecting everyone is that they were brought in to address 3-point shooting or rebounding. Both remain a problem on the current roster. The last two seasons the Raptors have ranked 23rd in defensive rebounding, and 15th and 21st in three-point shooting, respectively. Neither free-agency or the farm system has helped address these issues.
To compound the shooting woes, they have ranked 23rd in free-throw percentage and 24th in free-throw rate the last two seasons, and this pre-season has been abysmal on that front. To summarize, the Raptors can’t rebound, can’t shoot threes, can’t get to the line — and when they do get to the line, they can’t make free throws.
All this tends to get ignored because we’re in the middle of the length-and-strength, 6-foot-nine-guys-are-God and wingspan-is-the-elixir-to-cure-all-ails experiment. Somehow in the middle of this we seem to have lost an appreciation for the basics of basketball: shooting and rebounding. Sometimes I wonder what the NBA would have to look like if the Raptors approach was actually successful (recall that the Raptors won their title with a very traditional 1-through-5 lineup). Would everyone have to subscribe to this type of team building approach for the Raptors to have an advantage? Or can the Raptors’ approach overcome established norms?
At the same time, what’s old is new again with big men returning to prominence: Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid, Anthony Davis, Zion Williamson, Rudy Gobert, and the like. Maybe the Raptors will buck the trend and prove that committing to length trumps a more balanced approach, or maybe we’ll look at these years as an honest but ultimately futile swing for innovation. Time will tell.
Let’s get this post back on track though, as the point I’m trying to make is that the solution to having better basketball and more attractive basketball is the same: better role players who are good at one thing rather than being average at three. There are two main reasons why we’re seeing both bad and unwatchable basketball.
Reason 1: the Raptors’ shooters can’t punish defenses for collapsing on Siakam and VanVleet drives. This emboldens the defense, which learns to anticipate and defend drives by collapsing without penalty. The Raptors ball-handlers (again, Siakam and VanVleet primarily) see that the yield from role-player threes is low, opt to go one-and-one and utilize pull-ups. These are lower percentage shots compared to spot-up jumpers, with the defense in good rebounding position. This is a vicious cycle because without consistent outside shooting the floor isn’t spread which makes it harder to drive, taking away the natural advantage that Siakam has.
Reason 2: The Raptors are built as a running team, but to run you need to first have the ball. If you’re not defensive rebounding and subsequently giving up buckets you’re starting from dead(ish)-ball situations which means you’re going to be playing in the half-court more. Playing in the half-court results in Reason 1 materializing. Gang rebounding from 6’9″ dudes gets you only so far, and having rebounding specialists who may not fit the wingspan requirement could be better for sparking the break. But alas, we haven’t converted any of our fringe bigs into this role, with Khem Birch coming the closest.
To compensate for the lack of outside shooting the Raptors have tried to, as the old saying goes, rob Peter to pay Paul. They’ve moved VanVleet, one of their better ball-handlers, to playing off the ball to utilize his 3-point shooting. This in turn has resulted in Siakam, who can be an excellent off-the-ball scorer/slasher like he was in the title year, into handling the ball. This also takes Siakam out of rebounding position and puts a poorer rebounder (VanVleet) in a situation where he has more responsibility to rebound.
In trying to compensate for the lack of outside shooting, the Raptors have moved two of their best players away from what they do quite well: Siakam from being a slasher and VanVleet from being a ball-handler. The context where all this is taking place is a congested floor and you’re seeing the results this pre-season: Raptors basketball is hard to watch!
The ball gets stuck too often because we have forwards handling the ball who aren’t quick enough with their decision-making. Their survey of the floor isn’t good enough to pick the next pass, even when there’s a pass to be made. Chris Boucher, Scottie Barnes and Thad Young are good cutters but that’s only half the battle. A visionary passer is needed to translate cuts to scores, and when that doesn’t happen the motivation to move without the ball decreases, resulting in stagnation. They end up over-dribbling looking for a seam which makes for poor offense that’s hard to watch. Where Nick Nurse’s offensive creativity is in all this is a question worth exploring.
Whew! That was a lot. So where do we go from here? I don’t know how the solution will materialize, but I know that part of that solution is for our role players to start nailing threes. That means players like Precious Achiuwa, Juancho Hermangomez, Gary Trent jr., Otto Porter jr., Malachi Flynn, and Dalano Banton spreading the floor. This has not happened consistently, and the only exception may be Trent, who hits them at a 39-percent clip. I find the hopes we have on Porter may be too much, but again, time will tell.
I’m not suggesting hitting threes will solve everything, but at the very least it should improve the attractiveness of the product by supplying some oxygen into a moribund offense. If one of the league’s best farm systems managed by widely proclaimed competent management can’t solve this problem, I have reduced confidence whether they can deal with the many challenges length-and-strength will bring further down the road.
So far, the Raptors management gets a firm F on two fronts: 1) finding role players to complement the key guys, and 2) creating a system where the main and role players complement each other. Yet the brass still gets a deserving pass because as I’ve said a few times, you should get a five-year grace period after a championship. You’ve earned it. But patience will soon run thin.
