Uno mas exhibition game until the 2022/2023 NBA season commences for the Toronto Raptors. There are high expectations for this team – both internally, from moi, and from much of NBA media (#5). Brian Windhorst was the most recent blogboyman to rave Raptors.
Before then, I’ve some thoughts on what the preseasons showed us and what we may or may not expect in the coming months. Let’s roll.
1. DA DALANO D
Dalano Banton’s emergence this preseason shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. He’s already played the equivalent of two preseasons spending the summer at the helm of two separate Nick Nursian basketball teams – Summer League and FIBA AmeriCup. There, with mostly resounding results, the volume and heavy lifting fell upon his shoulders.
In preseason, so far, Banton’s taken a major step forward. It’s an itsy-bitsy sample of four games, but Banton’s last year of 5 points on 5.2 attempts on 46% shooting in 14 minutes per game in the regular season has transformed into 10.5 points on 7 attempts on 62% shooting in 14 minutes this preseason.
What’s a bit more surprising and impressive has been Banton’s progress on defence.
Banton is, impressively, 7th in defensive rating this preseason among players who have played at least 12 minutes per game in at least 3 games – Davion Mitchell, a renown defender, the only guard ahead of Banton.
Banton has always been a hellacious full-court prowler and continues to be. Poor Daishen Nix.
It’s the team defence and ability to migrate multiple actions, though, where Banton’s improved. Below, Banton’s tracking Payton Pritchard, hampering his progress up court. Banton avoids Grant Williams elevator door shoulders on a hand-off, then sags to stop a Malcolm Brogdon drive and, simultaneously, shoots the gap on the kickout for a pick.
Banton’s also looking like a capable back up to for Freddy when defending the pick-and-roll. In training camp, Nick Nurse, in response to the endless queries regarding Freddy VanVleet’s minutes, mentioned that Freddy was Toronto’s lone elite defender of the pick and roll.
Malachi is too small; OG too big; Gary too slow; everyone else too 6’8”. That leaves Dalano who is quick enough to remain on-ball and big enough to handle switches as Toronto is like to do.
In the following clip – I know it’s a hand-off not a pick-and-roll [getting footage is hard in the preseason, gimme a break] – you’ll see both Banton’s versatility and persisting foibles.
Once again, Banton haunts the ball carrier, Alex Caruso. Coby White comes up for a quick lateral, Freddy and Banton seamlessly swap checks like they’re both size 32s. Then things go awry. Banton becomes completely ensconced with the ball and forgets all about his new assignment, White.
That’s a good example of where Banton’s at. The framework is there and the potential mightily great, but still the odd slip up: jumping a pump fake, rising out of his defensive stance, a meandering or two.
If Banton achieves a semblance of scoring and defensive consistency early on in the season, Nurse will have another agent of chaos to confidently wield in the heat of a game.
2. OG SEPARATION ANXIETY
My heart can’t bear another year of OG tumult.
I want him to succeed. So badly. I want him to get the touches he deserves. So badly. I want him to stay in Toronto happy as a clam, forever. So badly.
But in the four preseason games, things have been…not so pretty.
In 22 minutes per game, OG’s averaged 8 points on 42% shooting, and an icky 85.7 offensive rating. That’s compared to last regular season’s 17 points on 44%, and 112.2 offensive rating in 36 minutes.
I know. It’s more challenging with Scottie, Precious, and Pascal blossoming. I’m not going to overreact either. I know, readers, it’s PRESEASON for the umpteenth time, I get it. Lets just put it this way: thank the Lords of Lawrence Heights that OG is a defensive Leviathan.
The shooting will come (he’s averaging 0.3/2.8 threes per game), I’m not concerned. It’s, once again, the lack of separation off attacks that worry me.
Maybe I’m naive. I refuse to call OG a 3+D or whatever equivalent you care to use. He’s more than that. I believe in him. I want it to be so. Toronto, desperately, needs it to be so if they want to take a giant Eastern Conference leap.
My faith comes with good reasoning; he possesses nearly the same body as a Killer Robot – like the one that once won us an NBA championship. OG’s long. He’s quick. He can shoot. He can cram. He’s mutantly stronger than most and once suplexed, Cleveland Cavaliers centre, Jarrett Allen. None of it matters if he can’t layer it all together into a triple-threat trifle.
With pull-ups, he’s been okay. OG narrowly missed a lovely spin fadeaway against Chicago and speared a few step-backs against both the Celtics and Bulls. I question if those are exit strategies more than fluid finishing moves. Like this miss with a sticky Jaylen Brown draped upon him.
OG’s first step can’t get by Jaylen, so he spins to create space for a step-back and Brown’s all over it.
It’s the ol’ same story. Neither OG’s first step nor his ballhandling is enough to disrupt a defender’s position. As above, the pull-up is the result of what doesn’t happen in creation.
When he does get action, OG’s lack of body control and balance – to be fair, it has improved – hamper his ability to get his legs under him for a clean pull-up or to finish near and around the rim with the entirety of his athleticism and strength. Instead, his inertia gets him into uncomfortable situations.
To compensate, Nurse has made a point of getting OG more action in movement by using hand-offs and ball screens. That’s been fruitful. OG and momentum equals massive, hulking frame meteoriting at the rim or cyclone-spinning bodies about.
It’s just not enough for OG or the Raptors.
There’s still time for him to grow. OG’s only 25 – (minus all the time he’s missed).
So, don’t you naysayers use this for some kind of Declaration Against OG. A DAOG won’t pass with this House of Lordz.
All that said, my anticipation is guarded.
3. PRECIOUS-LY PROGRESSIONG
(I hate to juxtapose this with OG, but as it happens they did it first).
We knew this was coming.
The signs were there.
How quickly and forreal, we couldn’t really know. Preseason suggests it’s sooner than later.
I attended Raptors training camp in Victoria this past September. Media came in a few minutes before each practice concluded. And every single time, there was Precious, at the same hoop, running, essentially, the same drills.
Precious has all the time in the world to flourish. He’s only entering year three of his career and, really, year 0.75 as an actual offensive creature.
Like OG, Precious has had an unimpressive preseason shooting 37% from the field and scoring 10 points in 19 minutes per game. His offensive rating a tad better at 94. But, unlike OG, where my expectations are higher and my patience a wee bit thinner, I’m enthralled.
It’s not all there. Sometimes it’s the clunky finish, sometimes it’s the lack of body control, or the overzealous jack, but, at least a few times a game, Precious does something extraordinarily rare for a man of his measurements.
Like surging down the floor like a predatorial shark.
Or throwing dimes like a wishful thinker near a fountain.
Okay, I’m done with the similes.
It’s not just in transtion. Here, Precious totally freezes Malcolm Brogdon just enough to get by him and use his size to brush Brogdon aside. That’s fleet-of-foot stuff you don’t from most power forwards. Not to mention the gentle finish. There are few players in the league capable of handling that quickness and strength.
Precious is out of control once in a while. But there have also been times when despite Precious bobbling the gather or stampeding uncontrollably down the lane like a barrel of desperate fish, he is still able to finish.
The growth seems to be hourly at this rate.
Also, if you want more optimism check Samson Folk and Jamar Hinds talk all things Precious.
4. OF A GREATER GARY
It’s tiny. I know. But it’s there. I see it. The iota of difference.
2021-22 Gary Trent Jr. averaged an 8.5 assist percentage on 21.2 usage in the regular season.
2022-23 Gary Trent Jr. is averaging 10% on 15.9 usage.
…Do I sense a paradigm shift…?
Gary’s a bucket. Anyone who has doubted it is seeing it again with his 52% shooting on 8 attempts a game so far in preseason. But that’s all Gary’s been known for.
We’re seeing, ever so slightly, more.
Some of the passes have been obvious hand-me-offs. A designed play or a simple wing reversal. Stuff like this below, though, is CREATIONISM – the secular kind.
Gary eludes two separate defenders with a handle tighter than I recall. Then gets to the paint where he unloads a head-up, single-motion, one-handed, in-traffic, bouncer. A pass at the upper echelon of difficulty in both vision and execution.
This next one is a bit out of desperation, but there’s zero hesitation in Gary’s pass. He knew where OG was from the git-go. Translation: Gary’s looking elsewhere than the rim.
For young players (reminder Gary is a yute), the shift from scorer to playmaker is a difficult one. It took Pascal a while to get there; it may also for Gary. The first signs of growth are always the most wondrous.
We’re not all that expectant of Gary either – because of Toronto’s dire need for scoring. If he never passed, we’d accept that in exchange for his shooting and mid-range creation.
That’s why these little glimpses of something more are to be celebrated. They are perhaps indications of change that would refreshingly deliver variance to a somewhat, offensively, stale roster.
[close your eyes and envision, my friends]
In this new world: Gary…could bring the ball up…all the way…up. Or….initiate some first actions. Or… as I’ve already argued, be even better-suited to lead the bench.
Let us dream.
5. SHOOTING [THEMSELVES IN THE FOOT]
Guess who has the 2nd worst three-point shooting percentage in the preseason?
Guess who has the 3rd worst free-throw shooting percentage in the preseason?
Go on, give it a guess.
Anomalous? Maybe.
Otto Porter Jr., the fourth-best shooter on the team(?) has yet to play. None of the guys getting runs late in the game are shooters either – except our boy Gabe. That could be part of it. Who are we fooling though, we’ve all seen with our own eyes the abhorrence that is Toronto’s shooting.
The Raps ended last year 20th in three-point percentage and 23rd in free throw percentage. The last four games have left us little hope that things will be different.
It’s preseason. It’s worrisome.
