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Ochai Agbaji is running toward his role

Ochai Agbaji is off to a career best start. Here's how he's doing it, and why it can get better.

The trade for Ochai Agbaji & Kelly Olynyk was a heavily scrutinized one. For a Raptors team that needed to rebuild — with Masai Ujiri, Bobby Webster & Darko Rajakovic going on to introduce that term into their everyday vocabulary — trading away a first round pick wasn’t exactly popular. Of course, Ujiri openly complained about the quality of the 2024 draft prior to trading that first round pick – and then acquired a whole bunch of players from the draft via picks & signings later on. Regardless, the motivation was pretty clear from the Raptors point of view: Olynyk is a culture fit who helps facilitate the style of play the Raptors like, and Agbaji has more to give.

As I pointed out repeatedly last season, Agbaji made a lot of great decisions as a cutter. He screened pretty well for a guard/small wing. He generally does well on defense, and even when he doesn’t, he competes. However, he shot 23-percent from downtown, 61-percent at the rim, 12-percent from mid-range for 45-percent true-shooting as a Raptor. A total nightmare. Questions had been asked about his 3-point shot and his upside on offense when he was with the Jazz, but even there he shot nearly 35-percent from distance across 110 games and was palatable at the bucket. If you shoot that poorly, you just crater everything about your own game. It’s impossible to avoid.

Even when Agbaji joined the Raptors summer league team — which is rare for a 3rd year player and even rarer still if that 3rd year player was a 4-year collegiate player — which should be an environment he either dominates or thrives in, he shot 35-percent from the field, 14-percent from downtown for six points a game. Agbaji has NBA skills, it just seemed like none of them wanted to surface for gametime.

Now, though? Everything is going really well for Agbaji and so much of it is due to how much he’s running.

We have seen the Raptors try to run past their limitations in the past (with Nick Nurse), and if the mission operative of: “get deflections, turn teams over, and run in transition” sounds familiar? Well, it most definitely is. However, this Raptors team is different, with different players, and unburdened by the same expectations as past teams. They’re also fairly successfully acting out the aforementioned M.O., and Agbaji is the greatest beneficiary of all of this – on offense at least.

hustle.

Somehow, 30-percent of Agbaji’s usage is coming in transition even though, while he’s on the floor, the Raptors are only spending about 15-percent of their time in transition. It’s true that Agbaji has cut well, and that he’s shot the ball well on low volume (6-14, 43-percent), but his volume is not overly present in the halfcourt. He is however, popping the hell off in transition. Seemingly present in multiple lanes at once, throwing up body doubles like Kastro in his fight against Hisoka.

The Raptors score nearly 25 more points per 100 possessions in transition than they do in the halfcourt. Not every team has that drastic a difference, but the point is: transition points are easier. Agbaji hasn’t even necessarily been that great at scoring in transition — he’s been middle of the road at 1.2 points per possession — but, by doing so much of his work in transition, Agbaji can be a lot more selective in the halfcourt.

Agbaji is taking more shots at the rim (over half of his attempts), he’s taking more shots from the corners, and his efficiency has spiked. Some of that is selection, and some of that is performance. When I was at McGill for the open practice prior to the preseason starting, Agbaji’s finishing was great. There’s no film, but it was great! Myself, Blake Murphy and William Lou all sat there remarking: “Ochai looks good”. The finishing has carried over.

It’s only 5 games so far, but you take what you can get – and get this: after shooting 1/22 from the short mid-range as a Raptor last year, Agbaji is already 2/4 from there this season. Clean up the shot chart, and go to work. Agbaji has shot 57-percent from the field and 45-percent from downtown in the halfcourt this season. Great marks, and while the volume is low for a lot of players, the volume is definitely enough for Agbaji.

Before the season kicked off, I asked Agbaji if he thinks he’s made improvements from last season or if he was maybe just a bit snake bitten with his shot making during the tough run of play. “Really, that’s something I worked on. Kind of implementing (myself) into everything within our offense.” Agbaji told me. “The cuts and everything, looking at how I score, where else I can score, and where I can find more of those opportunities. I think this year is kind of being intentional about finding those, and where on the court I can find those opportunities.”

There’s lots of work to be done still, with Agbaji. However, when you consider the pedigree of shooter he was coming out of college — he hit 40-percent of his guarded 3-pt jumpers over his last two collegiate seasons (200 attempts) — and that the Raptors have at least some expectation that they can remake that skill in his game; well, that would make for a tremendous role player if he can add that to the wheel-greaser stuff he’s added to his game while he’s been in between jump shots. Not to mention, he’s a pretty good option to slide next to one of Immanuel Quickley or Gradey Dick as a point-of-attack option in a pinch. Agbaji slots in pretty cleanly to whatever the Raptors look like moving forward.

One would imagine this was the type of player the Raptors were forecasting when they traded for Agbaji. If this isn’t a flash in the pan, if these are building blocks? Well, that’s great news for the Raptors, but it’s even better news for Agbaji.

Have a blessed day.