Chris Boucher has been on the Toronto Raptors for so long that even he doesn’t remember his first game.
His debut came and went without any fanfare. The Raptors lost to the Milwaukee Bucks 124-109 on Oct. 29, 2018 in a game between two Eastern conference rivals destined to meet again. Milwaukee hit 19 3-pointers to put away the Raptors early, which paved the way for garbage time. With two minutes remaining, Boucher made his Raptors debut, subbing in for C.J. Miles.
“I played in that game? What did I do?” Boucher asked when I tried to quiz him on it earlier this month in Philadelphia.
His first game for Toronto – game 1 of 404 and counting – was extremely on-brand. Boucher scored his first ever NBA basket on a putback from Lorenzo Brown, got himself to the foul line six times, blocked a shot, and of course, found time to hoist a trebuchet 3-pointer. In just his first two minutes, the Montreal native gave us a glimpse of the next eight years.
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Boucher scored 23 points in 20 minutes, including two vital 3s to bookend a furious run of seven-straight triples in the fourth quarter of Toronto’s 127-109 win over the Phoenix Suns on Sunday. He was the last of 10 Raptors to check into the game, sat out the entire first and third quarters, yet he was crucial in the fourth quarter and earned the chain for his efforts.
This marked Boucher’s 404th game as a Raptor, which moved him past Vince Carter for 12th all-time in franchise appearances. With 25 games left this season, he will crack the top 10, passing Fred VanVleet and Alvin Williams who are tied at 417. And with all due respect, he is the outlier, the most unlikely name on the list.
In fact, it seemed unlikely that Boucher would even stick around past February, let alone for the past seven seasons. Multiple reports suggested that teams like the New York Knicks, Denver Nuggets, and Los Angeles Clippers were interested in his services. Given that the Raptors are set to hit the lottery for the third time in five seasons, and that Boucher is a useful player on expiring deal, a trade made all the sense in the world.
Except, that wasn’t what Boucher had in mind. He says that he knew all along that he was sticking around and was in constant communication with the front office throughout the weeks leading up to the trade deadline.
“I won’t lie to you, I think it was the most peaceful deadline I had compared to the other years,” Boucher told me.
“I was also talking with Bobby (Webster) and all of them, and I never thought I was going to be going away. The media says one thing, but really, the GM, and the people around here would have told me if something would have happened, and then I would have been a little bit more concerned.
“I felt like I was doing everything I was supposed to do, being a good vet, playing well, doing what I’m supposed to do when I get the minutes, and staying professional. That’s all you can do, really.”
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Boucher isn’t the oldest Raptor – he doesn’t have greys in his beard like Garrett Temple – but he is the last remaining member from the 2019 championship.
To put that into perspective, when Boucher lifted the Larry O’B, Scottie Barnes was in high school, Gradey Dick was too young to drive, and Ulrich Chomche was a kid working on the family farm in a small Cameroonian village (a partial list of his crop: beans, bananas, cocoa, coffee, and sweet potatoes).
Granted, very few people knew Boucher back then either. In 2018, he got an invite to summer league and to training camp, then signed a two-way deal and was stashed in Mississauga. He went on to average 27 points, 11 rebounds, and four blocks for Raptors 905, earning him G-League MVP and DPOY honors, but again, who was really around for all that? (That nerd Blake Murphy doesn’t count.)
“I was so pissed,” Boucher said of his start with the team. “I went to training camp, they gave me a 10-day, and I wanted a contract. Then they gave me a two-way, and I was so pissed because I just came back from a two-way and I felt like I was way better than that.
“At the beginning of the year, I felt like I was with the team, I’m with Kawhi (Leonard) and Danny (Green), with Kyle (Lowry) and I was watching them play, and I was like ‘Okay I’m going to be here.’ And then they sent me back to the G-League and I realized, ‘Oh, damn it’s not going to be like that.’
“The travel (was tough), I had a roommate and all, so at the time I was really pissed that year. But I also told myself that I was going to use that anger in the G-League, and that really ended up paying off. I ended up playing really good, got MVP and DPOY, and that same year I got converted, so I never really looked back from there.”
But for all the trips shuttling back and forth on the QEW, Boucher did at least find himself at home. Not only did he collect a ring for his troubles, Boucher also landed in the right situation to develop. His teammates could relate to where he was in his career, and actively helped him find his footing.
“I had Fred (VanVleet) helping me, they were trying to compare me to Pascal (Siakam) in being able to run the floor, shoot the three, so I think it was really good to have them around. They did the G-League route too, so they kept looking out for me,” Boucher recalled.
“Serge (Ibaka), he was a really good hand for me. Marc (Gasol). I mean, I had some really great vets so I think it was really easy to get adjusted.”
Official: We've converted Montréal native @chrisboucher to a standard NBA contract. #WeTheNorth
— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) February 10, 2019
Deets – https://t.co/DPVlT9typq pic.twitter.com/2CzHON9anl
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Unlike other Raptors with comparable tenure, Boucher’s career didn’t follow a storybook arc.
He wasn’t a coveted lottery pick like Vince Carter, DeMar DeRozan, Chris Bosh, Andrea Bargnani and Jonas Valanciunas. He wasn’t even a lower-draft find like Mo Pete (21st pick) or Pascal Siakam (27th pick). He didn’t come via trade like Kyle Lowry, Amir Johnson and Alvin Williams, nor was he a shrewd overseas pickup like Jose Calderon. It would even be a stretch to compare him to a fellow undrafted player in VanVleet, because Boucher was already 25 and on his second chance in the NBA after failing to stick with the Golden State Warriors when he first arrived.
Or put it this way: Boucher didn’t even start for the Raptors in Summer League. He came off the bench behind Shevon Thompson and Augusto Lima (again, only Blake would know what happened to them.) Fortunately for Boucher, the Raptors were coached that summer by Nick Nurse, who was looking to get back into the flow of being a head coach after being promoted from Dwane Casey’s staff that summer. Ever the mad scientist, Nurse had the idea to try the 200-pound Boucher at center.
“We went into the first game and got drilled by 20-plus. We got drilled by 20-plus the second night. Then we flipped Chris into the starting-five spot, had him leap two or three centers we were taking a look at, and he started playing great. Blocking shots, making threes, and the team started playing a lot better,” Nurse recalled to me before Toronto’s win in Philadelphia this month.
Unlike the others, Boucher never did carve out a guaranteed role. He had his moments to be sure – who can forget his part in the 30-point comeback over Dallas in 2020, or his viral moment of collapsing in exhaustion against Utah – but Boucher was always on a knife’s edge. He only started 23 out of his 404 appearances, and those came exclusively at times when the Raptors had no other viable centers. Boucher’s last start came in March of 2022, where he scored 21 points in 36 minutes during a loss to Cleveland. The very next night, he went back to the bench and played just 12 minutes.
As someone who went through a rather public back-and-forth exchange with Boucher himself on his faults, I could list you reasons why he wasn’t prioritized by coaches. He was too skinny to play center, too jumpy at fakes, took too many ill-advised 3s, and he wasn’t a playmaker. Nurse found the best rhythm with Boucher in a chaotic rebounding tandem with Precious Achiuwa at the peak of the “Project 6’9” experiment. Under Darko Rajakovic, Boucher has played 25 minutes just five times in two seasons compared to a few dozen DNP-CDs. Boucher is certainly unique, but he’s like an oboe in the orchestra – if he makes a mistake, you’re going to hear it.
But to his credit, Boucher always finds a way back in. That’s the enduring trait of his entire career from being discovered in a Montreal Nord pick-up run as a teenager, to now being a certified Raptors cult classic. Both Nurse and Rajakovic had their reasons for leaving him out, yet he’s breaking records for longevity. So he’s never away for long. Both cite Boucher’s rarest quality: It’s simply hard to find someone who plays as hard as Boucher does.
“He always plays hard, he always seems to impact the game. He’s gonna get on the glass, he’s probably gonna block a 3, he’s got good instincts for that. And he’s never met a shot he didn’t like, either,” Nurse laughed. “So when he gets the ball behind the 3, he’s gonna shoot it, and he’s been shooting a pretty high percentage.”
“He knows who he is as a player. He knows what he brings to the table. Guys like him. It’s great to see him play with a lot of energy. He always finds a way to bring the energy, to get offensive rebounds, to create a deflection or a blocked shot. He just plays hard, and that helps the team,” Rajakovic said.
“I had to consistently do the same thing, over and over. It took more than I thought to earn his confidence. At first, I thought I just needed a couple good games and that would be it. But no, I had to show up every day, bring energy, and consistently do it no matter if it was winning or losing. I think that was something I was brought up on early in my career, it was just not really looking at the score and coming in and being ready,” Boucher said.
“That’s something they put into my head all the time, that I had to play hard just to be on the floor. That is what helped Nick Nurse play me, and if you ask Nick right now, that’s the one thing he’s going to say, that someone who plays as hard as Chris is hard to find.”
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As always, Boucher would have to beat the odds to stay.
Having signed Brandon Ingram to a 3-year, $120-million extension, and with Scottie Barnes’ max contract set to kick in, the Raptors are already dangerously close to the luxury tax. It’s a virtual certainty that Boucher would have to take less than his current contract when it runs out this summer. Toronto is in the midst of a youth movement, which means there is only room for up-and-coming prospects yet to reach their prime, or solid veterans who are willing to lend guidance and step aside at a moment’s notice.
He’s already gone through it this season. Boucher was benched to begin January, and only got his chance with three minutes left in a blowout against the Knicks, where he scored 10 points on 4-of-4 shooting. The next night in Cleveland, he played a season-high 26 minutes and dropped 23-13 in a game that came down to the last possession. The following week, he had the best quarter of his career as he took over in the fourth to dismantle the Warriors. That sparked a run of seven wins out of eight for the Raptors. But when rookie Ja’Kobe Walter was recalled from the 905, Boucher was once again benched in a loss to Chicago. Rajakovic did go out of his way that night to call Boucher “the ultimate professional” but he didn’t really need to. Boucher gets it by now.
“We talked about the big picture. Understanding where he is as a player, what are the areas where he can grow and get better. What are the things that he’s controlling, what are the things that aren’t in his control, and just to be at peace to accept it,” Rajakovic said of his conversations with Boucher in the past two summers.
So after seven seasons, Boucher is coming full circle. It’s his turn to share his experience, and there are plenty of players who could learn a thing or two from Boucher’s career. Take Jamison Battle for example. Like Boucher, he parlayed a mere training camp invite into a two-way deal, which has since been converted to a standard contract. Ironically, Boucher and Battle have competed for the exact same role all season, with Battle having it at first, and Boucher claiming minutes of late, but that’s all part of the lifespan of an NBA player.
“One thing Toronto has done really well is getting me to the vet level where I know what to expect, and I know what to do. I have vets around me like Garrett to show how to be a vet, and that was something I needed to learn. Not just playing but how to approach situations, how to talk to the rookies, different ways to be a better player, and a better person to be around,” Boucher said.
At the end of our chat in Philadelphia, I floated the question: Would you stay?
“I love Toronto. If it all worked out, why not?” He said. “Toronto did a lot for me. I don’t really see myself in another jersey, or another team. But you never know what could happen.”
