The following is part of Raptors Republic’s series of pieces previewing the season for the Toronto Raptors. You can find all the pieces in the series here.
I learned a tremendous amount about NBA basketball during my time closely covering the Raptors 905. Perhaps the most educational season was 2017-18, when Lorenzo Brown won G-League MVP. I was convinced at the time that Brown was an NBA-quality player. And perhaps he was, but it never really stuck. His final chance in the league was the following season, when he averaged 8 minutes a game in just 26 games for the championship Raptors.
Brown was an exceptional basketball player. He could engineer a solid half-court shot out of thin air. He was perhaps better on the defensive end than the offensive one. And he ran the offence like a real floor general, diminishing turnovers, running sets, and governing the flow of the game.
There just wasn’t a need in the NBA for a solid half-court shot on every possession. Brown wasn’t enough of an efficient scorer himself, or a creator for others, to generate the high-octane offence that the NBA requires. He couldn’t space the floor for others, at least not to the extent teams want from a point guard. So for all his abilities, he never stuck in the NBA. Much of that was style and talent, but much is also due to opportunity. Brown just never got his.
Blake Murphy often referred to players like that as AAAA ball players — in that they are too good for AAA ball (the G League) but not quite good enough for the MLB (the NBA).
AJ Lawson has spent much of his career to this point floating in the same space. He was mostly an invisible man during training camp, with virtually no conversation about him. He’s not the shiny new prospect on the team, and the franchise is not prioritizing him as a prospect or a player. He is fighting uphill.
Yet he has consistently dominated the G League, averaging between 18 and 22 points a game for the 905, always at an elite efficiency (effective field goal percentage generally between 57 and 58 despite a somewhat-abysmal free-throw percentage). Yet he never got his chance in the Big League; that is, until last season, when he finally broke out for the Raptors. He averaged almost 20 minutes a game for the Raptors last season, albeit in only 26 games, but he scored 9.1 points a game and played a real rotation role. He had his moments of magic. And the Raptors were slightly better, especially offensively, with him on the court (in his few hundred minutes) than with him on the bench.
Yet the Raptors were awful last season. There’s a real difference in playing a role on a good team and playing one on a bad team. Lawson filled in with so many injuries to the players above him on the depth chart. And his efficiency plummeted in the NBA. His 3-point stroke floundered, and his ability to reach the rim was massively limited as compared to the G League. Though it was a step forward for Lawson last season, it wasn’t such a success that he has anything guaranteed this season.
Thus this seems like the make-it-or-break-it season for Lawson.
He came into Summer League like a house on fire, scoring his traditional (for the G League) 18.5 points per game on elite efficiency. But he also dominated on the defensive end, collecting steals and blocks, attacking the ball, and flying out in transition. He was by a wide margin the Raptors’ best player, and his absence due to injury was a major reason Toronto lost in the playoffs. If this was the tryout for his role with the Raptors, he passed with flying colours.
Lawson is a long wing who can shoot, attack closeouts, draw free throws, fly in transition, and hold his own defensively. There has to be space for a player like that in the NBA. One of Brown’s major limitations was what he could (or couldn’t) do without the ball, but Lawson is an off-ball player.
Things need to happen in the NBA that haven’t to this point for Lawson. The 3-point stroke has to become more consistent. The defensive tenacity has to remain ramped up to 11 every minute he’s on the floor. It’s hard to keep your identity consistent from the G League to the NBA. But if Lawson can do those things consistently, and remain himself with the Raptors, there will be minutes for him when players go down with inevitable injuries. Right now, the Raptors have RJ Barrett, Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, Ja’Kobe Walter, and Ochai Agbaji at minimum ahead of him on the depth chart at that off-ball guard spot. But Lawson should get his chances at some point.
It’s not even entirely clear Lawson will be on the Raptors this upcoming season. His minimum contract is non-guaranteed and doesn’t guarantee until January. Especially with the depth at his position on the roster, he might not make the team coming out of camp, and he might make the team and get cut later. There are still a few weeks during which teams can carry larger training-camp rosters, so we won’t know about Lawson’s future with the Raptors until at least after some preseason games.
But his G-League consistency has to be on display in preseason. He started the campaign for NBA minutes at Summer League, and he has another battle to fight now. For players like Lawson, who aren’t exactly young, and weren’t drafted highly, teams have no reason to prioritize their development. Lawson has to earn everything he is given.
Some players manage to do that out of the G League. Chris Boucher, now a Boston Celtic, created a stellar NBA career out of G-League magic. Lorenzo Brown of course could not.
As with Brown, I am convinced Lawson has NBA talent and only needs a consistent opportunity to show he belongs. But believing and seeing are two different things. This season will largely determine whose path Lawson will follow, whether he’ll be another G-League standout who can’t stick in the league, or whether he’s finally ready to build his own place in the NBA.
