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Valanciunas hopes to be ready for next round, Whiteside out for Game 4, and other shootaround notes

The big man is targeting the third round, if the Raptors can get there without him.

The Toronto Raptors are still reeling from the loss of center Jonas Valanciunas for the series, but they have little choice except to soldier on. Game 4 goes Monday night, and both sides went through shootaround in Miami this morning. Here are your usual notes and quotes.

Valanciunas speaks

Valanciunas was made available to the media Monday after being absent from practice Sunday, and he sounds every bit as disappointed as you do.


On the bright side, Valanciunas thinks he may be able to return next week if the Raptors can get past the Heat without him.


That series would start Sunday if Raptors-Heat is done in five or six, and it would start Tuesday if Raptors-Heat goes seven. Until then, it’s a whole lot of RICE (and same though – I got diagnosed with plantar fasciitis this morning).

There may not be a ton of room for optimism, though, based on these tweets (though, like with Whiteside, we’re working with incomplete information here):


In the meantime, the starting center job falls on Bismack Biyombo.


You can read more about the Valanciunas injury fallout here.

Whiteside out for Game 4

The Heat will be without their own starting center, too, as Hassan Whiteside is out (and day-to-day moving forward) with a sprained right MCL. Erik Spoelstra gave the update, courtesy Matthew Scianitti, at shootaround.

Whiteside playing two days after suffering the injury would have been nearly miraculous based on NBA precedent, but the Heat were careful to reveal very little information (like the grade of the sprain) publicly, so we were a little in the dark here. Either way, the Raptors wopuld have been ready, and will be for Game 5 if he can go then.

I’ll link to this Valanciunas fallout piece again, because it contains most of what you need to know with both centers out. In short: Both teams probably start their backup centers and then play a lot of super-small bench units, with Game 4 looking like a bit of a feel-out, Game 1-style affair. You could legitimately see Luol Deng, Justise Winslow, DeMarre Carroll, and Patrick Patterson battling as the frontcourts tonight, and you might even see some Bebe. I’m ready. Again, far more detail within that length.

Ujiri finishes 4th in EOY voting

R.C. Buford of the San Antonio Spurs was named the NBA’s Executive of the Year on Monday. Raptors’ general manager Masai Ujiri finished fourth, also trailing Neil Olshey (Portland) and Bob Myers (Golden State). I put Ujiri second on my fake ballot, writing as follows:

Buford could get this award every year, and while Olshey lost his best player, he had a pretty clear and successful strategy for an expedited rebuild around Lillard. Buford stole that star and did so while managing to re-sign Danny Green and keep most of the core together, while also unearthing Boban Marjanovic and Jonathan Simmons. Spurs gonna Spurs.

Ujiri has a great case, too, one that extends beyond just the roster.

The Carroll contract can’t really be evaluated here in Year One, but Biyombo has proven one of the biggest bargains of the offseason, Joseph’s deal looks way better now than it did at first, Luis Scola was a cost-effective addition, the team found a huge steal in the second round in Powell (also getting a first-round pick and cap flexibility in the process, sending out only Greivis Vasquez), he convinced Jason Thompson to come to Toronto, he signed Ross and Valanciunas to extensions that will be, at worst, market value (and both players improved markedly), he retained Casey and added two great assistants (Rex Kalamian and Andy Greer) to the staff, and Delon Wright doesn’t look like too bad a pick at No. 20 now that we’ve actually gotten to see a bit from him.

That entire run-on sentence of a resume all came while he helped get a D-League expansion team up and running effectively – a huge benefit to the development of Wright, Powell, and potentially Caboclo – added the BioSteel Centre to the franchise’s asset base, and hosted All-Star Weekend.

He doesn’t get 100 percent of the credit for all of that, with Tim Leiweke, Teresa Resch, and many more factoring in, but he gets the bulk of it, and Executive of the Year is more of an organizational award, anyway. He’ll definitely get a few votes, but whether he can get enough of a split vote between the Spurs, Blazers, and a host of others remains to be seen. I’d be shocked if he doesn’t land in the top-five, and he’s got a pretty good case. I could see Carroll losing most of the season being his biggest impediment, fair or otherwise, and unfortunately for Ujiri the award gets voted on before Carroll can make a postseason impact.

Ujiri’s done a heck of a job. Unfortunately, the EOY award is one of the few where voting isn’t public, so we can’t tell who Ujiri may have gotten the votes from. He received two first-place votes. This continues the Raptors’ award-season trend – Dwane Casey was fourth in Coach of the Year voting, while Kyle Lowry (Defensive Player of the Year, Most Improved Player) and Patrick Patterson (Sixth Man of the Year) each received a single third-place vote for their efforts.

Assorted


*Dwyane Wade can pass Magic Johnson for 13th on the NBA’s all-time playoff scoring list with nine points tonight. I tweeted as much the other day, but DeMar DeRozan is now the Raptors’ all-time leading playoff scorer, Kyle Lowry is first in assists, and both players, along with Patrick Patterson and Terrence Ross (no longer Valanciunas, after tonight) are the franchise leaders in postseason games played.

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