Basketball
Add news
News

Morning Coffee – Thu, Nov 26

0 5

Where did the Raptors improve and get worse in free agency? – The Athletic

Taking a step back
Pick-and-pop play

There may not be a better non-superstar pick-and-pop big in the league than Ibaka. He was monstrously effective in the mid-range on high volume as a Raptor and was an average 3-point shooter on pretty good volume. Gasol was a far more hesitant shooter, something he generally made up for with terrific passing and work in the dribble-handoff game. Those skills will be missed; Even if you’re fine with Baynes and Len as a succession plan, they don’t have the skill-ceiling of Ibaka’s scoring or Gasol’s playmaking.

It should be survivable, especially with improvements expected elsewhere. Baynes cooled off after a hot start to 2019-20 from outside but remained a 34.9-percent 3-point shooter over the last two seasons. Most of that sample came above the break, too (he hit 36.8 percent), where he’ll get his looks in Toronto’s offence. Len hit 36.3 percent on good volume in 2018-19, the only season he’s really shot many. Both at least have show-me capability in the 18-foot range.

As for Gasol’s playmaking, Baynes is coming off the best passing season of his career (10.9-percent assist rate) and Lin has at times looked average for a centre (touching 9.5 percent). The takeaway there is probably not to be too worried about the new pieces coughing the ball up or missing obvious reads, they’re just not going to make Gasol plays. Because who does?

Institutional knowledge

Since Gasol’s acquisition at the 2019 trade deadline, 82 percent of the Raptors’ minutes have been played with at least one of him or Ibaka on the court. A year after losing Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green, the Raptors are down to three-sevenths of their championship rotation, plus Anunoby. That is a lot of organizational IQ lost. Lowry and VanVleet at the helm, with the reigning Coach of the Year, should help in that regard. The brain drain is survivable. But there’s a chance it erodes some of Toronto’s perceived continuity edge entering a condensed season.

Stylistic versatility

This flows from the last note. Ibaka and Gasol were versatile pieces even as Ibaka shifted further to one end of the position spectrum and Gasol’s scoring game disappeared. The playmaking of Gasol, Ibaka’s ability to soak up possessions and most importantly how well both knew the defensive system could all limit Nurse’s ability to go deep into his bag early in the season. It’s not a certainty that the new pieces get to the Gasol/Ibaka level within the system, and so while this is probably fine over 72 games, there’s a real chance their loss isn’t felt until pressure and preparation ramp up in the postseason.

Raptors’ 2020 Offseason Was Always About the Bigger Picture | Complex CA

Nothing is guaranteed, but you miss 100 per cent of the shots you don’t take. The Raptors have spent years manufacturing the opportunity to secure a top-tier talent from the free agent class of 2021 that could be headed by two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, and they weren’t about to let their hearts get in the way of what their minds have earnestly put forth. Remember, DeMar DeRozan could well have been picking up his $27.7 million player option as a member of the Raptors, not the Spurs. They would be right where they are now but with a dramatically different backdrop: licking their wounds wondering why they couldn’t get to the NBA Finals after LeBron James headed west.

But Kawhi Leonard’s unhappiness in San Antonio became Toronto’s joy; it was too good an opportunity to pass up and Ujiri was able to pivot. The Larry O’Brien trophy followed and in a perfect world, Leonard would have re-signed. The beauty of Ujiri’s pivot, though, is that Leonard’s departure brought the Raptors back to the original plan. When asking whether it’s worth it for the Raptors to try and swing for the fences in 2021, it needs to be remembered that the alternatives were likely either maintaining Gasol and Ibaka while going into the luxury tax for a team that doesn’t quite have a championship ceiling or staring down a roster that still includes DeRozan, Jonas Valanciunas, and Delon Wright as well as an organization that remains trophy-less.

Now, Toronto will continue to remain very competitive in the East—perhaps not quite at the level of Miami, Milwaukee, or Philadelphia, but they should be right in the mix with that next tier. Boston replaced Gordon Hayward with Tristan Thompson and have Kemba Walker’s wonky knee to deal with. Brooklyn has several questions to answer with Kevin Durant returning from an injury that usually spells doom for NBA careers, Kyrie Irving’s injury and team leadership history, as well as a first-year head coach in Steve Nash looking to put all the pieces together. Finally, the Indiana Pacers reportedly have two disgruntled stars in Victor Oladipo and Myles Turner.

Come what may over the course of the 2020-21 season and playoffs, Toronto will offer a core of Pascal Siakam, VanVleet, OG Anunoby, and a champion head coach in Nick Nurse to free agents in 2021. If all goes to plan, the best front office in the business will also remain intact with new extensions for Ujiri and Bobby Webster. This is a far cry from the Knicks clearing cap space with nothing else to offer. For a superstar considering new options, the Raptors’ situation should prove extremely enticing.

And if the plan doesn’t work out, it happens. Sometimes you draft Bruno Caboclo, other times you get Siakam. The bottom line is this: the Raptors front office has proven it knows how to pivot with precision as well. They are thinking and hoping fastball but have shown time and again that they won’t be made to look silly by a curveball—there will be a Plan B. Either way, they have certainly built up the equity to try.

With OG Anunoby, Fred VanVleet, and Pascal Siakam, the Toronto Raptors’ future has now arrived – Raptors HQ

What is most tantalizing about this core is its versatility. Anunoby, VanVleet, and Siakam are three players who can thrive in any basketball ecosystem. They have the skill sets that every team in the NBA so desperately craves, with all three players providing defense, shooting, and basketball IQ. They also have a track record of unselfish, team-oriented play — whatever they need to try and do to win, they’re ready to do. These three players allow this latest iteration of the Raptors to be truly chameleonic.

It starts with their defense. At the point of attack, VanVleet is one of the best guard defenders in the NBA, and one of the few who can credibly slow Steph Curry. His nose for the ball puts him third in the league in steals with 1.9 per game. While some players gamble and jump passing lanes for steals, VanVleet maintains sound defensive positioning and picks his man’s pocket for the bulk of his steals, only making calculated risks.

Siakam’s defense was up-and-down last season as he adjusted to life as the lead offensive option for the Raptors, but when he is locked in, he is a terror helping off the ball. He covers ground in a flash, and his length allows him to contest even when he is a step behind. His prowess on the defensive end has seen him get All-Defense votes in each of the last two seasons.

Of the three, OG Anunoby is the best defender (and the Raptors’ best defender). Versatile, long, powerful, and athletic, Anunoby is the guy that coach Nick Nurse can throw at an opposing offensive threat, tell him to make that opponent’s life hell, and then worry about the rest of the gameplan. He is a legitimate defensive game-wrecker.

They are all positionally flexible. Fred, though small, can battle both guard spots and has the Lowry-esque knack for defending bigger than his size. Siakam is athletic, fast, and long enough for most any matchup, and Anunoby is a rare 1-5 stopper, as he showed by battling Nikola Jokic when the Raptors played the Denver Nuggets last season and later stopping different combinations of the Celtics’ speedy guards in the playoffs. That versatility forms the basis for a dominant defense.

New Raptors centre Aron Baynes rejuvenated career with 3-point stroke

While losing Gasol and Ibaka in a single weekend is nothing to be glossed over, between Baynes’ ability to keep opponents honest from deep and his reputation as one of the league’s better team defenders, the hope is he will be a more than adequate replacement. He’s eager to lend his pleasing Australian accent to the cause of directing traffic on defence.

“As much as the offence is fun, I always love playing defence,” said Baynes. “I think that is where you can really change a game and I always try and lock in on that first and foremost. The best way for me to do that is being vocal and talking to everyone. I would rather err on the side of talking too much than not talking enough on defence. I think with communication you can sort out a lot of mistakes that will happen because inevitably they are going to when you play against the best players in the world.

“I’m looking forward to going out there and playing within Nick’s system. I know it’s going to be a little bit different, we’ll give teams different looks, but that makes it even more entertaining for me. It’s always fun when you see a team come down and there’s a bit of confusion in their faces. You know you are doing something right and the game is hopefully going to swing a bit in your favour as soon as you see that.’

It’s a quality that should make him a good fit in Toronto and one the main reasons the Raptors turned to him almost instantly after it was clear that both Ibaka and Gasol were not going to return as they signed in Los Angeles with the Clippers and the Lakers, respectively.

Baynes was happy to get the call.

“Yeah, 48 hours is pretty late in this recent free agency,” said Baynes. “It was a long time. It was a very long 48 hours. But they say good things come to those who wait so I was looking forward to a few opportunities out there and this was definitely one of them. I knew there was always an option and I was just hoping for a good situation.”

His road to the Raptors started, it turns out, on a pair of made threes.

Inside the Great NBA Bubble Experiment | GQ

I remember being at Fred VanVleet’s post-practice press conference after Jacob Blake was shot in Kenosha, Wisconsin. VanVleet’s eyes were glazed, and he didn’t want to take any questions about basketball. When it was my turn to speak, I simply asked him how he was doing; the games just didn’t feel important in the moment. VanVleet collected himself and gave an answer that was at once raw and multidimensional: He said he was heartbroken and had survivor’s remorse. That he felt isolated in the bubble. That people can’t underestimate the trauma that comes from watching videos on their phones of Black men dying and seeing comments that argued they should have just listened to the police. He told me about his father, who was killed when VanVleet was young.

It was a heavy moment for all of us, and when that press conference was over, I looked down at my phone and saw I had a text from Fred asking me how I was doing. My answer was the same as his: I was heartbroken too.

Most of the players felt the same way. On August 26, a few days after Blake’s shooting, George Hill asked for a breakfast meeting with head coach Mike Budenholzer and the rest of the coaching staff. Hill ordered the same breakfast he always did, with his double serving of bacon and a tangerine juice, and told them that he “didn’t feel comfortable playing” and wasn’t going to.

“That was the last thing on my mind,” says Hill. “I didn’t want to do it.” It wasn’t just Blake who sparked his decision to sit out: It was Kyle Rittenhouse, a white 17-year-old who crossed state lines into Wisconsin and shot three protesters, leaving two dead and one seriously injured. “We let that kid go all the way back home,” Hill tells me. “They didn’t slam him on the ground. They didn’t put him in handcuffs. They didn’t do anything. They let him go all the way back to Illinois and arrested him the next day. If it was the other way around, would that have happened? I don’t think so.”

Hill had seen enough, and his coaches informed the Bucks of his decision to sit out. One of those players was Sterling Brown, who was tased and arrested by Milwaukee police in 2018 over an alleged parking violation. For Brown, this was personal. It wasn’t long before the Milwaukee Bucks organization collectively made the unprecedented decision not to play in Game 5 against the Orlando Magic, effectively bringing the NBA to a halt.

And if George Hill hadn’t sat out, there was a strong possibility that a league-wide strike still would have taken place. The Raptors were set to play the Celtics the day after the Bucks decided to stay in the locker room. While the Bucks were deliberating, Raptors players Fred VanVleet and Kyle Lowry quietly met with members of the Celtics to discuss what they should do, and Masai Ujiri ran into Celtics coach Brad Stevens, and the two talked about not playing. “It was going to happen, to be honest,” says Ujiri. If it hadn’t been the Bucks who initiated the strike, it probably would have been the Raptors and the Celtics.

Meanwhile, players inside the bubble were all wondering the same thing: What can we do? A few wanted to end the season then and there. They all had a decision to make, and so later that evening, the remaining teams agreed to convene at the Gran Destino for a historic meeting to discuss what was next.

Aron Baynes, Chris Boucher hoping to fill void in Toronto Raptors frontcourt – TSN.ca

Baynes, who was born in New Zealand but grew up in Australia, seems well suited for Nurse’s system and should also be an immediate culture fit. He’s a tough, physical defender that can also move well for a player his size. He averaged a career-best 11.5 points in 42 games with the Suns last season, his eighth in the NBA. That included shooting a serviceable 35 per cent on 168 three-point attempts – almost twice as many as he took in his first seven seasons combined.

The three-ball was always something he worked on in practice, dating back to his years playing for Gregg Popovich in San Antonio, but he started shooting them when he was in Boston the year before last. He saw the way the league was trending – with most bigs stepping out beyond the arc and expanding their range – but, mostly, Brad Stevens told him he was hurting the team if he didn’t start taking them.

He’s already spoken to Nurse, who wants him to be even more aggressive with his shot this coming season. Not a surprise, considering how important the three-point shot is to Toronto’s offence – they were sixth in the league in attempts last year, and Ibaka and Gasol combined to take nearly seven per contest. Baynes is confident he still has room to grow in that area of his game, and playing alongside Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet should ensure he’ll get plenty of good looks.

That Baynes comes to Toronto with a winning track record should also help ease the transition. He won titles in the Slovenian and Lithuanian leagues before coming to the NBA, he’s made a couple deep runs with the Australian national team at the FIBA World Cup, he won a championship with the Spurs in 2014 and played for some really good Celtics teams from 2017-2019.

“I’m just looking forward to coming in and playing with these guys, because I know what they’re all about,” said Baynes. “That’s what it is at the end of the day – we want to win and give ourselves the best chance to be able within shooting distance of getting that ultimate prize. So I’m looking forward to getting out there and going to work with these guys because I know when the game is on they battle with everything. That’s what I try and do as well.”

Meanwhile, Boucher should also be fully versed on what the Raptors expect, having come up through their well-regarded and highly successful player development pipeline.

Although he played sparingly for the NBA club in 2018-19 – his first year in Toronto – the undrafted big man spent most of the campaign with Raptors 905, where he won the G League’s MVP and Defensive Player of the Year awards. He took another step forward last year, impressing in limited minutes as the third centre in Nurse’s rotation – averaging 6.6 points, 4.5 rebounds and 1.0 block in 13.2 minutes.

He can be erratic at times, and there’s some question as to whether his rail thin frame will hold up against bigger and more physical bigs, but he’s shown promise with an intriguing and versatile skill set. With his new contract – $13.5 million over two years, though the second season is non-guaranteed – the Raptors want to see what he can do in an expanded role.

Winners and losers from Raptors free agency – The Athletic

Short-Term Loser: OG Anunoby

Every move the Raptors have made this offseason points to 2021 flexibility being their biggest concern. That was predictable. They wouldn’t go to a second year for any free agents, offering only non-guaranteed second years that are de facto trade chips at the start of next offseason, not legitimate contract considerations (for now). VanVleet’s deal is structured to minimize the 2021 cap hit, and it’s the only salary for 2021 they’ve added other than Flynn’s rookie deal.

Prioritizing 2021 flexibility means that extending Anunoby now — and chewing up additional 2021 cap space in the process — would run counter to their offseason to date. Even if Giannis Antetokounmpo signs a super-max extension before Dec. 21, this strategy makes sense. This isn’t about not believing in Anunoby, it’s about maximizing the potential to add meaningfully to this core next offseason. And then Anunoby will be taken care of, likely at a higher price tag.

Baynes just ticks a lot of the boxes on Raptors’ needs list | Toronto Sun

On the court Baynes is a coach’s dream, a man who thinks defence first and offence second.

A man who came into the league pretty much as a traditional low-post player who over time has expanded his offensive game to include a pretty reliable three-point shot.

He has gone from a guy who almost never shot the three as recently as two years ago to a guy who got up four a game last season in Phoenix and made a commendable 35% of those.

As far as Baynes is concerned, these changes to his game, happening even as he turns 34 a couple of weeks from now, are all about self-preservation.

“It’s definitely been an evolution throughout my NBA career but from my first stop in San Antonio it was something that I’ve been working on, then every single, once the coaches were satisfied with everything else I was doing, I kind of said alright, now’s it my time and I’m going to work on these things, because that was when I saw the game was changing,” Baynes aid.

“Golden State were doing their thing, and I figured I’ve got to be able to add something else to my game, so since then I’ve always worked on it. But then when I got to Boston having the confidence of the coach really helps and (Celtics head coach) Brad Stevens saw me shoot the first day and told me ‘Look, if you don’t take this shot, then that’s hurting our team,” he said. “So, between him and (Boston GM) Danny Ainge telling me that the three-point line’s there for a reason, well I’m not going to turn down being able to shoot threes, and so those guys really gave me a lot of confidence.”

Last year under Monty Williams in Phoenix, Baynes got the green light again to shoot at will from distance and he answered the bell.

Having achieved a 35% success rate, Baynes feels there’s still plenty of room for improvement.

“I’m definitely not trying to take a backward step right now,” he said. “That’s why I’m putting so much work every single day to try and continue to improve. I’m never satisfied, no matter what happens. I think as soon as you become satisfied, or that that’s when you already step behind in this league so yeah I’m always trying to work and get to a position where I can contribute more.”

Raptors Aron Baynes and Chris Boucher understand their roles, they just don’t know how big they will be | The Star

Saying goodbye to two mainstays is never easy, and Baynes and Boucher are hardly like-for-like substitutes for Gasol and Ibaka. But one thing hasn’t changed: Raptors coach Nick Nurse has developed a system that is clear to both an outsider like Baynes and a returning player like Boucher. And that could help the new guys keep Toronto’s recent success rolling.

“I think if you know Nick Nurse … the best way in this system is to be positionless and to be able to play different positions, be able to learn different positions,” Boucher said Wednesday.

The 27-year-old, whose deal is not guaranteed for a second year, spent the off-season leading up to free agency focused less on where he would be playing and more on what it would take for him to become the day-in, day-out player the Raptors will now need.

“I’ve been doing my best to try to relax the game, slow the game down, understand what I’m good at and where I’ve got to get better,” said Boucher, who spent his off-season working out and studying video in Toronto, with breaks to play his new PS5.

Boucher has a better idea of his role going into 2020-21 than he had in previous seasons. To help his team out daily, he needs to prioritize versatility and know all of Toronto’s defensive schemes inherently, to be able to switch or edge or adapt no matter what coverage the team is in.

He has gained weight since the NBA stalled because of the coronavirus pandemic in March and is learning how to use it to his advantage. Still, the lanky Boucher is unlikely to become a “big” big man anytime soon, so capitalizing on the strength he does have, his athleticism and his speed will be key to making strides.

“I think my role will definitely grow and more expectation will come in but I’ve never bowed down from a challenge or seen anything as something that I can’t do, so I’ll just adjust to this season. I think I’m ready right now to help this team get somewhere and make some noise in the league,” Boucher said.

STINSON: Raptors starting over, but without the traditional teardown | Toronto Sun

As a franchise, the Raptors had gone through three phases: A long period of general irrelevance, minus the brief spike of the early Vince Carter years; the transformation into reliable competence under the stewardship of Masai Ujiri and Dwane Casey; and then the out-of-body experience of the championship season, the good vibes of which leaked into the past campaign and were buttressed by a robust title defence.

The quality of that team is best underlined by how angry Ujiri and coach Nick Nurse were about the defeat to the Celtics, even after they were back in Toronto and had a few days to cool off. They thought they were good enough to go very deep again. Now, though, it’s time for a new iteration of the Raptors. With four of their seven key rotation players gone from the title-winning group, this bunch will look a lot less familiar over the course of a game.

Kyle Lowry will still give the Raptors their snarl and a lot of their heart, but he’s the last of the cagey veterans, and entering the final year of his contract. This is, to be clear, fine.

The toughest thing about building a title contender, other than actually winning it, is figuring out how to move on.

Teams end up with too many costly older players, and too few inexpensive young guys, and front offices often wait a little too long to part ways with the players whose jerseys are pockmarked all over the home stands on game nights.
Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster haven’t even had to make much in the way of those tough calls.

Leonard and Green left on their own, as did Ibaka and Gasol, although either of the latter two might have stayed had the Raptors offered the right mix of money and contract length.

Instead, management opted to build around a new core — Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet, OG Anunoby — and keep open the option of adding a major free-agent prize in the summer of 2021.

Ujiri has still never done the type of roster tear-down that is fashionable in many pro sports, one that asks fans to accept years of heavy losses in hopes of a payoff down the line. Instead, he built a good team into a very good team and then into a great one.

Marc Gasol says it was tough to leave the Toronto Raptors for the Los Angeles Lakers – TSN.ca

“How I’m going to remember the Raptors? First, I’m going to miss Toronto,” Gasol said. “Toronto has been a great place, my family was very settled there, very comfortable, they really enjoyed their time. …

“And that’s just the way, sadly, this business goes. I thought my run in Toronto could not get better and we’d always be chasing the ring, that I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to be the player that they needed me to be there in order to win it. So I thought that the right thing to do for me was to join the Lakers and contribute to what they got going on.”

Further complicating his decision about whether to remain with the Raptors was the news that they would play their home games in Tampa, Florida, this season, at least to start.

“I told my teammates that have remained there — Kyle, Freddy [VanVleet], Pascal [Siakam], Norm [Powell] and the rest of the guys and even Coach [Nick Nurse] — how much they meant to me, how much they helped me,” Gasol said. “And I’m going to miss them a lot, I can’t lie to you, because we went through something together that’s very unique, that is very special, and it creates a bond forever and no one can take that away from us.”

A three-time All-Star and 2013 Defensive Player of the Year, Gasol averaged 7.5 points on 42.7% shooting (38.5% from 3), 6.3 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game last season — a significant dip from his career averages of 14.6 points on 48.1% shooting.

With Toronto, he could have been asked to play a larger role after the L.A. Clippers signed Serge Ibaka. With the Lakers, he will fill in a big-man rotation around All-NBA performer Anthony Davis along with Montrezl Harrell and Markieff Morris.

Toronto Raptors: Malachi Flynn, Jalen Harris have potential to be stars – Sir Charles in Charge

Paired together, these rookies could become a great tandem in the backcourt. I could see them starting their journey in the G League with the Raptors 905. This would allow them the freedom to develop individually while also being introduced to the big clubs’ on-court style and system.

The modern NBA team is defined by having players at each position that can score on their own and make plays for others. Flynn and Harris fit right into this mold. Both can create their own shot while also able to find teammates when it is the right play.

Being more than capable creators will only enhance the chemistry and tandem playmaking. They will always have the confidence in the other to make the right decision available (both on and off-ball). This will be the ultimate key to their future success – the ability to flow off each other’s spontaneity

A major point to consider is that Kyle Lowry’s contract ends next season. It is up in the air as to what happens to the Toronto Raptors’ future roster. Will they sign Giannis? Will Lowry come back? If not, there will be space for a guard or two to fill in. This could provide an opportunity for both Flynn and Harris to eat up some backcourt minutes with the big club.

No matter how their careers unfold – presently – they are in the best position to maximize their basketball skills and contribute to a well-renowned team in the Toronto Raptors.

Morning Coffee – Thu, Nov 26 originated on Raptors Republic.

Загрузка...

Comments

Комментарии для сайта Cackle
Загрузка...

More news:

Read on Sportsweek.org:

Other sports

Sponsored