Kawhi: Family most important factor | Errr…Raptors will be fine….recover…team is constructed and will challenge but not contend…dog days have officially begun people…
What will the revamped Raptors rotation look like next season? – The Athletic
The specifics aren’t that important here, although it’s worth noting that my lineups have some shooting imbalances if nobody progresses and Davis or Thomas don’t hit. (Thomas, by the way, can slide pretty seamlessly into second-unit sets already in place for C.J. Miles and Terrence Ross, if he makes the rotation.) It made me consider swapping Johnson into the starting lineup for Anunoby, but I don’t think Anunoby’s shooting (in a somewhat small sample) is a big enough boon to the bench to outweigh the investment and upside reasons to start him.
Mostly, this exercise highlighted how difficult laying this stuff out can be. Eric Koreen and I tried it in the playoffs, too, and ran into a number of issues once we had a good 40 minutes or so in place. The fringe players and transitional minutes around each quarter are difficult, and walking through this really lends credence to the coach-speak that some nights they just see how things feel and make gut calls. The Raptors are in a unique situation for them, relative to the last few years, where only four rotation spots (Lowry, Siakam, Gasol, Ibaka) are fairly certain and maybe only seven players (those four plus VanVleet, Powell and Anunoby) are guaranteed minutes on a night-to-night basis.
There are some benefits to being set up that way. For my purposes, it means there will be plenty to discuss in training camp and once certain lineups and rotations start working (or not working). The hope here is that Nurse is pretty flexible and tries some of the younger players out in a few different roles, especially early on in the season. This won’t be four set starters that stand as one of the best units in basketball regardless of the fifth player again, but there are enough pieces here and a coach with a proven willingness to move those pieces around that the Raptors should be competitive every night, and in the larger Eastern Conference picture.
Why Kawhi Leonard embraced his free agency and the Clippers – Yahoo!
“You know, once I got together with my team and we put the pros and cons down, it was never about winning a championship,” Leonard said to Yahoo Sports. “It was about what the future has to hold. And for me, myself and my family, that’s what type of decision I had to make. It’s no discredit to Toronto, I just wanted to play at home. I wanted to do that before I got traded there, and obviously when I got there, it was a goal of mine to make history and get them a championship, and I feel like I did my job there pretty much and that I should be granted to go play where I wanted to after I gave them what they needed. I just wanted to play at home. Like Paul said, our families are able to come to games. But just from my own thinking, it’s like we’re in the NBA and I played eight years already. Eight years can fly by so fast, and we’re not able to do anything with [our families] eight or nine months of the season.
“So once the summer comes, you got three months to either go see family, train and do your other business obligations. There’s really no time to see them, to see your family. I love my family. Over the last five or six years, I’ll go back home and see my family, my nieces and nephews, and they’re talking, playing, shooting basketballs, and I’m like, ‘Dang, I missed all this. Y’all talking already. What? You’re doing this?’ So it’s like, ‘Man, where the hell have I been?’ It feels like you been in a matrix or something.
“For me, it was a family situation more so than a basketball decision. Basketball is going to be here long without me, so I feel like when we’re here, we just have to make sure we share it with our loved ones, and that’s one of the big reasons why I came to the Clippers.”
Leonard’s unveiling with Clippers a similar start to his Raptors story – Sportsnet.ca
There’s no question his one-year stint with the Raptors was a smash success for everybody involved. And given the storybook ending to the season — Leonard, having played every game in the playoffs, hoisting the championship trophy he and his teammates fought so hard for — it seemed like there just might be a chance that the organization and city had done enough to run it back with Leonard.
Did Leonard ever really consider a return to Toronto? We don’t know. Following his press conference, Leonard told ESPN’s Rachel Nichols that it was a “real close” decision between the Clippers, Raptors, and Los Angeles Lakers. But we don’t really know.
We do know that it was never his call to play for the Raptors; he reportedly asked to be traded to the Lakers originally, and has been eying a return to his hometown for quite some time.
He didn’t choose Toronto, but the way he went about handled his situation last season was admirable. In a situation where countless pro athletes have pouted, he showed up, put his head down, and focused on the work. The rest would come later.
And here it is.
Leonard has moved on, surrounded by a new team in the city he wanted to be in all along. Surrounded by family and flanked by an old friend and fellow top-10 player in Paul George. Surrounded by the lights and cameras he doesn’t care about. Surrounded by an owner, front office, and coaching staff that know — and could hardly stop smiling ear-to-ear throughout the press conference knowing that, like in Toronto, Leonard’s arrival signals an immediate step into contender status.
Meanwhile, in Raptorland, things are eerily quiet as the team embarks on an unknown future.
Why the Raptors will be just fine without Kawhi Leonard | IT Business
It’s a new form of talent evaluation that helps the Raptors sidestep drafting a player like Damarcus Cousins, who was drafted fifth overall nearly a decade ago, explained Dan Briskin, a senior consultant for the iX division of IBM.
“He’s a multi-time all-star and one of the best players in the league, but some teams won’t even take a meeting with him because of his character problems,” he said, alluding to Cousins’ unflattering locker room reputation, something the four-time all-star has been trying to shed for years. Combine that with his recent string of injuries, it’s almost a shock to see teams take a chance on him.
While there’s no guarantee that the Raptors wouldn’t draft a player with similar disruptive tendencies, it’s highly unlikely due to the process in place and the data that’s being analyzed.
“In the past, you might have only had one or two drivers for the entire discussion, but in this case, you have nine of these screens across the wall, and your lowest level scout or general manager and president can throw up a scenarios and bring ideas to life,” added Briskin, pointing to a scaled-down version of the platform at IBM’s office in Toronto. “The idea is to make this as collaborative of an environment as possible and get the data out there so it can be used.”
Players like Siakam and Fred VanVleet, who went undrafted in the same year the Raptors scooped up Siakam, get noticed despite flying under the radar. VanVleet, for example, is not tall or athletic, but he’s become one of the team’s deadliest shooters in the fourth quarter and an absolute rock in the locker room.
Kawhi did not win NBA title alone › The Taber Times
So while Kawhi was instrumental in making the Raptors the best team in the NBA, let’s stop with this talk that he did it all himself. Over those six games he only shot 43 per cent from the field and 15 of 42 from the three-point line. Without Kyle Lowry, Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet, the Raps don’t win that series.
This isn’t a takedown of Kawhi either, it’s simply a response to this view that the Raps owe everything to Kawhi for bringing them a championship, which is really ridiculous.
The relationship was beneficial for both. Kawhi didn’t trust the Spurs organization when he was shipped out and that trust was rebuilt in Toronto which helped the team succeed in winning the ultimate prize. Kawhi truly did have a great season with the Raps, and for my money the best individual season ever in Toronto.Over 60 regular season games with the Raptors, Kawhi was 49.6 per cent from the field and poured in 26.6 points per game while also going 85.4 per cent from the line.
Pretty good for a guy who only played nine games the year before. The real reason though why fans loved Kawhi and were desperate for him to stay was due to his playoff play.
After years and years of disappointment in the playoffs, this team finally broke through the East and was able to overthrow the Warriors dynasty. In 24 playoff games, he had a total of 732 points and shot 49 per cent in the field which was obviously enough to win the playoff MVP. So Kawhi puts forth the best individual season ever in a Raptors uniform and then walks away.
Five (early) thoughts on the 2019-20 Toronto Raptors: The pessimist’s view – Raptors HQ
Everyone Outside of Toronto Downplaying a “Fluky” Title Run
This Raptors team isn’t as good as last year’s, obviously. They might still be a top four team in the East; if things go their way (they stay healthy, other teams need time to gel, etc.) I could even see them finishing second.
But if they have the health problems they faced last year, and if the shooting is as bad as I fear, they could drop as low as seventh. And if they trade Lowry, Gasol and Serge Ibaka, I expect they’ll miss the playoffs.
Regardless, there’s gonna be a lot of poo-pooing the Raptors’ title, because they lost their best player and a critical two-way starter. “They won it because of a rental,” “it’s an anomaly,” “there should be an asterisk,” all that stuff. Because they’re not going to be as good, and might potentially be bad, we’re gonna see a whole lot of “The last time a defending champ didn’t do X, Y, or Z” nuggets.
Basically we’re gonna be seeing a lot of people try and make us feel like this title wasn’t special, and that’s gonna suck. I know it was damn special and so do you, and nothing can actually take it away — but it’s gonna suck to hear people try and take it away.
Ranking the NBA’s Top 5 Organizations over the Last 5 Years | Bleacher Report
2. Toronto Raptors
The Toronto Raptors’ were 27th in simple rating system and 26th in winning percentage in their 18 pre-Masai Ujiri seasons. In the three seasons immediately preceding Ujiri’s hire in Toronto, the team was 25th in both those categories.
During his tenure, the Raptors are fourth in simple rating system and fourth in winning percentage.
And, most importantly, all that success eventually led to the Kawhi Leonard trade and the organization’s first NBA championship.
Now, with Leonard gone and Kyle Lowry, Marc Gasol, Serge Ibaka and more on expiring contracts, Ujiri has a chance to do something he’s seemingly wanted to for some time.
SB Nation’s Tom Ziller explained:
“It’s legend that Ujiri arrived to the Raptors in 2013 intending to demolish what Bryan Colangelo had built and start fresh. In some ways, he started the process by trading Rudy Gay for spare parts and Andrea Bargnani for draft picks. Kyle Lowry was supposed to be next up on the docket, with rumors tying him to New York.
“But something weird happened once Gay and Bargnani were gone: the Raptors became a good team. Trading Lowry or DeMar DeRozan became non-starters. Toronto was too competitive to blow it all up.”
Toronto had hit its ceiling with DeRozan and Lowry. Ujiri knew that. So, even if Kawhi only stayed a year (which obviously proved to be the case), that deal was a no-brainer. Winning a title only solidified that.
This is Ujiri’s chance to really flex his front-office muscles. The Kawhi trade was a power clean for the ages. A quick, intense move that led to a title. If he can raise the bar all the way to the top again, it’ll be more like a squat.
The Raptors may be on the verge of the kind of descent they haven’t felt in a while. But Ujiri is as good a bet as any executive to lift them back up.
How Raptors coach Nick Nurse is paying it forward with fashion | The Star
Some moments in a person’s life call for a really great suit — an important job interview, a wedding and when they lead the Toronto Raptors to their first NBA championship, of course. Raptors head coach Nick Nurse knows a thing or two about the latter, and through his work with Moores Suit Drive, he’s making sure more people can confidently tackle the former.
“The Moores Suit Drive is an important event that gives people a chance to get dressed for a job interview and, hopefully, put a pep in their step, make them feel good and help them present their best selves,” Nurse said when we spoke at Moores’s flagship store. He was there to personally donate a handful of lightly used suits, including a few that were worn during Raptors playoff games. Talk about a lucky charm.
This is the Canadian suit mecca’s 10th year hosting the Moores Annual Suit Drive, a national cause that collects gently used men’s and women’s professional attire like suits, shirts, jackets, ties, belts and shoes that are then distributed to thousands of men and women in an effort to empower them to enter or re-enter the workforce and approach job interviews with confidence. Moores partners with more than 60 non-profit and recipient organizations nationwide to distribute the donations. Canadians can donate suits or other professional clothing items at all 126 Moores store locations across the country until July 31 and receive a 50 per cent off coupon in return.
Nurse, who coaches around 100 basketball games a year, says a great-fitting suit gives him an instant boost of self-esteem. “It gives me a little more ‘swagger,’” the Raptors coach shared with air quotes and a grin. “And sometimes I need the right blend of feeling really confident about my job while not overdoing it when I’m out on the court.”
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