After losing to the Brooklyn Nets in the first round of the 2014 NBA playoffs, the Toronto Raptors entered the off-season in search of improvement in a couple of different areas.
Joe Johnson’s size and strength had proven to be too much for the Raptors to handle over the course of the seven-game series. A gritty defender was needed to fill that void. But more importantly, general manager Masai Ujiri needed to add some scoring punch. As good as the Raptors were defensively last season, the club struggled to put the ball in the bucket at times, too often relying on one of Kyle Lowry or DeMar DeRozan to bail them out.
Enter Lou Williams.
Ujiri was able to orchestrate a deal with the Atlanta Hawks that landed him one of the premiere second-unit scorers in the entire Association, but it came with an asterisk. Could Williams return to the form that he had shown earlier in his career—before two quiet seasons in which he’d been sidetracked by a knee injury and the resulting surgery?
“It was a big shot in the arm for us, once we made the trade,” said head coach Dwane Casey of the Williams acquisition. “We’re one of the top teams in the East and he’s responsible for a lot of that. On a lot of nights we didn’t have anything going offensively and he was there.”
Casey believes teams were caught off-guard in the early part of the 2014-15 campaign, not expecting Williams to be as quick or as effective as he proved.
And as the season wore on, Williams’ confidence grew as much as his contributions. Even late in the year, with Lowry sidelined with a wonky back, the skinny guard from Georgia found new ways to raise his game.
“He came in … while Kyle was out and was huge for us,” said Casey. “He kind of grew into the role reluctantly, but did a good job. His best position, probably, is guarding the point guard at the guard position. He has the speed and quickness to stay in front. That was a gift for us.”
But at the end of the day, Williams is a shot-taker and a shot-maker, and it’s his scoring prowess that has him poised to potentially win his first-ever Sixth Man of the Year award.
“Yeah, it’d be an accomplishment, [but] it’s not something I really rally for,” said Williams. “We’ll see what happens. James Harden won it the year I was the runner-up, and he was damn near a starter, so I don’t know.”
Teammate Amir Johnson was a bit more certain. “[Williams] has been incredible for us,” he said. “He’s a flat-out scorer. In my eyes he deserves the Sixth Man award.”
Johnson knows what he’s talking about: His career began and was rooted in a reserve role before he was thrust into the starting line up in Toronto.
“You’ve gotta be ready, automatically, on a dime,” he said. “You never know when you’re going to get in. You just have to be ready and bring that same type of energy and that play, every game.
“If our energy is down—if it’s low—Lou comes in and gives us energy on the floor.”
Williams seemed indifferent when speaking further about the possibility of receiving the honour, but that may have been rooted in the awkwardness of talking about yourself and coming across as someone who is campaigning. He chose, instead, to look at his consideration as yet another positive for the Raptors overall.
“It would be just one more thing for this team to accomplish this year,” he said. “Kyle was able to be an all star for the first time this year, we just tied the franchise record [for wins in a single season] and we’ve clinched home court, so if [winning Sixth Man] happens, it will be something else that we can notch onto our belt.”