On Christmas Day Toronto Raptors first-round draft pick Bruno Caboclo was given the most unexpected of gifts, a demotion to the NBA Development League with the Fort Wayne Mad Ants.
At first glance, this seems like a slap in the face to Caboclo, but it’s important to remember that he is only 19 years old and isn’t anywhere close to being able to contribute meaningful minutes for an NBA club yet – particularly one as talented and deep as the Raptors have proven to be this season.
As such, sending the Brazilian teenager down to the D-League is a move that makes sense on a lot of levels, but mostly as an opportunity to give him real game experience and help grow his skills against live competition.
On Saturday, Caboclo made his debut with the Mad Ants against the Iowa Energy to the tune of 13 points, seven rebounds and two blocked shots. But there was more to be gleaned from his first time out on a D-League floor than just what the boxscore can tell you..
He’s a little trigger happy: Although he didn’t start, Caboclo was able to put up a respectable 13 points. Not bad, right? Not exactly as he was inefficient, going just 5-for-14 from the field, including 1-of-5 from distance.
A big positive of Caboclo has been his unwavering confidence, however, that confidence can be a double-edged blade if his game is off a little, as it was Saturday, leading to a lot of shots being put up without a thought of surveying the situation.
A big part of the Raptors’ offence is ball movement, so he’s probably going to have to get out of this apparent trigger-happy mentality he has.
He needs to add a lot more strength: Just by looking at Caboclo it’s apparent that he needs to add muscle, but on Saturday it was made clear just how much he’ll need: a lot. Despite what the seven rebounds might indicate, Caboclo was consistently pushed around and that got himself into a lot of trouble.
The best example of this is the way in which Energy guard Damien Wilkens completely dominated Caboclo physically in their matchup. The fourth quarter, in particular, stands out as Caboclo picked up three fouls in the span of about three possessions because he was unable to prevent Wilkens from just powering past him without fouling.
Coaching may hold back his development: A major problem with the D-League is the fact that there aren’t enough teams in the league to serve as a true minor league for each NBA club. The Raptors are one of 13 NBA teams without a D-League affiliate of their own and as such, they’re forced to share the Mad Ants with 12 other teams.
This is a big concern because it means the coaching philosophy being taught by Dwane Casey and his staff won’t necessarily be reflected by the Fort Wayne staff and could end up stunting Caboclo’s development.
It’s obviously very early and there’s always the chance that Toronto could recall him, but what’s important for both him and the Raptors is steady growth and that begins and ends with good coaching.
Bruno Mania is real: The D-League conveniently streams almost all of their games live on Youtube, making it very easy should you want to follow Caboclo’s progress – and by the looks of things people do want to follow his progress.
Even though pretty much every D-League games is free to watch that doesn’t exactly mean people are watching it. Thus, it was very surprising to see over 1,500 people at one point tuning in to catch a glimpse of Caboclo actually playing basketball even though Canada was playing in the World Junior Hockey Championship at the exact same time. Pretty crazy.