The Toronto Raptors’ magical 2015-16 season did not unfold without challenges, which is worth remembering even as the follow-up edition seems to keep stubbing its toe before it starts.
The club was barely out of training camp last season when DeMarre Carroll, their prized free-agent acquisition, began limping around like a colt with a ginger hoof. He lasted six regular season games before he was shut down with plantar fasciitis. He came back after three games and then banged his knee while playing the Los Angeles Clippers.
Carroll struggled some more before eventually missing nine games with what was announced as a bruise. He struggled some more before eventually missing 41 games after having mid-season knee surgery.
Not the ideal start for a player who was signed for four years and $60 million to be a foundation piece on a playoff team. In the end, Carroll had the worst season of his career since establishing himself as an NBA regular.
And remember Jonas Valanciunas’ issues?
He was well on his way to career-best numbers when he got his left hand tied up in Kobe Bryant’s jersey in Los Angeles. He broke his hand and ended up missing 22 games in various stints. Bryant later signed his cast.
A lot of teams have had seasons derailed by lesser issues than having two starters miss 76 games combined.
But yet the Raptors thrived.
As Toronto gets ready to open the regular season against Detroit on Wednesday night while gunning for their fourth straight playoff appearance and looking to build on a record playoff run that saw them win two games in the Eastern Conference Finals, it’s worth remembering that even a golden season requires it’s share of pot-hole maneuvering.
Monday afternoon in New York the Raptors hit their first official pot hole with free-agent signing Jared Sullinger undergoing surgery to have a screw inserted into the fifth metatarsal in his left foot—the bone above the baby toe—to relieve symptoms that kept him out of all of the Raptors’ pre-season games since he stepped on someone’s foot in Toronto’s first exhibition game in Vancouver.
The club has been understandably vague about how long he’ll be out, but Sullinger missed the last 10 weeks of the 2014-15 season in Boston with a similar issue without surgery. Even if there’s a two-month recovery period from the surgery, it’s hard to imagine Sullinger—who has battled weight and conditioning issues his entire career—being game-ready in any time less than a month after that, given he’s already missed three weeks of training.
Let’s peg his return to action at sometime around the all-star break in mid-February, which would give Toronto two months to incorporate him into their lineup before the playoffs, which is enough time, in other words.
It’s a less than ideal situation, clearly, but even as they rolled to franchise marks in almost every category a year ago, the Raptors dealt with some significant adversity.
Why were they able to get through it so well a year ago?
The Raptors were a deeper team than often recognized, given the amount of focus and attention afforded to LowRozan. James Johnson and Bismack Biyombo were more than capable fort-holders for Raptors head coach Dwane Casey, and Carroll’s extended absence created an opportunity for Norm Powell to make the leap from second-round D-Leaguer to full-on diamond-in-the-rough status.
And while Luis Scola was widely viewed as the place where power forward productivity went to die for most of last season, he missed just six games all year at age 35 and from October to January—a stretch when the Raptors were often missing Carroll and Valanciunas—he shot 42 per cent from three and posted a defensive rating of 104/100 possessions, better than the team average.
Is there reason to believe the Raptors have the depth to manage without Sullinger?
Optimistically you would have to say yes.
There is no reason to expect any kind of slippage from Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, who are still in the heart of their prime and the twin engines that drive the Raptors regardless of who is around them. If they stay healthy it solves a lot of problems.
Valanciunas had a career-year in 2015-16—between his injuries—and at age 24 should be looked upon to carry an even greater load. If Sullinger’s absence and the departure of Biyombo mean more minutes and touches for the big Lithuanian, who only averaged 26 minutes a game a year ago, while emerging as the Raptors’ most efficient offensive player, that could actually help providing he can stay healthy.
It’s likely rookie Pascal Siakam will start in place of Sullinger in an arrangement not all that different from what Casey did with Powell early on last season. Rather than break up his second unit, Casey started Powell for a brief stretch of games in February after Johnson got hurt but limited his minutes to about 15 per night before Powell began to find his feet in March and April. Siakam lacks Sullinger’s offensive savvy but he’s miles ahead athletically and can provide some of the energy Biyombo did. Run in transition, hedge hard on screens and get a hand on every rebound possible—do those things and he can help.
What to do with the rest of those minutes that Sullinger would have been given?
It makes sense that Casey would use Carroll more at the four spot, even though the Raptors are being cautious about his minutes as they try to make sure he’s healthy at the end of the season. If Lucas Nogueira can stay healthy—he’s currently nursing a minor ankle sprain—he has proven productive in properly selected minutes. There is also the opportunity to play more small lineups, with Terrence Ross, Powell and DeRozan on the floor at once with Lowry, which may be the most effective way to space the court around Valanciunas in the post in any case.
Every team wants to emerge from training camp healthy. The Raptors have stumbled at that most basic first hurdle.
But their ability to overcome all manner of hurdles was the key to their success a year ago and getting over, under or around the one posed by Sullinger’s left foot is just the first of many they’ll have to manage if they have any chance of approaching the heights of last spring.