When the Toronto Raptors signed Jonas Valanciunas to a four-year contract extension over the summer, they were rolling the dice on the centre continuing to improve on the court.
Now in his fourth NBA season, the 23-year-old has not disappointed, posting career-high averages of 14.6 points and 10.2 rebounds on 61 per cent shooting from the floor in the early stages of 2015-16.
According to Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri, who joined Sportsnet 590 The FAN’s Dean Blundell & Co. on Thursday, Valanciunas still has room to grow thanks to his personality and work ethic.
“He’s been fantastic,” Ujiri said. “He’s growing as a player like we thought. He’s still going to go through growing pains, but when you have a player like that, everyone wants him to be like a certain player overnight. If you see Jonas play like this now, just imagine what he’ll be.
“He loves basketball, he loves to work hard. He’ll play for his national team, he’ll workout with Hakeem [Olajuwon] or whomever you want him to work with. He’s an unbelieveable person, unbelievable player. You think about what he’s doing now and then think about what he’s going to do in two years. He’s still a young player, he’s still going to struggle at times but he’s learning now.”
Ujiri also discussed some of the other youngsters on the roster and how the team’s new Development League affiliate, Raptors 905, will expedite their growing processes.
“We have a lot of [developing] players on our roster: Bruno [Caboclo], Delon Wright and even Anthony Bennett,” Ujiri said. “That kind of young talent you hope will progress when you give them time to develop. Now that we have a D-League team I think it is going to be phenomenal for us.
“At some point all of them will be down there. Norm [Powell], Wright, Lucas Nogueira, Bruno. They’ll all figure it out down there, that’s the essence of having that team. It’s going to be dicey in the beginning because of some of our injuries. When they are not playing for us, the best way for us to develop them will be having them play good minutes and learning on 905.”
The GM went on to explain DeMarre Carroll‘s impact and some of the justification behind offering Terrence Ross his recent extension. You can listen to the interview in its entirety here.
