VANCOUVER—Jared Sullinger stood in a nearly empty locker room, singing to himself. “You don’t have to call, it’s okaaaaaaay girl,” he sang as he gathered his belongings, firing off a few lines from one of Usher’s old singles.
Sullinger almost always seems to be in a good mood, but in this case it’s easy to see why: the 24-year-old Toronto Raptors power forward had looked sharp on the night in his debut with his new team, who’d earned a 97–93 win over the Golden State Warriors.
It was a meaningless exhibition game, of course, but that hardly mattered. Even while both teams showed a bit of expected pre-season rust, the sold-out crowd of 19,000 was entertained, and the Raptors showed some promise ahead of a new season surrounded by enormous expectations.
Both the Raptors and Warriors were making their first on-court appearance of the pre-season following milestone years: Last season, Toronto reached the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in franchise history, while the Golden State Warriors posted the best regular-season record in NBA history (73-9), only to lose in the Finals to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Sullinger said afterwards that he “felt great,” and made it clear that he’d signed with Toronto because he wants to win.
The native of Columbus, Ohio, led his team in minutes played and rebounds (10), and made his physical presence felt—after an off-season in which he dropped 30 pounds—on both ends of the floor.
The game also featured the debuts of newcomers like Pascal Siakam and Jakob Poetl—Siakam, especially, impressed with his nine points and eight rebounds over 21 minutes of play. But the bigger storyline was the showing of small forward DeMarre Carroll, whose recurring knee injury last season was an unexpected blow to the team.
“It was great,” said Carroll, who led the Raptors with 14 points and did an admirable job matched up against Kevin Durant. “Just a great feeling just to be back out there, play the game.”
Asked how he felt physically, Caroll explained that while he’s still progressing—in the fourth quarter he sat on the bench with his right knee wrapped in ice—he’s getting close to 100 per cent.
“I can say right now that I feel way better than I did any time last year,” he said, calling the pre-season “a learning process.”
For the Warriors, the game was a learning process, too. The team is adjusting to the addition of one of basketball’s biggest luminaries; Durant, who made his first on-court appearance in a Golden State jersey, is learning to fit in on an already offensively dominant team. The 28-year-old small forward, who began his career in the Pacific Northwest before the Seattle SuperSonics, who drafted him in 2007, relocated to Oklahoma City, got his share of boos, though he earned some support, too—his dunk in the first quarter resulted in a thunderous round of cheers from the crowd.
“I heard more cheers than boos, to be honest,” Durant said post-game when asked about his reception.
He explained that he’d been so “locked in” that he hadn’t taken in much of what was going on in the crowd. His response was diplomatic: everybody who comes to a basketball game is a fan of the sport, he said, and their support for the game itself is more important than whether or not he is met with boos.
“As long as everybody is supporting the game of basketball, that’s cool with me,” Durant explained.
For the Raptors, who linked arms during the playing of both national anthems—a display meant to show solidarity in the face of social injustice, as DeMar DeRozan later explained—the pre-season continues on Monday, when the team will host the Denver Nuggets in Calgary.
It’s early days, and the team is still figuring it out, but so far, so good.
“The chemistry feels good,” Carroll said, adding some praise for Sullinger. “Jared, you know, he’s so smart. He’d fit in anywhere on the court, so the biggest thing for us is just trying to get all the way into the best shape we can, and just keep trying to grind the pre-season.”