All throughout the 2016-17 NBA season we’ll take a look back at the week that was and set up the week to come in Raptorland.
Coming into training camp, Toronto Raptors head coach Dwane Casey had pegged the newly acquired Jared Sullinger as his team’s new starting power forward.
However, after about two and a half quarters of play in the Raptors’ exhibition opener in Vancouver earlier this month, Sullinger exited the game with a left foot injury that the team wasn’t deeming to be all that serious.
In the weeks that followed, through six pre-season games, his injury status changed from a foot problem to something ankle-related and, finally, to Sunday’s announcement that he’ll have a surgical procedure to have a screw inserted into the left metatarsal in his left foot.
Needless to say, Casey and Co. are definitely going to have to re-evaluate things for Wednesday’s opener against the Detroit Pistons and likely longer.
Coming in at just a $5.6 million price tag for the one-year deal he signed this off-season, Sullinger missing time isn’t necessarily the worst thing that could’ve happened to the Raptors. But the timing right at the start of the season— is problematic.
Patterson would probably be the best choice to replace Sullinger in the starting lineup, but Casey has been reticent to put him into that role because he likes the boost he provides the second unit on both ends of the floor.
That leaves a likely choice between DeMarre Carroll or rookie Pascal Siakam, who started the Raptors final four pre-season contests.
Carroll says he’s finally 100 per cent healthy for the first time in his Raptors career so he can certainly fit in at the four should the Raptors want to go with a smaller lineup. However, he is just coming off surgery and no matter how good a player feels in camp and in pre-season, it’s a completely different beast when it comes to the real thing. Carroll’s too important a player for the team to risk throwing him right back into the fire at a position where he will take a lot of contact.
So the most rational candidate to start Wednesday at the four is Siakam. While obviously not ideal, Siakam looked respectable in the pre-season averaging 9.0 points, 4.3 rebounds and 1.0 block per game in 22.0 minutes per contest –relatively good numbers for what Casey and the Raptors need out of the position.
Power forward hasn’t been a focus of the Raptors’ attack in a very long while, so as long as Siakam’s able to set screens, crash the glass and block a shot here and there it should be more than enough.
Whether or not that will result in wins while the Raptors wait for Sullinger to return, however, is up in the air.
And the 15th man is…
After a very competitive battle that saw Drew Crawford, Yanick Moreira and Brady Heslip, in particular, standout, the battle for the Raptors’ 15th spot has been awarded to Fred VanVleet.
As impressive as the others were in flashes, VanVleet was the clear choice, starting two games for the Raptors in the pre-season, including a monster 31-point, five-rebound, five-assist gem against Argentine club San Lorenzo de Almagro.
The injury to sophomore Delon Wright really put the Raptors in a bind as they need a third point guard on the roster, but would’ve been without one until Wright’s estimated return date in December. As a result, while Crawford and Moreira looked quite good in their trial period, that 15th spot was really a battle between Heslip and VanVleet, and given the fact VanVleet is more of a natural point guard having started at that spot for Wichita State for the last three years.
Picking up options
Perhaps a little lost in the wake of the Sullinger news on Sunday was the announcement that the Raptors had picked up the fourth-year rookie scale options on Wright and Bruno Caboclo, as well as the third-year team option on Lucas Nogueira, meaning all three will be with the team at least until the end of next season.
Wright and Nogueira are no-brainers. With Kyle Lowry’s status an unknown at the end of this season, the Raptors will need to keep a point guard around in the event he bounces in free-agency; without Wright Cory Joseph would be the lone PG on the roster. Nogueira, despite having suffered an ankle injury in the pre-season finale, will figure to be a more important piece for the Raptors this season and beyond as they continue to navigate what they have exactly in rookies Siakam and Jakob Poeltl.
Caboclo, on the other hand, is more complicated.
While he is very cheap ($1.3 million this season, $2 million next season), he remains a longer-term investment when it comes to potential contributions to the team.
Last season with Raptors 905, while he did make marked improvements from the beginning of the season to the end, it remained fairly clear that the 21-year old wasn’t ready to make his mark at the NBA-level anytime soon.
From what this move is telling us, is that the Raptors really did think he was two years away from being two years away when they drafted him 20th overall in 2014.