How would everything look around the Toronto Raptors, the Eastern Conference, or even the NBA if they weren’t one of the most injured teams in the league?
Let’s just say, “different.”
It’s a relevant question as the season shifts gears from “early” to “mid” with the second half rapidly coming up on the horizon.
Pretending the injury plague hadn’t descended on the club from the last day of pre-season when Patrick McCaw’s knee became an issue and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson had a groin pull to now, when the Raptors have played the past two games minus four of their top seven players, is a fool’s errand.
You can’t just wish away 138 man games lost to injury, the third-highest total in the NBA.
As the always colourful Sam Mitchell used to say, “if wishes and buts were candies and nuts, we’d all have a Merry Christmas” (his version may have been a bit more colourful than that).
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But while assessing where the Raptors are – or are trending – with the NBA’s Feb. 6 trade deadline less than a month away, it’s worthwhile to note what’s happened while they’ve been so miserably short-handed.
As an aside: Broad hints about the pending availability of Norman Powell (shoulder); Marc Gasol (hamstring) and Pascal Siakam (groin) – who all went down in the Dec. 18 massacre in Detroit – are getting dropped more regularly.
All three — who represent the Raptors’ leading scorer (Siakam); their top scorer off the bench (Powell) and their best defender and secondary passer (Gasol) — have been working out regularly.
Sources told Sportsnet that Siakam is expected to be cleared for practice Friday or Saturday and Gasol told me in Brooklyn on the weekend that he’s at a stage where the training staff is holding him back – in other words, he feels good, but precautions are being taken. Meanwhile, “soon” has been the adverb attached to Powell’s return for a week now.
The cavalry is coming, although in classic Raptors fashion, Fred VanVleet (hamstring) is now in limbo regarding how long he might be out.
What will the Raptors look like if – and hopefully when – this club can have a sustained run of complete health?
They could look very good.
The other day, Nathan Currier, who runs the data site Man-Games Lost, posted a tantalizing bit of information.
Not only have the Raptors been one of the most heavily hit teams in terms of the volume of injuries, the calibre of those who have missed games has been even more dire.
As of Monday – the most recent data available – the Raptors “led” the NBA in “WinShares lost” to injury at 6.41.
Interpreted narrowly, this suggests that had the Raptors’ season been largely injury free (the San Antonio Spurs, whom Toronto hosts on Sunday, had lost just 14 man games to injury) their record might be more like 31-7, rather than 25-14.
That’s the difference between being in fourth place in the East and in a dog fight to maintain home-court advantage for the first round and pushing the Milwaukee Bucks for the best record in the NBA.
Now, remember former Raptors head coach Sam Mitchell’s pearls of wisdom. The world, or the NBA, doesn’t work that way.
Other teams have played short-handed this season, too (interestingly, Boston is second to the Raptors in WinShares lost with 5.7) and if the Raptors were healthy would Terence Davis have gone off for 23 points, 11 rebounds and five assists – the game of his life to this point – in the win Wednesday against Charlotte?
Almost certainly not, and there is no guarantee anyone who would have played his minutes would have been as productive. Maybe the Raptors lose in overtime.
But the point is, it’s not a stretch to argue with confidence that the Raptors are a significantly better team than their record shows and might have more than a puncher’s chance to make a spirited post-Kawhi Leonard title defence.
Perhaps there is no indicator more important or impressive than the steadiness of their defensive effort.
The Raptors have had one stretch of the season when they haven’t been an elite or near-elite defensive team – that would be in Games 1 through 8 when they went 6-2 and included the game against New Orleans when Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka were hurt the same night, missing the next 10 and 11 games, respectively, and beginning the parade to the injured list.
At the time, Toronto ranked 10th in the NBA in defensive rating – good but not great. The Raptors weathered the next stretch without Lowry and Ibaka spectacularly; going 9-2 and pushing their overall mark to 15-4, gaining attention league-wide for feverish efforts in wins over the Lakers, Trail Blazers and Jazz, among others.
Over that period, it was the Raptors’ defence that ticked up as their defensive rating was 101.9 during that stretch, or third-best in the league.
At that point, the Raptors could also boast some impressive offensive numbers – including a True Shooting mark (accounting for three-point shooting and free throws made) of 58.2 per cent, trailing only Miami, Houston and Milwaukee. They were shooting 40.2 per cent from three and led the NBA in that bell-weather category. They were fifth overall, offensively.
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But perhaps the most encouraging aspect of the Raptors herky-jerky season has been what happened next, and in particular the current 11-game stretch they’ve had without Powell, Gasol, Siakam and – for the past two games – VanVleet.
Their offence has predictably begun to show signs of wear and tear – since Dec. 19, the Raptors are 19th in three-point percentage, 21st in True Shooting percentage and 18th in offensive rating. You can only play lineups featuring McCaw and Stanley Johnson for so long and not feel the pinch.
But impressively, the Raptors have remained one of the best defensive teams in the league. Even while playing without four of their best defenders, Toronto is fourth in points allowed, fourth in opponent’s turnovers; sixth in opponents field-goal percentage and fifth in overall defensive rating over its past 11.
It speaks to the schemes that Raptors head coach Nick Nurse has felt comfortable rolling out; the effort level of the club’s role players and the determination to maintain that effort, even in the face of some horrific offensive nights – that the Raptors still had a chance to win in Miami while shooting 31.5 per cent from the floor as an example.
For those looking for silver linings to the Raptors’ injury plague, it’s a heck of a place to start.
There is a reason Toronto owns a fairly middling (though impressive give the circumstances) 6-5 record without Siakam et al or 10-9 since Lowry came back on Dec. 3.
The level of competition is part of it – even healthy, a schedule featuring multiple dates with the Heat and Celtics as well as visits with Houston, Philadelphia and the Clippers, among others – spells trouble.
But a bigger reason is that playing long stretches without its best offensive players or its top offensive players playing together has taken a toll on a team that was still figuring out how to backfill after the departures of Leonard and Danny Green.
But what hasn’t wavered has been a commitment and ability to playing upper-echelon defence, no matter who is on the floor.
No team will be adding more quality offensive (and defensive) weapons to its lineup than the Raptors in the coming weeks.
Trends are positive.
The schedule turns in their favour – according to Tankathon.com, the Raptors have the third-easiest remaining schedule in the league over the course of the season’s final 44 games.
What was once a team where depth was perceived as a problem will shortly have a rotation that could run 11 deep.
Once the offence regains its footing and presuming the defence remains among the very best in the league, the Raptors will have the ingredients of a team that should at the very least be respected, and perhaps feared.
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