TORONTO — Midway through the third quarter of the Toronto Raptors’ hard-fought 114-109 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday, Toronto was running a little simple pick-and-roll action at the arc. Pascal Siakam first made a dribble handoff to Gary Trent Jr., who was coming left to right before he reversed course giving Siakam time to slip past a double-team that was heading Trent’s way and allowed Trent to get a pass off to Siakam to the middle of the key.
This attracted four different 76ers’ attention to Siakam with Tobias Harris, in particular, stepping up trying to thwart any scoring opportunity from the Raptors star. That ended up leaving a cutting D.J. Wilson – who was actually retreating to the three-point line until he recognized Harris had stepped up, thus exposing the baseline – for an easy dunk.
A couple minutes later, Siakam forced a turnover and it was Wilson, a six-foot-10 big man, who went from around a step inside the free-throw line to ahead of the pack, as he received an outlet pass from Siakam, made one dribble and stepped through past a scrambling-back Seth Curry for an easy layup, to pull the Raptors within two with 3:06 left to play in the period.
Two simple, well-executed plays from Wilson and two reasons why he’s got Raptors head coach Nick Nurse’s attention.
Of the four 10-day contract signees the Raptors have added for hardship purposes over the last week, Wilson has impressed the most with Nurse making a point to praise the 25-year-old after both games he played with the Raptors.
“I thought D.J. Wilson played really solidly, he was solid, worked hard, took only shots that were kind of there for him,” Nurse told reporters after Toronto’s blowout loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Boxing Day. "I thought he rebounded the ball well and seemed to be in the right place. Fought out there."
“That’s two good games for him, he’s shown some rebound, he’s shown some bounce, some IQ,” Nurse added about Wilson after Tuesday’s defeat to the 76ers. “Right place, right time type of guy. Pretty good.”
A former first-round pick (17th overall) of the Milwaukee Bucks in the 2017 draft out of Michigan, Wilson has never been able to stick anywhere he’s landed. Given the 15-point, eight-rebound, six-of-eight shooting showing he put up on Boxing Day and then the limited nine-point, six-rebound game he had Tuesday – because he didn’t clear protocols in time to play in the first half of that game – glimpses of that first-round talent is readily apparent.
He’s a smart, mobile big with fluid athleticism to his game that makes you think, if given a greater opportunity, he could really help out long-term with this Raptors team, which lacks a true centre outside of Khem Birch.
The issue, however, is he's only on a 10-day contract. Given the fact he appears to have signed his 10-day deal on Dec. 21 — due to expire just as the clock turns midnight Friday on the new year — meaning he may only have one more game to impress, against the Los Angeles Clippers, and that comes with a whole other complication.
Namely: The Raptors are, essentially, fully loaded for the first time all season long.
This is obviously good news for the Raptors themselves, but it’s not a great situation for a player like Wilson and something Nurse acknowledged after his team practised on Thursday.
“He has done a good job. I think that's gonna be a wait-and-see situation,” Nurse said when asked how he might fit into the rotation with the Raptors’ regulars returning. “I think he's played well enough to earn a crack somewhere along the line. However, I don't know where that sits right now. Both Khem and Precious (Achiuwa) are expected to be back, there's Chris (Boucher), there's Pascal, there's a lot of guys, OG (Anunoby), and I don't know.
“If the situation calls for it, I'd love to see him play. If it doesn't then we go with our regular guys, and that's also a possibility.”
Further complicating matters for Wilson is even if the Raptors wanted to sign him for the rest of the season, doing so would be incredibly difficult as he would complicate the team’s luxury tax situation.
As things stand right now, the Raptors are about $268,000 below the tax threshold, and there’s little doubt they want to remain that way for this season. Signing Wilson even to a minimum deal would put the Raptors over the threshold, meaning they would have to find other money-saving opportunities via trade, which could be risky because the Raptors would then likely have to make a deal at or around the deadline — something opposing teams could take advantage of.
For as well as he’s played and as much as it seems the Raptors like him, there’s a chance Friday could be Wilson’s final game as a Raptor – and even then he may not even play.
This is the harsh reality of the NBA.
Of all the players being given an opportunity at the moment with 10-day hardship exception contracts, only a minuscule number of them might actually stick around after those 10 days are up, Wilson included.
That doesn’t mean the effort these 10-day warriors are putting in is fair game to be ridiculed, as Raptors guard Fred VanVleet tweeted about and expanded upon Thursday.
Shoutout all the guys filling in to keep this season going - from unknown guys to the vets I hope everybody take advantage of the opportunity
— Fred VanVleet (@FredVanVleet) December 26, 2021
“That was just moreso based off the conversation that was going around about the product that we were seeing on the floor,” VanVleet said. “All of these people that nobody knows who they are, but these guys are pros in their own right. They’re playing at different levels. A lot of G League, some overseas guys, some old vets, and I felt appreciative that we were able to do that because there was a time when we just shut the whole season down and there was no basketball.
“Obviously, I think we’re definitely in a transitional period of the NBA of kinda figuring out what the next chapter of the league’s gonna look like and for this time being right now, with guys being out and wanting to keep the games going, this is what we’ve got.
“I think all of those guys deserve some credit.”
For men like Wilson who are still out there chasing the impossible dream of playing in the world’s greatest basketball league, seeing so many get a shot has been a shining silver lining in what has been a deluge of negative COVID-related news that has seemingly held the NBA hostage for the last couple weeks.
That is something for us to be grateful for.
