Rajakovic deserves recognition for Raptors' playoff push

Erik Spoelstra is NBA royalty. Minted. 

He’s got two rings to prove it, as he led the Miami Heat to the NBA championship in 2011-12 and 2012-13. Having LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh at their respective Hall-of-Fame peaks probably had something to do with that, but Spoelstra also led the Heat to the Finals as a fifth seed in 2019-20 and the seventh seed in 2022-23. 

He’s guided Miami to the playoffs 14 times in 17 years without the benefit of a significant rebuild. He’s trying to do it for the 15^th time in the final days of his 18^th season. He’s done it with different types of teams and different levels of talent. 

The primary question mark around Spoelstra isn’t his coaching chops; it’s how he has been so good for so long and never been recognized as the NBA coach of the year?

Toronto Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic is still trying to build out his NBA resume in his third season as head coach. This is the first time he’s had a chance to compete for a playoff spot. 

It’s what makes this two-game series the Raptors have at home against Spoelstra and the Heat so compelling. The second game, especially. 

The Heat were beaten convincingly enough on Tuesday that they had a team meeting after the game. The Raptors are expecting a response on Thursday. 

“They will be locked in, ready to throw the first punch, I’m sure,” said Raptors big man Sandro Mamukelashvili. 

There aren’t many moments in a regular season when things stay still long enough that you can get a snapshot of a coaching match like this, where two evenly matched, mostly healthy teams are playing important games on proper rest. This is one.

Rajakovic deserves recognition for getting the Raptors this far: on the brink of securing Toronto’s first playoff appearance since 2021-22. Two seasons ago, the Raptors won 25 games and were 25^th defensively. They won 30 games last season and were 17^th defensively. 

The Raptors won their 44^th game on Tuesday against Miami, are sixth defensively and have held the Heat, the second-highest scoring team in the NBA, under 100 points in all three meetings this season. 

The competition for coach of the year is very deep this season, with plenty of examples of teams exceeding expectations (Spurs, Hornets, Pistons, Suns) or meeting their own incredibly high standards (Thunder, Celtics, Nuggets). 

But the Raptors and Rajakovic deserve consideration. 

The job isn’t done, Rajakovic would be the first to tell you. But he’s enjoying digging in with his staff, trying to figure out whatever wrinkles might be coming from Spoelstra and the Heat. 

More pick-and-roll sets featuring Tyler Herro. Starting Norm Powell and Herro together to give the Heat more punch? Going with a double-big lineup, starting Kel’ el Ware alongside Bam Adebayo? 

“This is what you sign up for,” said Rajakovic. “It’s very, very exciting … the path that we had the past two years and this in my third year of coaching here to be in a position to plan, to fight for something, to fight for the playoffs, to fight for seeding, it’s all very, very meaningful.” 

Remarkably, of the two coaches, it’s likely Spoelstra who is under more pressure.

The Heat will have to navigate the Play-In Tournament for the fourth straight season, regardless of whether they can scratch out a win Thursday night. Their loss to the Raptors on Tuesday guaranteed it. The Heat are now 0-3 against the Raptors, and have scored more than 20 points under their season average in all three of their losses to the Raptors.

Defensively, the Heat have fallen apart over the past month, allowing 125.7 points per 100 possessions since a seven-game winning streak came to an end on March 12^th. That puts them 27^th in the NBA over that stretch, ahead of only the Wizards, Grizzlies and Pacers and behind the Jazz and Kings, five teams whose mission is to tank their season and have the best draft lottery odds. 

A typical NBA head coach would be taking molten lava levels of heat – no pun intended – for that kind of disassembly in the final month of the season. 

Somehow, we suspect that Spoelstra will survive ok. A coach with a lesser track record might not. 

Which is why this season and how the Raptors finish is almost disproportionally important for Rajakovic. Even three years in, he remains relatively unproven. Only consistent winning buys security for coaches in the NBA, but the hardest part is staying on the job long enough to build up a track record. 

But the signs are there. How many coaches would build a top-10 defence from a lineup that has featured just one ‘plus’ defender (Scottie Barnes) for most of the season?

Or a mid-pack offence with a lineup featuring neither a lob threat nor more than one proven high-volume three-point shooter after Immanuel Quickley?

How teams perform out of timeouts can be a useful shorthand for coaching acumen. Does a coach have a ready bag of plays to go against a set defence that fits the personnel available? 

For what it’s worth, the Raptors have generated the second-best expected shot value out of time-outs this season. Their actual points per possession is 13th, which is still quite respectable for a team that intentionally uses their defence and transition game to generate so much of their scoring. Doing so since they lack the kind of game-changing offensive hub that some other coaches can rely on. 

And by all accounts, Rajakovic seems to have the people skills nailed. 

“Throughout this whole season, personally, there’s been a lot,” said Raptors big man Sando Mamukelashvili, who has had a career season under Rajakovic and had 11 points and was +23 off the bench on Tuesday. “You go through things mentally, physically … (and) his office is always open, so it’s easy to step in there. A lot of head coaches are a little bit unapproachable, so just having the freedom to step in there and tell him what I feel and what I think I can do, where do I see myself, where does he see me? … I think that helps you through the long run.”

Still, properly evaluating coaches is really hard. There are so many elements they are tasked with overseeing that drawing firm conclusions from the outside looking in is almost a fool’s errand. 

It’s easy to say coaching should be measured by wins, but talent has a lot to do with how many wins a team has. Steve Kerr did remarkably well in Golden State when Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant were in their prime. What’s remaining of the Warriors will scuffle to finish 10^th in the Western Conference this season. 

“There’s a lot of different levels to it,” said Spoelstra when I asked him what goes into evaluating an NBA coach. “There’s communication, leadership, motivation, setting up a program, developing a culture, having consistency to standards every day, acumen, ability to relate, ability to push, to toe the line, like all of it.

"And every single one of us, there’s days when we’re hitting the mark, and then there’s days when we’re missing the mark miserably. That’s the life of a coach, and you’re constantly searching and trying to develop your craft to be able to bring the most out of the locker room. Whatever that potential may be.”

With 79 games down and three to play, including one more against the Heat on Thursday, it’s fair to say that Rajakovic has done an impressive job of getting his team this far – to 44 wins and the cusp of the playoffs. 

But there are still those three games left to play.