TORONTO — Expect big things to come from smaller-looking Toronto Raptors lineups this season.
Blessed with a malleable roster with many players who can play multiple positions, Raptors head coach Nick Nurse is hinting at the possibility of the team playing pretty small this season.
“…Kyle [Lowry] and Fred [VanVleet] are gonna play heavy minutes at those two positions, [Norman Powell’s] probably gonna play a lot more three than two this year just because of the configuration of who we are, which is fine,” Nurse said after the Raptors finished practice Wednesday. “OG is probably gonna bump up to other positions as well.”
With 15 of the 20 players on the Raptors’ training camp roster you could reasonably consider to be either guards or wing players, playing small would make sense for the Raptors from a strictly personnel point of view, but there’s one thing in saying you’re going to play small and another thing entirely in being able to do it well.
However, in that regard, the Raptors may be able to do it.
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Toronto boasts a flexible roster, particularly among some of its core guards. So while it may look like this is a team that’s giving up size, from Nurse’s perspective, they won’t be in practice all that much.
“…I never really feel small,” Nurse said. “We don’t feel small because Fred and Kyle play so big, so that’s one thing. And I would imagine one of those guys probably shifts to part of the second unit. So, again, I think either Fred or Kyle can guard most twos in this league — and even threes — so I’m not overly concerned.”
The same can be said of a player like Powell, who can defend shooting guards and small forwards, and Anunoby, who we’ve seen play centre before and we know can guard all five positions on the court.
The Raptors can go small — and may have no choice but to do so with some of the standouts we’ve seen in the pre-season so far.
Nurse has been particularly impressed with newcomers Malachi Flynn and DeAndre’ Bembry so far and sounds like he wants to find a spot in the rotation for them. This means the team will likely have to play smaller than it has in the past to make room for them in Nurse’s rotation and, as he said, that not everyone on the roster will benefit from as much burn as, perhaps, promised.
“I’m not going to be able to for all those guys, that’s for sure,” Nurse said of finding minutes for all his guards and wing players. “I think that I’m continuing to evaluate it and I probably have to tinker around a little bit.
“You know, I would say that two guys we didn’t know at all have played very well in Flynn and Bembry. They’ve knocked on the door here for sure just because they’ve played so well. And it’s just one of those situations where you can’t play everybody.”
This is an interesting wrinkle coming Nurse’s way with Toronto’s regular season beginning in exactly one week as he was indicating before that he wanted more certainty about the No. 8 or 9 spot of the rotation and Matt Thomas looking like the front-runner. Could Flynn and Bembry’s strong play be making Nurse think twice about Thomas in the spot now? Could it possibly return to a platoon spot in the rotation again?
With just one more pre-season game to play, chances are Nurse will continue to experiment even when the games become real.
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Quick dribbles
• Raptors all-star Pascal Siakam recently debuted a new YouTube channel he’ll be running in partnership with Red Bull.
In his first video, Siakam posted the first a multi-part mini-documentary series going inside his off-season training and how he dealt with the criticism that was levied against him after Toronto was eliminated from the playoffs last season.
“I think we’re in an era where we can all decide to control what we put out there,” said Siakam Wednesday. “It’s the beauty of having resources.
“This summer I just had the opportunity to team up with Red Bull and just knowing about them, I know that content creation is one of the things they do the best. Once this opportunity came, that I was going to partner with them, it was one of the first things I thought. I love YouTube, I love watching videos and content. So just, finding ways to create your own content to put out. It was a no-brainer. I thought it was a perfect opportunity to start. I’ve always wanted to start for a while and it was just the perfect opportunity. The partnership with Red Bull just made it 100 per cent easy.”
• Nurse isn’t the only Raptor who’s been impressed with the play of Flynn and Bembry so far. Toronto centre Alex Len also had some kind words for his teammates Wednesday.
“He looked amazing in the first two games,” Len said of Flynn. “He wasn’t nervous. The first play, where he missed the layup, but other than that he didn’t have no nerves. He looked comfortable out there. You can tell, he’s just a baller. When he gets out there, he knows what he’s doing.”
And regarding Bembry: “This is the perfect system for him. He’s going to be flying around on defence getting stops, getting hands on the ball. I think it’s a perfect fit for him. I think that’s what Coach asks from him. He’ll get stops, go and get steals, get on the break. His jump shot is improving. Perfect system for him.”
• Patrick McCaw has yet to play a pre-season game and, according to Nurse, it’s unclear when he’ll actually suit up for the Raptors.
“He’s out there on the court and it’s just not quite time to let him fully engage and go full-speed activities in the game,” said Nurse. “I don’t really have a timetable but hopefully it’s not too long away.
“You know how much I value him and how much I like him, and we need him. So I hope it’s short and we can get him out there.”
McCaw had to leave the bubble in August to get a benign mass removed from his left knee and hasn’t played a game since the NBA’s COVID-19-mandated season suspension in March.
• On Tuesday, the Raptors announced that a limited number of fans would be allowed in Amalie Arena for their Tampa, Fla., home games.
Nurse sounds confident that this will go off without a hitch.
“Like all of us, we keep the safe part of it first and foremost, right? And then we’re just confident that they are taking all the measures and protocols and things that need to be done to make it safe. It’s gotta be done. It’s gotta be done that way.”
• The Raptors got their first taste of their new temporary practice facility and, as Nurse described it the place “blew my expectations away.”
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