The Toronto Raptors are the best show in basketball right now, and Tyler Ennis was very close to being part of it.
It would have made him the first kid raised on the Raptors to play for Canada’s NBA team. All that needed to happen was for the Phoenix Suns to let the Brampton-born point guard slide past them with the No.18 pick in the 2014 NBA Draft. All indications were that if Ennis had been available at No. 20, Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri would have made the Syracuse University product the first Canadian drafted by the Raptors.
But the Suns weren’t interested in any feel-good stories. They decided to test how badly the Raptors wanted Ennis and took him with the No. 18 pick. Phoenix then got on the phone and tried to extract the Raptors’ 20th pick as well as Toronto’s No. 1 pick in the 2016 draft the Raptors got from the New York Knicks in exchange for Andrea Bargnani in the summer of 2013.
That was deemed too high a price and the Raptors made their bold bid on unknown Brazilian teenager Bruno Caboclo, and Ennis began life in the desert.
Monday marks his first visit to Toronto as an NBA player. He spent Sunday with family and friends, which was wise because if form holds they won’t see him on the floor.
Getting playing time as a rookie point guard in the NBA is difficult anywhere, but Phoenix might be the most point-guard heavy lineup in the Association. They already had returning starters Goran Dragic and Eric Bledsoe, the latter who they signed to a five-year, $70-million contract after a prolonged negotiation. In the meantime they drafted Ennis and then signed Isaiah Thomas from Sacramento to a four-year deal worth $27 million in July.
Not surprisingly, the odd man out most nights has been Ennis, who has appeared in just two games so far this season for a total of 18 minutes.
"Not playing is obviously not something that anyone wants to do, but knowing that I’m going to have my chance, I just have to be patient," he said in an interview Sunday. "We have three different types of point guards on our team so I try to take a little something from each of them and try to put them in my game while still playing the way I want to play. Every day I get to watch an all-star point guard, whether it’s on my team or the team we’re playing, so I watch them to see how they got to where they are."
He can take comfort in knowing that he’s not the first Canadian rookie point guard to go through a similar situation; Cory Joseph appeared in less than half of the San Antonio Spurs’ games in his rookie season in 2011-12, averaging only nine minutes per outing.
In particular, Ennis isn’t the first Canadian rookie point guard to deal with it in Phoenix.
When Steve Nash was drafted 15th overall by the Suns in 1996, Phoenix already had three-time all-star Kevin Johnson as their point guard and then went out and acquired Jason Kidd, who was just two seasons into his Hall of Fame career. Nash barely got to play.
Former Canadian men’s national team coach Steve Konchalski remembers calling Nash in the midst of the 1996-97 season and expecting to hear a rookie frustrated because he couldn’t get on the floor. Instead, he heard a professional figuring out how to make the best of his situation.
"Practices are my games," Nash told Konchalski. "I have the opportunity to play against two of the best point guards in the NBA every day in practice and I have to get ready to practise against them like it’s a game, every single practice. If I do that, I’m going to eventually get where I’m going to go."
Similarly, Ennis is taking the long view. He leaves the arena after games as tired as if he’d played thanks to pre-game conditioning work or post-game shooting sessions. He’s in the habit of coming back to the arena to put in extra work with the Suns’ player development staff.
His confidence was bolstered by a two-game stint with the Bakersfield Jam of the NBA Development League, a move the Suns made to get Ennis some game conditioning in advance of a six-game road swing that finishes at the Air Canada Centre.
Ennis showed no rust as he averaged 22 points, 7.5 assists and two steals over two games, while shooting 51 percent from the floor and 44 percent from deep.
"It was fun to get back out there," he said. "I hadn’t played a game in months so it was good to get out there and see what you have to work on still, see if what you’re working on is working and just show everyone you still got it."
Off the court Ennis is adjusting as well. His older brother, Brandon, is living with him in Phoenix to help keep him company.
He’s avoided temptations that might come with being guaranteed $3.25 million over the first two years of his NBA career. His only splurge so far has been a Range Rover, but he needed a car so he could justify treating himself.
"I don’t look at my bank account," he says. "As long as I know it’s there, that’s good enough for me. Maintaining a budget is what I focus on. … I kind of lived on the way I’ve lived before. As far as buying stuff, I think I’ve been pretty good about spending money so far."
"It’s a lot different than college," he says. "In college you have a room mate, you have someone from the team you’re always with and in the NBA you’re going to be by yourself a lot, so you want someone you’re comfortable with around, so you can go home after a game and you don’t have to sit on your phone or sit alone and talk to yourself."
Had he ended up in Toronto, his situation wouldn’t have been all that different as the Raptors’ backcourt is deep this season as well. One opportunity would have been closer to home, the other means he gets to go to work in flip-flops. In either case, it is up to him to use his time between games to make sure he’s ready when his number gets called.