For the Raptors to thrive, Pascal Siakam needs to shine

The Toronto Raptors' best player is Pascal Siakam.

He’s twice been named to an All-NBA team, he’s twice been an all-star, and was one as recently as last season when he missed being named to an All-NBA team for a third time by a handful of votes.

A year ago he led the Raptors in scoring and was second in rebounds and assists, while leading the NBA in minutes per game.

It’s all worth mentioning because it hasn’t been mentioned all that often in the strange build-up to the Raptors 2023-24 season. A lot of conversation regarding Siakam has been about what happened last season and what will happen in the future, given the 29-year-old is in the final year of his contract, but not all that much about what is happening now.

There’s been talk, understandably, about Scottie Barnes who everyone attached to the club hopes will one day be an all-star and about the benefit having Jakob Poeltl for a full season should provide, giving the Raptors finished 15-9 with him as a starter after he was acquired at the trade deadline. It’s fun to consider what incoming point guard Dennis Schroder might have to offer and — if we’re being really optimistic — what veteran sharpshooter Otto Porter Jr. could provide if he can stay healthy after an eight-game season a year ago.

But it’s a massive stretch to think the Raptors can improve on their 41-41 season from last year without another big year from Siakam, who was one of five players in the NBA to average at least 25 points, seven rebounds and five assists last season. The other four are all previous MVP award winners or — in the case of Luka Doncic — someone who many think will win one eventually.

By the lofty standards of NBA stardom is Siakam a franchise-changing player who can lift a team on his shoulders? Maybe not, but he is the closest thing the Raptors have to one at the moment, and they will be lost without him.

So pardon Siakam if he surveys the landscape and hardly feels like the world has somehow turned upside down because former head coach Nick Nurse was fired and replaced by Darko Rajakovic.

The latter has earned good marks early for running a sharp, organized training camp and presenting his philosophies in crisp, digestible form. He’s preaching a more egalitarian approach on offence and wants Barnes to have the ball in his hands more than in his first two seasons.

Between that and the fact that the team has not begun to negotiate a contract extension for Siakam, it’s easy to read it all as a shift away from the player who transformed himself from a late first-round pick to an all-star in the space of four seasons, but things change when the ball goes up.

Chances are when the shot clock winds the ball will find its way to the best player on the floor, and more often than not it will be in Siakam’s hands. It’s the way of the world in the NBA.

Siakam knows it too.

“I’m a basketball player. I’m a purist. I’ve always played basketball for the right reasons, which is to win and continue to try to be the best player I can be,” Siakam said earlier this week when asked about any changes Rajakovic is trying to implement and how they might affect him. “That’s always been my main thing as a player. I really don’t care what the system is. If you’re a good player and you know how to play the game, you find a way. I believe that I’m that type of person.

“On the floor, I don’t care what you’re trying to do, the ball finds the best players all the time,” he added. “The game is just going to go into finding the guys that make a difference. So it doesn’t really matter. I’m a player that adapts to everything and I play the right way.”

But there are different ways to arrive at the same place. Rajakovic hopes that instead of players creating advantages off the dribble — or at least by using multiple dribbles against a set defence — they will be set up by a higher volume of cuts and quicker ball movement.

He calls it “0.5 basketball” where whatever the player with the ball is going to do — shoot, drive, or pass — the decision is made within a half-second of their first touch. It’s an idealistic goal, as even rookie centre Christian Koloko, who was at the bottom of the Raptors ladder and near the bottom of the league in terms of seconds per touch, held the ball for an average of 1.2 seconds each time he had it, per NBA.com’s second spectrum play tracker statistics. To be fair, that’s a long way from Doncic, who averaged 6.12 seconds per touch to ‘lead’ the league, but the point is that "0.5 basketball" is a guide, rather than a code.

All that said, Siakam may be on to something. The idea that he was a ball hog who pounded the air out of the ball when he had it seems overblown. He was roughly in the middle of the Raptors' top rotation players as he averaged 3.62 second per touch, well behind Fred VanVleet who averaged 4.84 seconds per touch and just slightly ahead of Barnes. Similarly, Siakam’s 2.82 dribbles per touch were significantly less than VanVleet’s and just ahead of Barnes’ in Toronto, and league-wide placed him well behind fellow high-usage play-making wings such as LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, Giannis Antetokounmpo or Doncic.

So perhaps the idea that Siakam has major adjustments to make — or at least changes that are more drastic than those required of Barnes or anyone else new to Rajakovic’s philosophies — is a bit of a red herring. It’s a new coach and system, but Siakam’s ability to mesh within shouldn’t necessarily be in doubt.

“I think we'll find out once we start playing opponents and get into games and stuff,” Siakam said of how things have felt so far in camp.  “I think it's just a matter of, for me, just continue to play off instincts, which is how I play anyway. I think the more we do it, the more we grow. And when we start playing other people, the more we'll see.”

Rajakovic has liked what he’s seen so far:

“He’s doing a great job,” Rajakovic said of Siakam. “(The system is) actually allowing him to be more efficient. He’s doing a great job of cutting and playing without the ball and spacing and you cannot hide the talent on the floor. He is extremely talented and extremely high-quality player, the ball is always going to find the best players on the court and the way he goes these three days of training camp playing, I’m very proud of him.”

The reality is that as long as Siakam is a Raptor, Rajakovic will need him to be at his best. A big leap from Barnes will help, and a nice step forward from the likes of O.G. Anunoby or Gary Trent Jr. would be a plus. But for the Raptors to thrive, Siakam will need to shine.