Raptors' Battle earns full time deal but knows there's more work to do

PHILADELPHIA — After playing for three university programs in five years, Jamison Battle is hoping he can play for one NBA team for three seasons, and maybe beyond.

The Toronto Raptors would like nothing more.

There is nothing guaranteed, of course, including Battle’s new contract, a three-year deal that could keep him in a Raptors uniform through the 2026-27 season providing the team keeps Battle on the roster through various guarantee dates.

Still, just having a spot on an NBA roster and a pathway to more is a nice reward for the six-foot-seven wing who has impressed with his jumper and his attitude since coming into the Raptors' orbit last summer.

Step by step. It’s been that way since he was a lightly recruited Minnesota high school star. For Battle just earning a standard NBA contract — which was announced Friday as a trickle-down benefit of the Raptors opening up two roster spots in the wake of the trades they made at the deadline — has been a lengthy and drawn-out process.

Even though he played on a highly rated AAU program that had a number of future NBA players on the roster and played against top NBA draft picks like Oklahoma City Thunder centre Chet Holmgren and Orlando Magic guard Jalen Suggs in high school, it wasn’t until his sophomore year of college that Battle began to believe playing in the NBA was a possibility.

“It was during the COVID quarantine period (in 2020-21) when I really put the work in and at that point I knew, like, ‘all right, you’ve put the time in, you put the work in, there’s no reason I shouldn’t have this confidence’, and that sophomore year was one of my best years… so from that point on it (playing in the NBA) was kind of in the back of my head,” Battle said as the Raptors were getting ready to close out their three-game, post-trade deadline road trip in Philadelphia on Tuesday night.

Battle's own road has been a winding one. He spent two years in the Atlantic-10 Conference playing at George Washington University before transferring back home to play in the Big-10 for a rebuilding University of Minnesota program. He then finished his college career playing for Ohio State, taking advantage of the extra year of eligibility available to him because his sophomore season was interrupted by the pandemic.

He went undrafted as a 23-year-old fifth-year senior before joining the Raptors for Summer League in Las Vegas in July. He played well enough in that environment (shooting 60 per cent on threes) to earn an exhibit-10 contract — basically a training camp invitation with a cash bonus if he stayed with the Raptors G-league team afterwards — and was promising enough in training camp (shooting 57.1 per cent in five exhibition games) to earn a two-way contract, a deal with allowed him to flow between the G-League and the NBA roster.

But Battle continued to prove himself and took good advantage of the minutes that opened when the Raptors were beset by a slew of injuries early in the season. He has knocked down 42.1 per cent of his threes in sporadic minutes over 37 games with the Raptors and shown a more diversified skill set in the G-League with Raptors 905, averaging 12.6 points and 4.3 rebounds in 29 minutes while continuing to shoot threes at an impressive rate — 57.7 per cent on nearly five attempts per game.

Battle's ability to take advantage of the opportunities he has been given and his steadiness during all the moments in between has endeared him to the Raptors coaching staff.

“First of all, he is a player that's a proven shooter. That's the first skill that we really liked. But more than that, from day one, you could just see his determination. You could see it in his eyes, the way he was communicating with the coaches, trying to learn, trying to soak any knowledge that he can,” Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic said. “And we saw a lot of growth with him during the season. Is that with his body? Is that with his finishing around the rim? Constant improvement on the defensive end. Every time when he was on assignment with 905 he was taking it very seriously. He's a player that is very professional and all of those traits together, that's the reason we like him so much.”

Most NBA teams are desperate for more shooting and the Raptors are no different, having ranked 27th in the league in three-pointers made the last two seasons and 29th so far this season. For several years running the Raptors have tried to add to their shooting by finding talent in Europe (or via 10-day contracts or as veteran free agents), but haven’t had much success.

The hope is Battle can be that rare find.

They haven’t left it to chance, however. Even though Battle converted 43.4 per cent of his threes at OSU last year he has worked closely with assistant coach Mery Andrade this season to fine-tune his technique. That includes shuffling his feet to move his body to adjust for poor passes so he can make the catch in a ready-to-shoot position (versus reaching for the ball and having to regather) and drilling down into his footwork to make sure he’s on balance when he does let it fly. In addition, Battle has dug into his responsibilities as a defender and rebounder, while adding some craft as a ball-handler and movement shooter to take advantage when teams drive him off the three-point line, which will happen more often as he figures more prominently in opposing team’s scouting reports.

“He just needs to stay on the same path,” Rajakovic said. “He cannot start feeling comfortable in whatever sense. He just needs to continue to bring that everyday grind and intensity and help his teammates any way he can.”

Battle’s up for the challenge. The first phone call he made when he learned he was going to get his two-way contract converted to a standard NBA deal was to his mother, Darcy Goede.

“She’s a single parent, she raised me. She did everything for me,” said Battle. “So I called her and she was super-excited for me, but she said 'It’s only the beginning for me, I’m just getting started.'”