Raptors must cut ties to their greatest era to escape NBA's murky middle

TORONTO — And let the reflecting begin.

For the Toronto Raptors, their head coach, and their free agents to be, there is no shortage of material to consider, but it may not make for the most enjoyable subject matter. Much more satisfying to look back at goals reached, obstacles overcome, progress made.

The 2022-23 season didn’t have much of that, unless you count almost collapsing under the weight of their own expectations, somehow pulling things together for a meandering charge to the play-in tournament, and then finding a nearly unprecedented way to lose once there as they missed more free throws (18) against the Chicago Bulls than any Raptors team had since 1997.

But as the Raptors moved further away from their championship past and are more and more evidently mired in a muddy middle, it’s clear — upon even a few hours reflection — that at the very least a new outlook is required.

Mentally, emotionally and spiritually, it’s time to cut the ties with the greatest era in franchise history and accept that there is hard slogging ahead, with no guarantee of post-season success, at least not the way things are going now.

“I think we just got to find another identity, whatever that is,” said Fred VanVleet as the Raptors conducted their exit interviews after their season ended with their play-in game loss Wednesday, ending a .500 season when expectations were for considerably better. “….We can’t try to do that by osmosis and try to carry over a championship from four years ago and expect to add that to a group that we have now. We have to build that every single day starting as soon as we get back in the gym this summer… get our habits back right and our details back right and everything else will fall in place accordingly after that.”

But what will come before it?

Credit to VanVleet for laying it out in his unique way, where he manages to speak matter-of-factly without leaving blood on the floor.

But it’s not hard to listen to what he said and read between the lines and then look at all the issues that kept repeating themselves as the Raptors churn along in the league’s murky middle and not make the interpretation that something needs to change.

Then again, a ninth-place finish, and a 41-41 record when the expectation was that continuity, development and a bolstered bench would allow the Raptors to improve on their 47-win fifth-place finish a year ago makes that case anyway.

The Raptors finished 28th in effective field goal percentage, 29th in effective field goal percentage allowed and — according to Cleaningtheglass.com — were 25th in points per play in halfcourt offence and 19th in halfcourt defence.

They had a very specific style — a hounding approach to defence that generated turnovers and an aggressive mission to the offensive glass which combined meant the Raptors took more shots than their opponents night after night. That style was designed to work around thier deficiencies but also left them vulnerable defensively when teams didn’t give up the ball.

Offensively? It was unstructured and free-wheeling and would grind to a halt any time teams were able to keep Toronto in the halfcourt. And it was, all season long, month-by-month, plagued by poor shooting from every quadrant of the floor.

Figuring out exactly who is to blame and for what is probably a fruitless exercise. It’s not an oversimplification to say they didn’t have enough good players, and their good players weren’t good enough. In situations like this quite often the head coach takes the fall, or a headline player gets traded. It’s not hard to imagine an off-season in Toronto where at least one of those things happens and maybe both.

The future of head coach Nick Nurse has been a hot-button topic for a couple of weeks now, with multiple reports linking him to a job with the Houston Rockets and Nurse allowing that after 10 years with the organization — five as an assistant to Dwane Casey, the last five as head coach — it might be time to consider some options.

He wasn’t going down that road on Thursday. He explained why he made the comments because he wanted to “put the story to bed” and expounded on how his relationship with the front office remains strong and is driven by a mutual passion for winning. But given several chances he fell short of saying that he wants to be back as head coach, full stop, though he finished with: “Listen, I love it here. We’ve built a really strong culture. That’s what [Raptors president Masai Ujiri] is doing, that’s what [general manager Bobby Webster] is doing, that’s what I’m doing. We’ve got to all evaluate how we can that culture back to where we need it to get back to being a playoff team, first and foremost and get to a level of winning it all, that’s what we want to do, that’s what we get up and go to work for, both [Ujiri] and I for the past 10 years.”

It's the next 10 years — or even next year — that’s the problem, however. And while VanVleet and O.G. Anunoby were supportive of Nurse and anticipating his return, that won’t necessarily make it so.

From Nurse’s point of view he has to decide if returning to coach a middling roster with no obvious external catalyst for improvement is where the 55-year-old wants to spend the remaining years of his coaching prime. Presuming Toronto re-signs free agents VanVleet, Jakob Poeltl and Gary Trent Jr. the team has kind of a landlocked feel to it unless they get a giant leap from Scottie Barnes or get exceptionally lucky in the draft lottery.

And then he’d have to figure out an extension, and given he’s owed $9 million in 2023-24 he would presumably be looking for multiple years at more money.

Which is where things might get hazy. Are the Raptors really in a position where they want to pay top dollar and term for a good head coach yet one who — surprise, surprise — has been significantly less successful since five of the top seven players in a championship rotation left and weren’t replaced?

Nurse says that he has no idea where the reports that he was being targeted for the Rockets job came from, but apart from a little bit of awkwardness around the office, having it out there certainly benefits him. It both prompts the Raptors to think about extending him sooner than they might have otherwise, and it lets the rest of the NBA know that there’s at least a chance that a head coach with a championship ring is open to listening. Quite likely a good chance.

It might be the best for the Raptors anyway, just as the decision to trade one of their core — and only Anunoby and Siakam are under contract — in order to add depth and build up their asset base might be best for all concerned.

Call it identity, call it outlook, call it mindset, the Raptors — more than anything this season — seemed stale. They’ve made the playoffs once in their past three seasons. They lack both serious prospects — Barnes aside — and the kind of league-altering stars that can cover gaps and smooth over wrinkles. They owe future draft picks and yet are projected to be near the luxury tax if they re-sign all the players they do have.

There’s a possibility that continuing with what they have and who they have can right the ship, that with the right set of circumstances and can-do attitude they can turn this year’s 41 wins into 48, 49 or 50 a year from now. But it’s just as possible that 41 could turn into 38-, 37- or 36-wins next season, with a pricey roster and an expensive head coach and having traded away their first-round pick.

Upon reflection, it’s clear, at least to me. Something has to give.