TORONTO — Judging by the look and sound of things, Pascal Siakam is going to be alright.
The Toronto Raptors All-Star opened up last week about some of the struggles he was experiencing in the bubble and the lack of joy he felt playing basketball in Disney World during the summer’s season restart.
Coming into camp, Siakam said he spent the off-season working to regain that love of the game and the delight it always brought him before and on Wednesday, it seemed like it certainly had returned to him.
“I’m doing good man,” Siakam said in a Zoom call. “I’m blessed. Happy to be here. Just want to go out there and play basketball.”
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Before saying this, Siakam was cracking up at something he said teammates Fred VanVleet and Norman Powell were doing off camera.
A moment of levity not really seen from Siakam since before last season’s COVID-mandated suspension, and surely a welcome sight if you’re a Raptors fan.
Siakam has traditionally been a player who is at his best when he’s been able to play free and easy, not thinking about the pressures of his responsibilities. However, this may be a season where those pressure will be inevitable as he’ll be beginning the first year of his four-year, $130-million max contract, meaning — fair or not — there will be an expectation that he performs to task.
As such, the jovial mood Siakam appeared to be in Wednesday was an encouraging sign. That upbeat, infectiously positive attitude is a part of why Siakam found success in the first place, and the team along with him.
Better yet, this is the way he appears to have been since camp started in Tampa.
“He looks good,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse of Siakam. “I mean, he’s really been a bright spot of the training camp, which is good to see.”
As Siakam himself said before, part of this apparent rejuvenation is likely due to the fact he’s no longer feeling miserable inside the Disney bubble anymore, but another aspect has to have been some of the work he’s put in over the off-season.
Known as a player who’s been able to add to his game every off-season, though he had a little less time than usual, Siakam got to work with trainer Rico Hines and, according to his coach, has polished up his game even more now.
“I would say that he’s fine-tuned some of his go-to things,” Nurse said. “Looks to me like he’s got a little bit more of a physicality to some of his moves and then getting space and getting back. Got a little bit of a shake, turnaround thing that I haven’t maybe seen a ton of that looks a little bit cleaned up as well and smoother and more skillful.”
And beyond just the individual skills he’s worked on, the addition of Chris Finch to Nurse’s coaching staff also figures to help Siakam this coming season.
Touted as a brilliant offensive mind, Finch mentioned in a media scrum last week that he was looking to find more opportunities for Siakam within the offence to both score and distribute, and by the sounds of things, the Raptors have already begun testing some of these concepts in camp.
“We’ve been trying to experiment with some different ways to get him the ball, and shots, and downhill a little bit more, instead of just having the ball,” Nurse said. “So moving him off ball into position, so I’d imagine that’s gonna free him up and get him some easy baskets. It looks good so far, some of those things we’re doing.”
Added Siakam of working with Finch: “Obviously, [he’s] new, and [I’m] trying to understand his concepts, and some of the things that he does. Obviously it’s still early. We’re going to figure it out and we’re going to have a lot of conversations and try to figure it out.”
The nitty gritty and specifics of the offensive concepts will come in time. For now, however, seeing and hearing Siakam more like the player he was before the bubble is good news all around.
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Quick dribbles
• It sounds like Nurse wants to lock in one player at the No. 8 spot in the rotation this season.
Powell is a safe bet as the team’s sixth man and the backup centre — probably Alex Len — will likely be No. 7, but No. 8 and beyond look to be more up in the air.
Last season, the eighth rotation spot was held down by a rotating cast of characters that included names like Patrick McCaw, Terence Davis, Matt Thomas, Chris Boucher and more.
This season, however, with the team looking, perhaps, to have less depth than before, it sounds like Nurse wants to have a consistent body in that spot, and he’s looking for someone who will bring it on both ends of the floor.
“There’s all kinds of guys kind of chipping in there and I think that there’s some value in maybe seeing which one of the guys wins the spot and just rolling that,” Nurse said. “But you’ve got to understand you’ve got to play both ends too, right? I’m just like you, my eyes light up just like yours do when I see [Thomas] come in there and start banging shots, right? The same with Terence Davis, but they’ve got to play at the other end too.
“The whole player is really the person that probably wins that job.”
• It seems as if Nurse has connections to just about every high-level basketball coach in the world.
Case in point, on Wednesday, Nurse regaled the assembled collection of media with a great British Basketball League story connecting him and Saint Leo University — the campus that the Raptors are holding their training camp on — basketball coach Lance Randall, that concluded with home-baked cookies for the Raptors.
“We both coached against each other in the British Basketball League, and we both coached the same team, the Birmingham Bullets,” Nurse said. “So, I was there earlier and he came a few years after. That’s how our relationship started. Very good basketball coach.
“When we were starting to look around down here for possible facilities, I knew he was here around Tampa somewhere and I gave him a call and we spoke and he was trying to do everything possible to accommodate us.
“He did that, and it’s a perfect training camp setup for us. It’s very good. Jeez, his wife even baked us chocolate chip cookies yesterday. That’s how special the touch has been.”
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