Thaddeus Young's experience valuable as Raptors navigate coaching change

After 16 seasons and 1139 NBA games, there’s not much new to Thaddeus Young. He’s played for seven different teams and worked for 12 different coaches.

He’s used to seeing things for the first time.

In that sense, he’s the Toronto Raptors expert on the matter.

“For me, it doesn't really matter because I'm in my 17th year. I've played for so many different coaches and played under so many different systems. I'm used to change,” he said.

But as the Raptors are working to get ready for a new season under a new head coach, Darko Rajakovic, and an entirely new staff, Young is having his expertise put to the test.

It’s not all that often when a group of players are all learning something from scratch. Typically a new coach will try to bring with him some players who have played for him before, but Rajakovic is a first-time head coach, and the only player on the Raptors roster he’s worked with previously is Dennis Schroder for one season when Rajakovic was an assistant coach with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

It's meant some long days in training camp and again this week as the team has five practice days before Sunday’s game.

It's a different experience for eight-year veteran Jakob Poeltl, who says he relied on teammates to help him learn what then Raptors coach Dwane Casey was looking for early in his career or what Gregg Popovich was requiring when he was in San Antonio for five seasons. When the big Austrian centre needed to pick up Nick Nurse’s systems on the fly last season after joining Toronto at the trade deadline, he could tap into the collective experience of friends and former teammates Fred VanVleet and Pascal Siakam who were in their fifth season playing for Nurse.

“Usually, there's like a few guys that come in trying to learn a new system and there's a bunch of guys on the team that have been doing it for a while and can kind of teach the way,” said Poeltl as the Raptors trained this week in advance of their next pre-season game, slated for Sunday at Scotiabank Arena. “This is my first experience with a brand-new coaching staff where everybody's trying to learn new things. But that also brings a different type of energy though because I feel like everybody is kind of wanting to prove himself maybe a little bit more. Sometimes guys get kind of comfortable in the role, so I don't see that really at all in anybody's demeanor or like the way we've been running practice.”

The fresh start for all concerned was intentional as Raptors management hit the reset button after last year’s 41-41 finish. Not only was Nurse and his coaching staff gone, but a number of the team’s behind-the-scenes support staff were let go also.

There’s a lot of change in the NBA every year, but short of a total teardown, not often this much. Sometimes there is some carry over among the assistant coaches to help an incoming head coach bridge the gap between old and new which was the case when Dwane Casey was hired in Toronto before the 2011-12 season. Nick Nurse replaced Casey before the 2018-19 campaign, not only had Nurse been with the organization for five years, but he also kept on some of the existing staff.

What Rajakovic and the Raptors are doing is different. The only holdover on the coaching staff is Jim Saan, who remains in charge of the Raptor player development program. But all the front-of-the-bench staff are new to Toronto, most have not worked with each other in the past and none have worked for Rajakovic as a head coach.

Rajakovic acknowledges that getting everyone on the same, new, blank page could take some doing.

“They are trying to implement some new defensive schemes … and I think guys are really accepting it, trying to do it, but it’s going to take time to become a habit and natural for them,” he said. “It’s going to need repetitions, it’s going to need games, it’s going to need video sessions to really improve on those. It won’t happen overnight. I don’t have those expectations, but I do have expectations for us to continue to get better.”

For his part Young – who ended up outside Nurse’s rotation at the end of last season and who most thought would have been included as a salary match in any of the big trade scenarios the Raptors were contemplating in the off-season, still believes he’s got something to offer, even if he is learning along with everyone else. In this case, his years of experience means he can pick up what is new a little faster, and figure out what is old but just under a different name.

“At the end of the day, I'm used to that change. I understand it. I understand when you come into a new season that you have a new coach, it's going to take some time to implement the system, implement roles for guys and get guys really focussed and locked in on the roles that are going to happen this upcoming season,” said Young. “It's all really about patience. And I've been one of those guys that has a lot of patience, that has the ability to talk to guys and get guys to understand. I'm good at retaining information. So for me it's not a big deal … but for a younger guy, somebody like [Raptors rookie Gradey Dick], it's a little harder because he's coming from a college system to an NBA system. So it's gonna be a little harder for him to pick up certain things. But that's what [veterans] are here for, to help him come along the way.”