Bring on the real games.
The Toronto Raptors finished their pre-season schedule with a thorough 116-112 win over the Brooklyn Nets Friday night. The game only got tight when the benches were emptied in the fourth quarter, but otherwise, the contest was firmly under Toronto’s control.
The Raptors ended up 3-2 in games that don’t matter, and if they didn’t exactly emerge healthy, the injury parade at least slowed. RJ Barrett (shoulder) remains doubtful for the opener on Wednesday and there are questions around Kelly Olynyk (back). Meanwhile, rookie Ja’Kobe Walter (shoulder) has yet to hit the floor, same for Bruce Brown (knee). But apart from a bruised knee suffered by Chris Boucher in the second half — but not before he logged 10 points in 11 minutes — the Raptors were otherwise unscathed against the Nets.
Some questions have to be answered before rosters are set on Monday. The most pressing are do the Raptors want to pick up the guarantee on Bruno Fernando’s contract to give them some centre depth, or do they find a spot for the likes of Jahmi’us Ramsey? They can also just leave the roster spot open to get them flexibility for any moves or signings they might want to make in the future.
As well, there is still time for point guard Davion Mitchell to sign an extension to his rookie deal (the deadline is 6 p.m. ET on Monday), but the most likely scenario there is a prove ’em year as the Raptors still have his rights next summer as a restricted free agent. Bigger picture, we are finally on the verge of games that count.
Some takeaways.
Immanuel Quickley makes first appearance
In his first live action of the pre-season, the Raptors’ $175-million point guard looked… really good. Perhaps most importantly, what looked best was his playmaking.
There are never going to be any questions about Quickley’s shooting: He’s going to make a high volume of threes at or near the 40 per cent threshold. That efficiency might dip a little bit if he pushes his attempts up to nearly 10 per game — which the Raptors would love — but the betting is that Quickley shoots well enough in enough different contexts that his accuracy likely won’t suffer.
No, the question around Quickley is how long it will take him to become a master NBA point guard. He pointed out the other day that prior to playing a lot of his minutes with the New York Knicks as a shooting guard, he’d been “a point guard his whole life.” But not an NBA point guard. It’s a big job. He looked the part on Friday. He finished with 10 assists and looked in complete command as he pushed the ball in transition and found teammates; slowed down in transition and found teammates; worked pick-and-roll and found teammates and punched gaps to draw the defence before finding teammates.
Quickley wasn’t orchestrating open looks out of thin air in Steve Nash style, but he was consistently hitting the open man at the right time, which is a great place for point guard to start.
Bench options show promise
It only makes sense that as your starters return, your bench should get stronger, with everyone getting pushed down a notch. For the Raptors, having Quickley back means Mitchell — who has been starting at point — can join Barnes on the bench unit that knits together at the end of the first quarter and the start of the second. And when Quickley has his rest, he can join Barnes to help get through the early moments of the second quarter.
But the bonus is that — as was the case Friday night — rookie Jamal Shead is available to terrorize opponents on defence in whatever moments he gets. With Mitchell and Barnes on the floor together, Shead’s ball-handling duties are secondary. His responsibilities are to find open space on offence and cause as much havoc as possible defensively.
It was all on display late in the first quarter as Barnes pushed in transition and Shead cut through the lane for a dunk — this is one area where the Fred VanVleet comparisons will have to be put aside — and then Shead and Mitchell hounded the ball for 90 feet before the Nets turned it over and fouled Chris Boucher on the ensuing fast break. Boucher made both.
‘Barnes + bench’ configurations have not been too fruitful either last season or early in this pre-season because, with so many injuries, there hasn’t been enough talent for Barnes to work with. Barnes+Mitchell+Shead looks promising, or at least very, very entertaining.
Ochai Agbaji‘s shooting needs work
You can’t ask for a better opportunity to establish yourself as an NBA player than Agbaji has had with the Raptors. He’s seen regular minutes in every situation since he was acquired at the trade deadline last season for Utah. He’s been given a very specific role — be the first choice to guard the other team’s best wing — and plenty of opportunities to prove himself capable, never more so than during this pre-season with Barrett out for all but 14 minutes.
And Agbaji’s done his part. He comes across as a wonderful person to have on your team and in your organization and from all accounts he’s not afraid of hard work. He’s a determined defender and on offense can fill lanes and cut and set screens. He knows how to play the game.
But if you’re going to stick in the NBA as a six-foot-five wing defender, you need to be able to shoot. Agbaji, it seems, can’t. He came into this game connecting on just two threes in 10 chances and then was 1-of-6 to finish the pre-season at 3-of-16, or 19 per cent. In Summer League it was 14 per cent and last season in Toronto it was 21 per cent.
What’s worse is the three-point looks he gets that he hasn’t converted. No one is rushing out to run him off the line. Time and time again he’s got the basketball equivalent of a batting practice fastball — feet set, pass on target, no defender within 10 feet — and over and over again, the result is the same. Chances are he’s pressing a bit, and Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic has gone out of his way to emphasize that he’s measured on his defensive contributions first. But you can’t go 0-for on wide-open three-point looks at his position and find regular NBA minutes.
Gradey Dick ready to be reliable contributor
It’s been fun to watch the second-year wing’s progress in the space of 12 months. He looked mostly keen but overwhelmed in pre-season a year ago and only a few weeks later played his way out of Rajakovic’s rotation before grinding to find his way back in during the second half of last season.
But after a long summer of work — a lot of it under the watchful eye of Raptors assistant Ivo Simovic — Dick is looking like he can be a reliable contributor as a 20-year-old. His 27-point splash against the Boston Celtics on Tuesday was eye-catching, but perhaps more significant is his progress as a defender. In a sequence of plays late in the second quarter against Brooklyn, Dick slid to help on Dennis Schroder, taking away a lay-up with a blocked shot on his former teammate, broke up a backdoor play leading to a turnover, and held his ground on another Nets drive, leading to another turnover.
A big part of being a reliable NBA defender is wanting to do the job, and Dick certainly passes that test most nights.