One day after their disappointing play-in loss to the Chicago Bulls, a number of prominent Toronto Raptors spoke to the media. Naturally, a wide range of ‘what ifs?’ were considered casting back on the season and a blown fourth-quarter lead versus Chicago, as well as questions about where a team that finished 41-41 goes from here.
Among the more likely candidates not to be back with the team next season is point guard Fred VanVleet, who has the option to opt out of the final year of his contract and test free agency this summer. To the surprise of nobody, the 29-year-old did not come out and say whether he intends to hit the open market or not in the coming months.
VanVleet was a major contributor to the Raptors’ 2019 title and with his future up in the air, he was the subject of rumours ahead of the trade deadline. While he obviously wound up staying put, it was fair to wonder whether going through that or just being on a squad that sometimes seemed to be trending in the wrong direction soured him on playing in Toronto. Not so, says the seven-year vet.
“I think we’ve built something special here,” VanVleet said Thursday. “My whole NBA life is here, so that holds some value and some weight.”
Of course, there’s also been no shortage of speculation that Nick Nurse — the man who led the Raps to that championship — could be coaching a different team next year. VanVleet addressed that, too.
“Most of the noise around this team comes from the outside,” he said, noting he expects Nurse to be the coach next fall. “Coach has got my full support. I love playing for him.”
The first question forward Pascal Siakam was asked centred on the daughter of former teammate DeMar DeRozan. Diar DeRozan was voraciously heckling Raptors who went to the foul line during the play-in game at Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday night, hoping to give her dad’s Bulls an advantage. The fact Toronto shot 18-for-36 from the line — Siakam was just-five-for-11 and missed two crucial ones in the dying seconds after being fouled beyond the three-point arc — would certainly indicate the Raps weren’t in their best free-throw form, but Siakam didn’t trace that back to Diar.
“I don’t think so,” said Siakam when asked if DeRozan’s daughter was knocking the Raps off their free-shooting game.
(For what it’s worth, Scottie Barnes said he definitely noticed Diar yelling and had this to say: “I don’t know if it really had an effect; we went 18-for-36 so it had to have an effect, somewhere. She did a great job.”)
As for the year in general, Siakam said he was proud of the way he played — a career-high 24.2 points-per-game as well as an All-Star Game nod — but, naturally, was not happy to already be in season-recap mode.
“It’s what, April 13?” he said. “Definitely wasn’t in my plans to be here talking about this. The team success is more important than anything. When I work and how hard I work is to be able to win. That’s the most important thing. There’s always things to get better at. I was pretty much, I would say, consistent, but I felt like I could have done a lot more. There’s times where there were also those up and downs that you don’t really want to see.
“What I’m proud of, for me this year, is just putting the work in no matter what. I was in there every single day, no matter how good or bad [things were going] and [that’s]something that in the past I wasn’t really able to do just because I feel … sometimes [I would] ride my emotions a lot more. And so this year, one thing that I got better at is just, no matter what, just put the work in.”
As for Barnes, his sophomore season represented a bit of a dip after he was named rookie-of-the-year 12 months ago. Any chatter about his struggles, though, apparently didn’t inhibit the 21-year-old.
“I think I put a lot of pressure on myself already,” Barnes said. “I don’t really look for it [in social media] or other people, my highest expectation is for myself. I put a lot of thinking into what I really want to become and what I really want to be. I know how I want to get better and I just want to constantly keep developing in [every way possible] and I want to make it to the top of [the] league, be one of those better players in the league. It’s just going to take a different level of mindset, of work. I put a lot of pressure on myself to get better, but I don’t really [pay attention to] the outside noise.”
Like VanVleet, two other members of the squad have their own decisions to make regarding whether to remain with the Raptors or move on to a new chapter.
Asked about whether he’d like to stick around in Toronto, Jakob Poeltl — who returned for his second stint in the city via a February trade — said he’s open to another go-round in Raptors colours.
“I think so, yeah,” Poeltl said Thursday, when asked if he’d like to return. “Obviously, summertime in the NBA, who knows what’s going to happen. I don’t know what we’re going to look like as a team, what my situation’s going to be like. But I think, looking back at the months that I had here, I enjoyed my time.
“I feel like we’re kind of leaving with this bad taste in our mouths. And I personally feel like I want to do better than that.”
As for Gary Trent Jr., who’s facing a similar decision, plotting out the course ahead will come down to more than just this season’s bitter ending.
“Free-agency-wise, it’s going to be what it’s going to be. At the end of the day, I’m going to do what’s best for me and my family,” he said Thursday. “Obviously, I’m going to talk to the [Raptors] organization. It’s a business. So, we’re going to see how it goes.”
Asked what will factor into his decisions on his future — especially after a season that saw his role steadily decrease in Toronto — Trent shed light on what he’s looking for in his next chapter.
“Being comfortable, what the role would be. Obviously the money — it’s a business. Everything that goes into it,” he said of his priorities moving forward. “It could be down to family, down to being closer to a family member that’s sick or something that may be going on. … Obviously you’ve got certain dreams, certain goals, certain things you want to accomplish. There’s certain places you can do it, certain places you can’t do it. It just comes with the game.”
That said, the 24-year-old, who’s been with the Raptors for two-and-a-half years after beginning his career in Portland, showered some praise on Toronto, too.
“I love Toronto,” he said. “It’s been a great time here so far. The restaurants are great, it’s a good city. It’s a great place to be.”
Key to the free-agency decisions being mulled throughout the locker room is the question of what this team needs to take the next step. Whether they have the foundations of another contending squad right now, or need a more significant reset.
“I feel like in general we have a really confident group. I think we’re all aware of where we can be,” Poeltl said of those questions. “I think we’re just, at times, a small step behind. It seems like a tiny adjustment that we need to make. I feel like we have everything we need, we’re just not quite there. And it’s about figuring out what that is, to put us in a spot where we are really good on a consistent level.
“But what those adjustments are, it’s not always easy to figure out. It might be a small change in mindset here, it might be a small tactical change, I don’t know. But it’s about figuring that out, to become a winning team.”
Following the trade deadline that saw the Raptors bring Poeltl back into the fold, team president Masai Ujiri tabbed selfish play as one root cause of his team’s 2023 struggles. Asked Thursday about Ujiri’s assessment, Chris Boucher agreed, but added that it was only part of the bigger picture.
“I think it was more guys trying to figure it out. You know, when you lose, everything seems to be so bad — you take 10 shots, and it’s like, ‘He doesn’t want to pass the ball’ or whatever,” Boucher said. “I never really paid any attention to that, because I feel like I came in and worked hard every time, tried to [make] the right play and do what I had to do. Obviously when we were down and losing games, they were saying everything. So, selfishness was one of [the issues]. But for me, I didn’t feel like that was something that I was paying attention to — I was just trying to win games and trying to get better.”
As for other issues in need of addressing, one could be found in the final game of the Raptors’ tumultuous 2022-23 season, a loss that laid bare another flaw in the team’s mindset.
“It was frustrating. It was really frustrating, because we felt so in control of that game,” Poeltl said of Toronto’s loss to Chicago. “I feel like we had a really good match-up against them. Maybe we went too much into cruise control. We let off the gas a little bit, and let them back in. I don’t know. It’s tough looking back at a game like this, where we really should’ve just closed it out.
“For numerous reasons, we let off, we let them gain some confidence. Obviously they’re a talented team, so when you let them back in the game, they gain all that confidence, and we put ourselves on the back foot. So, it hurts to go out like that.”