It’s not that a cloud has necessarily been lifted, but change is definitely noticeable. There’s more enthusiasm, it seems, more spirit.
VANCOUVER—A new era of Raptors basketball begins here Sunday evening.
Sort of.
Many of the key players remain, but this is being touted as new: the Darko Rajakovic regime, where freshness and enthusiasm and optimism abound.
We are told it will be fast and a bit frenetic, yet with a sense of purpose. Expect a reliance on pick-and-roll action with split-second decisions demanded — a half-second to do something or get off the ball, Rajakovic has been saying all week, with everyone from Scottie Barnes to Jakob Poeltl to Precious Achiuwa and likely a handful of others getting to initiate from the elbows and the top of key.
There will be lots of the cutting and slicing and off-the-ball movement that’s central to any team’s success in this era of the game, which is deeper in overall offensive talent than at any time since James Naismith hung a peach basket off a wall all those decades ago.
At times it will look pretty and balletic and smooth, the way the game should be played, but those times are likely to be few and far between right off the bat.
Sunday night’s pre-season opener against the Sacramento Kings — the first of just four exhibitions the Raptors will play, and one is against some touring team from Australia — marks the beginning of the process. And like a baby taking its tentative first steps, there will be falls.
“We want to continue to build. We want to continue to get team chemistry, to try different lineups on the court. Another day for us to improve,” Rajakovic said of the exhibition opener. “It’s not a big number of (warm-up) games, obviously … we’re going to try different things, but we also have 82 games of regular season to look at all that. We will not have all the answers in those four games.”
The five days the Raptors spent in suburban Burnaby, B.C. were basically a “get to know you” session. There was some familiarity and chemistry developed in open gym runs late in the summer, and most of the roster is back from last season’s 41-41 squad, but Rajakovic was working with the full squad for the first time in full practices.
“People are just trying to figure it out, but it’s a lot of learning, a lot of new energy, a lot of new faces,” veteran Chris Boucher said. “Everybody’s trying to get to know the program, trying to get organized.”
It’s not that a cloud has necessarily been lifted, but change is definitely noticeable. There’s more enthusiasm, it seems, more spirit.
“I feel like the energy is a little bit more: OK, we’re all in this together. It’s going to take time to process, but everybody seems to want to learn, and that’s the good thing about it,” Boucher said.
How that teaching carries over to Sunday’s game (8 p.m. ET, Sportsnet One) has yet to be seen, but whatever transpires should be considered a tiny step in a long journey.
“I felt like it was more or less what I was used to,” veteran centre Jakob Poeltl said of training camp. “Obviously, a lot of teaching in the beginning … For us, like, it’s a new system, so there’s going to be a lot of teaching.
“If you have a young team, there’s going to be a lot of teaching, so there’s little differences in that aspect (with an older team). But I thought it was a good training camp.”
While much has been made about the offence — quicker, more elbow-high post-oriented and dependent on reading and reacting than last season — what the Raptors do defensively will be just as important. It hasn’t been a hot topic of conversation during camp, but it’s also just in the jumping-off stage.
“Defensively, for us, has to start with on-ball defence,” Rajakovic said. “We have multiple players very, very capable to guard multiple positions. So for us, it’s going to be very important to establish that as the first thing. After that, working on our rotations, how to protect the paint, how to guard corner threes, high-court threes.
“We still in the learning process. We made some adjustments compared to the previous system. It’s going to take some time to get those habits down.”