Siakam has ‘joy’ for the game again

TORONTO — Pascal Siakam admits when he looks back at game footage of himself towards the end of last season, he doesn’t recognize himself.

And, no, it’s not just that the shots he normally makes weren’t falling.

What he sees is a man playing the game, but not enjoying it — and frankly that’s just not the way Siakam normally plays.

“It was weird watching myself,” Siakam said in his first public comments since the Raptors were defeated in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals by Boston. “I think when I watched the game one of the things that I really felt was I didn’t recognize myself in terms of just like having fun, like that.”

“I’m always somebody that has fun playing the game and I love this game and I don’t (ever) want to be able to play the game without any joy,” he said. “I think that’s just something that I didn’t see (in) myself, which is something that, you know me, I just want to have fun. I just want to be able to play the game. Work hard. Have fun and I think that’s something I want to get back to.”

“Obviously, I looked at the games and things I could have done better but I think overall it’s just like, you know, getting right. Like getting right, man,” Siakam said. “Like there’s a lot of things going on in the world. I think we all got to, kind of, you know, make sure that we get right. And for me that was the main focus. Just getting right. I mean, I’m in a good place right now, I feel happy, excited about the future and I just feel like I have that joy again.”

Siakam’s off-season workout regiment is almost legendary in the league. His workouts with Los Angeles-based and Sacramento Kings assistant coach Rico Hines start early and go late and are the major reason he went from a low first-round pick to the most improved player in the league in two seasons and then a season later became a league all-star.

He was back at that this year, adapting, as everyone else has become so accustomed to doing, when the season start was moved up to Dec. 22 from what most were expecting would be late January.

“Obviously we wanted to have more time, but that’s 2020, right?,” Siakam said. “You don’t know what is going to happen. You have to expect anything and you got to just be ready.”