Getting an education
Training camp is crash course on everything Raptor for C.J. Miles
Apart from spotting them across a gym in the odd off-season workout, C.J. Miles knew none of the Toronto Raptors players before he became one. “There was a mutual respect . . . But, put it this way, I didn’t have any phone numbers,” Miles said.
The Raptors opened training camp Tuesday in Victoria, B.C., Day 1 of a crash course for the 30-year-old Miles, the Raptors’ key off-season acquisition, and his new teammates. Team president Masai Ujiri acquired what he gleefully referred to as a “sniper” in the offseason, in an effort to keep pace with what has evolved into a three-point shooting league. No surprise, plenty of the Day 1 focus was on not just shooting, but the perfect pass that creates the shot.
“The most important thing is the pass. On-time, on-target, zip passes, and how you do that is by working on that every day,” said coach Dwane Casey. “I know it sounds like elementary-school practice. . . even warmup drills, we want zip passes. Like everything else in basketball, it’s habit. And sometimes habits are boring to work on, but that’s what the game is about.
“I have a saying ‘the passer makes the shooter.’ If you give a bullcrap pass down at his ankles, there’s no way he’s going to be a good shooter. You put it in the shot pocket, now I’m talking to the shooter.”
The six-foot-six, 255-pound Miles, who signed a three-year deal worth US$25 million, is coming off a career-best 41.3 per cent shooting from threepoint range last season with Indiana. That’s slightly better than team leader Kyle Lowry (41.2), and 12th in the league among players who attempted at least 200 threes last season. With the game’s evolution, a long-range shooter is a coveted gift. Miles credited a conversation with Mike Brown, who was Cleveland’s head coach at the time, for turning him into one. “He told me straight up ‘You can shoot the basketball but I don’t think you work enough on that particular part of your game. The situations you are put in in the game for are mostly shooting situations, so why not really buckle down on that and try and become as great a shooter as you can?”’ Miles said. “And that’s when I changed my workouts a lot after that and just built my game more around that.” Then along came the Warriors, who shot the lights out.
“Golden State really put that pressure on the league and went on a tear and now it’s become the major part of my game,” Miles said.
Miles, whose name prompted Canadian jokes when he was acquired - “Will he have to change his name to kilometres?” - had the chance to speak to his new teammates a couple of times before opening camp. He met several of them for dinner on a summer trip to Los Angeles. He arrived in Toronto a few days early and worked out with some of the younger players. “But I’m looking forward to camp mostly for that part so I can get to know personalities and be around guys,” he said. And so they can get to know him, and his tendencies, in particular.
Casey said Miles has the rare knack for finding the seams. “No question,” Casey said. “Some guys have that knack. . . always floating to that dead spot, that dead three-point spot behind the defence. CJ has that. A lot of that comes from his days in Utah with Jerry Sloan, coming off screens, getting set quickly, getting his feet set, hands ready quickly, floating to the opening. . . he does that naturally.”