Heslip taking best shot for Raptors
BURNABY, B.C .• It’s near the end of a practice at Tor onto Raptors’ t raining camp and like most of the team, Brady Heslip is working on his shot.
He steps behind the threepoint line and drains one with ease, then makes two more. A hand in his face from a Toronto assistant to serve as a distraction? No problem. A tough pass and a quick release? Got it.
“Brady’s a shooter,” said Raptors head coach Dwane Casey. “I love the way he shoots the basketball.”
There’s no doubting Heslip’s deadly accuracy from his time in both college and the pros. He buried a record 13 threes in an NBA DLeague contest back in 2014. But it’s the other parts of his game that will mostly determine the Canadian’s fate with the club he cheered for as a kid.
“Defend. That’s the No. 1 thing,” Casey said of what he wants to see from Heslip. “He’s one of our best shooters that we have right now. I’m sure Kyle (Lowry) would argue that, but it’s almost like a layup for him, a three- point shot. “He’s done it for a while. He’s a proven shooter.”
While Heslip might be a proven shooter, it hasn’t translated into an NBA job up to this point. He went undrafted following three seasons at Baylor University but got a tryout with Minnesota in 2014. Heslip didn’t survive training camp and wound up in the D- League for a brief time.
From t here he would spend the next year- and- ahalf playing in Europe before the Raptors acquired his rights and signed him last week.
Heslip said getting part of his contract guaranteed should he get bumped to the D- League was critical in luring him back across the Atlantic.
Apart from his defence, the Raptors want to find out if t he s i x- f oot- t wo, 185- pound Heslip can run the offence.
There’s an opening at the point behind Lowry and Cory Joseph with Delon Wright out until at least December with a shoulder injury.
“It’s something I like doing and I can do,” Heslip said of running the point.
“It helps I can play off the ball and knock down shots and space the floor.”