For raps, boucher is ‘just a baller’
Teammates enthused to see big man’s bump
most of the off-season talk concerning the Toronto raptors was about letting Serge Ibaka and Marc Gasol go and trying to plug those holes with Aron Baynes and Alex Len. Not a lot of chatter was directed to the team’s decision to bring back Chris Boucher.
But Boucher has broken out as one of the club’s best players so far, turning heads on a nearly nightly basis. The big man from Quebec is not yet in the starting lineup — head coach Nick Nurse said Friday he’s still trying to figure out how to get Baynes going — but it might just be a matter of time until that happens.
Boucher entered Friday ranked third in the NBA in blocked shots per game and total blocks, second in player efficiency rating, block percentage and win shares per 48 minutes, and third in box plus/minus.
All this after averaging just 5.8 minutes per game on the championship raptors team and 13.2 last season.
Nurse and Boucher’s teammates, like Fred Vanvleet, have loved to see the emergence of the Montreal product.
“That’s the fun part, man,” Vanvleet said Friday when asked what it’s like to see a teammate break out.
“That’s the most purest part of this game, is take a guy like Chris who’s had the journey that he’s had to get to this point. Something that we knew, at least me, I kind of knew it from the day I saw him, what he could be, and just watching that manifest and watching him take his journey to get to this point here, even just within the last few years,” Vanvleet said.
“Obviously, we all wish it was turning into more wins but Chris has been doing his part. He’s been carrying his weight. He’s been playing great. I’m just super happy for him, I’m proud of him, and we just need him to continue to keep making strides each day.”
Vanvleet knows Boucher has slipped through the cracks a bit as a player because of his skinny frame and unorthodox style, but says he saw something in him from the start.
“I still don’t really know what it is, to be honest with you,” Vanvleet said, laughing as he thought about it.
“He’s just a baller. He’s just a gamer, he’s got that thing that you can’t see. you don’t really know what it is, but he’s just got a great feel and just a great gamble about him where he makes risky plays, takes chances and they work out for him more than they don’t,” Vanvleet said.
“So he doesn’t have a textbook jump shot, he doesn’t have the quote-unquote best frame that you want on a big guy and he just figures it out, man. He’s just a baller, he plays basketball, he’s a great basketball player and if you were creating a player I don’t think it would come out looking like Chris in any shape or form but I would take him on my team any day if we needed to win a ball game. I just love the fire and the heart that he plays with. you can’t put a price tag on that.”
MORE TO COME
Nurse and Kyle Lowry both believe that as well as he’s looked, Boucher can still get even better.
“He’s not always in the right place, but his height and his length and his shot-blocking kind of makes up for that,” Lowry said.
“There’s a lot of room for improvement,” Nurse said.
“I don’t mean going from scoring 20 to scoring 30, I’m talking about he’s really close in making a lot of the right plays at the defensive end that he’s not quite getting to. He does make a lot, a blocked shot here and a big rebound there and those kinds of things, but he’s really close to being a really solid defensive player.”
Lowry had mentioned a day earlier that Boucher had always been good at listening to leaders like himself, Vanvleet and Pascal Siakam to try to improve. Vanvleet said Friday that he had to smile when he saw Boucher taking younger raptors under his wing during training camp, paying their assistance forward as it were.
SIAKAM SOLID AGAIN
Siakam didn’t have a huge scoring game on Thursday (three raptors topped his 15 points), but he was once again solid all-around in the 111-108 win over Charlotte.
Over his last five games Siakam has returned to his all-star form, averaging 22.2 points, 9.8 rebounds, 6.4 assists and only 1.2 turnovers per game. Siakam has also shot 51 per cent from the field in those games.
“He’s playing the way we know he can play,” Vanvleet had said before the Charlotte game.
“Whatever extra weight was on him, it doesn’t look like it’s there anymore. It just looks like he’s out there playing and making all the right plays that he needs to make and playing with a pure heart and a clear mind. That’s what you love to see. When he’s engaged and he’s locked in and he’s flying around out there, he’s one of the top players in the league, as we know him to be. There was a reason he was ALL-NBA (second team last season),” Vanvleet said.