Anunoby’s odyssey will be as tough as the NBA gets
Teammates prep rookie to face the grind as club starts a six-game western swing
The Toronto Raptors will play six times over the next 12 days. It is the longest trip of the season and even though the NBA has cut down significantly on back-to-back and three-out-of-four-night slogs, surviving and thriving on extended road stretches is one of the biggest challenges of being an NBA player.
It is something rookie OG Anunoby will have to get used to quickly after playing only 34 games as a freshman at Indiana University, then 16 more last season before injuring his knee.
The far shorter NCAA schedule usually has games spaced three to five days apart. Though Anunoby played U.S. college tournaments and went on Amateur Athletic Union trips where games came in quick succession, he hasn’t been through anything like this, as his Raptors teammates are quick to remind him.
They try to give the 20-year-old advice, but mostly they say it’s just about living and learning.
“It just feels weird at first because you just go from hotel to hotel to hotel,” second-year centre Jakob Poeltl explained to Postmedia before the team left for San Antonio to play the Spurs on Monday, followed by the champion Golden State Warriors on Wednesday.
“I think he got a taste of it in the pre-season when we went from Victoria, then Hawaii and then Portland. Now, you’ve got double that with six different cities, but it’s just something that is going to take time. You’re going to have to get used to it if you want to stay in this league — that’s just how it is. These long road trips are tough. You’ve just got to play anyway.”
Fellow sophomore Fred VanVleet echoed those thoughts.
“We can try to prep him for it, but you don’t really experience it until you experience it, right?” VanVleet said.
You can tell by chatting with the laid-back Anunoby that he hasn’t wasted much time worrying about adapting to life on the road. Nevertheless, his teammates give him pointers.
“Stay hydrated, sleep as much as possible, try to get good meals in because it’s a grind,” VanVleet said.
“Hotel to hotel, a game every other night — it’s different when you are sleeping at home and coming into your own building versus being on the road and taking flights, taking buses. It can build up and you may not even realize it, but your play might start to drop off or just little small details. It can be a cumulative effect sometimes. It’s not impossible to get through, but definitely a challenge.”
Unlike Anunoby, VanVleet was not in the rotation as a rookie, yet he said he had issues getting used to the travel.
“I wasn’t even playing, (but) I couldn’t get my sleep right. I was sleeping in the morning — energy levels, small things that you do really add up,” he said.
Veteran C.J. Miles entered the NBA straight out of high school — as big a jump as it gets — but he kept his advice for Anunoby basic.
“Pack enough underwear, but at the same time, don’t overpack,” Miles said with a smile.
“It’s pretty simple — and be ready for somebody to tell you to do something stupid.”
Anunoby isn’t yet carrying around a gaudy backpack, a timehonoured Raptors tradition bestowed on the team’s first-year players.
The good news for Anunoby is while this might be a grind for the next few weeks, the schedule turns significantly later on, with most of Toronto’s later games and trips taking place in the eastern time zone.