Monroe gets his chance to shine
Valanciunas injury opens space for solid backup and prospect
PORTLAND — Life in the National Basketball Association is not fair.
Jonas Valanciunas, who sacrificed a starting spot with the Toronto Raptors and proceeded to give the team some of the most consistently good play of his career, will be lost for more than a month thanks to a thumb injury suffered Wednesday against the Golden State Warriors.
It will be the first true test of the team’s depth and resolve, removing a proven veteran big man from the rotation in middle of the regular season.
There have been other minor injuries — players missing a game or two or three here and there, and Norm Powell has been on the shelf since the first week of November — and Valanciunas’s absence will bring Greg Monroe a far more substantial role.
Valanciunas, swatted across both hands in an aggressive move by Golden State’s Draymond Green, suffered a dislocated left thumb that required surgery in Palo Alto, Calif. The team said he will wear a cast for four weeks with no further prognosis.
And while the Raptors created a feel-good story by calling up Canadian centre Chris Boucher from the G League to fill the roster spot, the rail-thin backup can’t be expected to play any significant role.
That leaves Monroe, the 28year-old veteran on a one-year deal, to assume a key position behind now presumptive starter Serge Ibaka.
“I wouldn’t say my mindset changes,” Monroe said after the Raptors trounced the Warriors in Oakland. “My mindset stays the same. I work every day the same. I don’t want my teammate to get hurt. I just stay ready for my number to be called, and that’s what I focus on.”
Monroe has become a highly respected teammate in his short stint with the Raptors, willing to sit for extended periods but to be ready when he’s needed. He will be needed much more in the next couple months than anyone expected.
“He’s like that fire extinguisher you need to break in case of emergency,” assistant coach Adrian Griffin said in a fill-in media role for head coach Nick Nurse after the Warriors game. “He steps right in there, he doesn’t miss a beat, we throw the ball into the post and we feel confident he can get us a basket. He just calms everyone down.”
Monroe isn’t a flashy player — “he’s so slow, he’s fast,” Griffin joked — by any stretch of the imagination but he’s not some lifelong backup finally getting a chance to be a regular. The six-foot-11 left-hander has played in 602 games in his nine National Basketball Association seasons, starting 415.
“I feel comfortable playing with the pace everybody’s playing with,” Monroe said. “It’s just about staying ready, continuing to work. That’s all I’ve been focusing on. Once I’m in between the lines, controlling what I can control, that’s the only thing I focus on every time, every day.”
The recall of Boucher from the G League to fill the roster spot is the next chapter in one of the most wonderful Raptors stories of the season.
The 25-year-old, raised in Montreal, didn’t even start playing basketball until his late teens but has blossomed in unexpected fashion.
After spending last season on a two-way deal with the Golden State affiliate in Santa Cruz, Boucher earned his spot with the Raptors through an intriguing Summer League and training camp run.
He is raw, no question, but he has also exploded offensively with the Raptors 905, including posting a 47-point game — a franchise record and the best G League night this season — Wednesday.
Boucher is averaging 29.3 points and 11 rebounds per game in the G League, gaudy numbers indeed. It’s folly to think he’ll be given the opportunity to come close to having that kind of an impact on an NBA game, but having him practise every day against Monroe and Ibaka and get a few minutes here and there in lopsided games will likely hasten his development.
He’s so slow, he’s fast.
ADRIAN GRIFFIN
RAPTORS ASSISTANT COACH TALKING ABOUT GREG MONROE