Raps’ second unit second to none

Sometimes you just gotta trust in what you have.

Coming into the season the Raptors were doing just that. Whether it was out of necessity or a conscious choice only Masai Ujiri and his management team led by Bobby Webster know for sure, but the Raptors opted to roll the dice with youth and that roll of the dice has been very, very kind to the Raptors.

PJ Tucker, Patrick Patterson, Cory Joseph and DeMarre Carroll — all major pieces in last year’s squad — left with CJ Miles the lone asset returning that was able to help in 2017-18. The Raps allotted a huge chunk of their payroll to keeping Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka in the fold so letting the others walk was a necessity unless they wanted to go into the luxury tax.

But as early as Ujiri’s postseason breakdown of last season there were indications youth was going to get its turn.

For one thing that group along with a handful of G-League players as well as Norm Powell spent the majority of the summer training together.

The group included Fred VanVleet — the No. 16 man in terms of minutes a year ago for the Raptors, Jakob Poeltl — No. 14, Pascal Siakam — No. 13, and No. 12 man Delon Wright to fill out the Raptors bench.

That quartet along with the previously mentioned Miles have formed what Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens called Tuesday night one of his favourite groups to watch in the NBA, high praise indeed from a man who has a reputation for being a great talent evaluator.

Good basketball men trust their eyes and that was certainly the case here. Of that second unit only Wright and Poeltl came with what anyone would dare suggest was much of a pedigree, Wright, the Raptors’ first overall pick at no. 20 in 2015 and Poeltl the 2016 first round pick from the same school and ninth overall.

Siakam was a second round pick, as was Powell while VanVleet somehow went undrafted all together.

But together that group is not just holding its own, it’s changing games to the point where the expectations have grown so just matching other bench units is no longer sufficient.

“I think a lot of teams when their bench comes in they kind of sustain or go in there to just try and buy the starters minutes,” DeMar DeRozan said of Toronto’s bench. “Our second group comes in with a lot of energy and they are liable to win games for us like (Tuesday vs. Boston) and the last game (vs. Memphis). They come in with that energy and that tempo and we encourage that. Every time they go in there they can win a game for us.”

Toronto’s starters do not play at a slow pace by NBA standards but compared to the young guys that come in behind them and get up and down the court, that first unit is snail-like.