Chemistry crucial to Raptors’ success
Team leaders DeRozan, Lowry perfect example of key, elusive component
It is one of the more impossible aspects of professional sports to clearly define, a nebulous concept that is either the key that unlocks a group’s potential or is simply a byproduct of talent and timing.
Outside of “score the basketball” and “we just want to get better” it is one of the most over-used and hard-to-understand concepts floated continuously these days: Good chemistry. It’s hard to say what it is and harder to determine how important it is, but it’s in vogue in these parts these days.
The Toronto Raptors seem to have it, especially in the relationship between the team’s two best and most important players.
Fans have been inundated lately about the truly close and deepening relationship between DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry. Their interaction is well-chronicled; they selflessly deflect credit from one to the other for the team’s unprecedented success, they mug for the cameras and reporters constantly and they joke good-naturedly with and about each other.
There is a true and deep relationship that has developed over the years.
It’s obvious they like each other — they are likeable men, so why wouldn’t they? — and they trumpet that fact as a key reason the Raptors have been more consistently excellent over the past 21⁄ seasons than
2 they ever have before and a big reason why they’ve rattled off a franchise-record 11 straight victories.
It’s obvious this is as close a group of teammates as the team has ever had. General manager Masai Ujiri has put together a group that works toward a common goal and coach Dwane Casey has made them see that the sum of the parts can be greater than the individuals.
The players talk about it all the time.
“I think you do need a great chemistry, but it’s chemistry on the floor. We’re in a business.” PISTONS’ STAN VAN GUNDY ON ELUSIVE COMPONENT
“We do everything together, all the guys,” DeRozan said Saturday night after Toronto’s 11th straight win. “We joke around on the road. We try to have fun and try not to be so uptight and think about basketball 24-7. With that, we go out and have fun and then you just try to pull out a win every single night.”
Does good chemistry beget team success, or does team success allow relationships to blossom that would otherwise be contentious? If Toronto was15-32 rather than 32-15, would we be talking about good relationships or would players be sniping privately about roles and responsibilities or wanting some kind of change?
Stories of teams not necessarily close but still finding success are legendary and present a solid counterargument to the “chemistry is everything” school of thought.
The Oakland A’s of the early 1970s won multiple World Series while battling each other; no one would have suggested Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal would break bread while they were winning a series of NBA championships; Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson took enough time away from considering beating each other to a pulp to become champions.
As Detroit Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy put it Saturday in Toronto — if you don’t win, chemistry is just something a few people might have taken in high school.
“I think you do need a great chemistry, but it’s chemistry on the floor,” Van Gundy said. “We’re in a business here and coaches and players alike . . . everybody’s been hired to get a result.
“And if you lose sight of that it doesn’t matter. You can be the greatest friends in the world, but if you’re not out there doing what it takes to get the result then you don’t have chemistry, you just have friendship.”
For the time being, the Raptors have hit on a crazy combination of talent and togetherness that has taken them to unimaginable heights, even if the season will be ultimately judged by what happens in April and May. And — who knows? — perhaps into early June.
It’s a group from disparate backgrounds with four key additions to a solid core that got to know each oth- er over years; it has abundant talent along with “chemistry” that somehow adds to it.
“The last couple of years we have been relatively close,” Lowry said. “This time around everybody wants everybody to succeed. It doesn’t matter if one guy plays less. Everyone is happy for one another.
“I think we’ve been fortunate the last few years to have a great group of guys come through this locker room. It’s just been me and DeMar and J.V. (Jonas Valanciunas) and Terrence (Ross) has been (together for years) but we’ve been fortunate enough to have great guys come in here and accept their roles and just have fun and love the game of basketball.”