Time-zone defence early wake-up call
HONOLULU— Dwane Casey said he spied Kyle Lowry running on the beach outside the Raptors’ hotel at about 5 o’clock Saturday morning: a testament to Lowry’s conditioning regimen, but also because of the crazy time-zone differences the team has had to adjust to for training camp.
At a time when teams and the league are trying to find ways to ease the demands of time changes and travel, to keep players fresher for longer, the Raptors are on a journey that will mess with the most smoothly running body clocks.
Three hours from Toronto to Victoria for a few days, then three more hours west to this Pacific paradise, and the question might be: Does anybody really know what time it is?
“We were up at 4 o’clock this morning. Kyle’s down on the beach, running the beach earlier than 5 o’clock this morning,” Casey recounted after the team worked out at the Stan Sheriff Center, on the campus of the University of Hawaii.
“It’s a lot of differences we have, but it’s a good thing to go through now in exhibition and fight through it. Go through some adversity, some travel situations, to get us ready for the season.”
The decision to go westward ho (and we’re talking the farthest west the team has ever been) was made more than a year ago when this pre-season schedule was put together.
The Raptors open their pre-season tonight in Hawaii against the Clippers (Sportsnet One, 10 p.m.) — for better or worse
The Los Angeles Clippers, who’ve been here almost a week for their training camp, wanted a non-traditional opponent for a pair of games and reached out to the Raptors. Seizing on a bit of an adventure for the team and staff, and because they’re usually on the west coast for camp anyway, Toronto jumped at the chance.
Team officials knew it would be tiring and upset body rhythms before the season even began, but they did their due diligence.
“I think it’s early: the guys have time off, the schedule’s not too packed, we’re not doing back-to-backs or anything,” said Raptors general manager Bobby Webster, a Hawaii native. “We talked to our medical staff, and we have some people that look at their sleep and their rest, and there weren’t any concerns for this trip.”
The benefits are the relaxing surroundings and a chance to do a little bonding. There is a team outing scheduled for the famed restaurant Duke’s on Waikiki, practice Saturday was wrapped up before noon local time, and there truly is a relaxing vibe that permeates the city.
“It wasn’t a hard sell to go to Masai (Ujiri, the team’s president) and coach (Casey) and say, ‘Do you want to do training camp out here?’ ” Webster said. “Coach comes out here a lot. It was a pretty easy one.”
Casey can, and will, use the extended trip not only to see what his team looks like in games Sunday and Tuesday, but how they handle the two weeks after. Getting the players used to a bit of an unusual grind could be a telling moment.
“It’s a lot of stuff mentally that’s hitting at us: the travel, the time change, the new stuff. Mentally (adjusting) is probably just as important as anything else,” Casey said.
“You’ve got the time change going back, (and it) is probably harder than coming here. Everybody’s excited, but we have to continue training-camp mentality once we get back to Toronto. That’s going to be the challenge — make sure we stay locked in, wake our bodies up, wake our minds up with the time change.”