‘Laser’ quest pays off for Joseph
Ex-Raptor emerges as three-point shooter with Pacers — and can’t wait to show old club what it lost
Raptors fans tuning into Friday night’s game against the Pacers will see a familiar figure in opposition gear.
Cory Joseph, the Toronto-born, Pickering-bred guard who spent the previous two seasons living his dream as a member of his hometown team, was traded to Indiana in the off-season deal that cleared the way for the acquisition of free-agent floor spreader C.J. Miles. But Joseph still reps his roots via his jersey number. He’s still No. 6 from The Six.
If there’s something wholly unrecognizable about Joseph this season, it’s the way he’s shooting the three-ball. A career 32 per cent three-point shooter from behind the arc as a Raptor, the 26-year-old Joseph is shooting 47 per cent from deep through his first 18 games as a Pacer. Gone from the Raptors, he has suddenly emerged as the long-distance threat they’d always hoped he would become.
“He calls himself a laser now,” Nate McMillan, the Pacers coach, was saying of Joseph on Thursday.
“Yeah, laser,” Joseph said, laughing a bit. “I worked hard on that shot this whole summer. Worked hard on it every day . . . So I’m shooting it with confidence.”
There’s always been more to Joseph’s game than a jump shot, of course. He established himself in the league thanks to a reputation as a high-IQ guard with a knack for finishing in traffic who prides himself as a willing and able defender. And clearly those attributes — the stuff that, in past years, drew raves from coaches such as Gregg Popovich to Dwane Casey — remain a big part of his package.
“He’s a two-way player. He gives you everything he has, every possession,” McMillan said. “You don’t find that in the NBA, where every possession a guy is engaged.”
Still, such are the hard truths of a salarycap sport that Joseph, no matter his reputation as a great teammate and a pleasure to coach, is playing his seventh NBA season with his third team.
Joseph, for his part, figured he wasn’t long for Toronto long before he was dealt. With fellow point guard Kyle Lowry snagging a three-year off-season contract extension worth about $100 million (all figures U.S.), and with rookie-contract colleagues Delon Wright and Fred VanVleet emerging as cheaper alternatives to Joseph, who will earn $7.6 million this season, Toronto was a team looking to shed salary with an obvious surplus at point guard. And even if there were other financial commitments the Raptors might have been happier to unload — read: the remaining years on a Jonas Valanciunas contract worth an average of $16 million per annum — Joseph clearly proved more attractive to the market.
“I kinda knew it was coming,” Joseph said of the trade. “But still, I had a great time, my two years. When I was a kid, you dream of playing for your hometown. I got to do it. I was happy about it. And in those two years we made franchise history in the playoffs, wins in the season, and I was a part of that. So I’m thankful for that. And now it’s time to move on.”
Relaxing courtside after a Thursday workout, Joseph said he’s adjusting well enough to life with the Pacers, who’ve run off a respectable 10-8 start in the wake of a franchise-changing summer that saw them deal superstar swingman Paul George to Oklahoma City for Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis. Joseph, who still owns a home in the GTA, lives in a downtown condo a short walk from Bankers Life Fieldhouse and the franchise’s palatial adjacent practice facility that opened in July.
“(Indianapolis is) not as big as Toronto, for sure. But it’s nice,” Joseph said. “It’s quieter than Toronto. It’s kind of like San Antonio, a family city. It’s what you make of it, for sure.”
As much as he’s made the best of his situation, he said the transaction that shipped him here amounted to a humbling moment.
“I mean, yeah, any time you get traded from any team, from anywhere, you obviously don’t want to be in that situation. You feel like you’re a little bit unwanted or whatever,” he said. “But at the same time, you know it’s business. They’ve got to do what they feel is best for them, and you move on and continue your career, and you just get better. My goal every year is to get better. And I feel like since I’ve been in the NBA, I’ve been doing that.”
This summer the goal was improving his stroke from deep. Although Joseph had been slowly getting more proficient as a shooter since going a lamentable 27 per cent from three-point range during his first year in Toronto — last year that number had jumped to 36 per cent — he became convinced some mechanical adjustments were necessary, including a tweaking of his hand position on the ball. After an off-season spent working with a couple of shooting coaches — among them Nate Mitchell, the Raptors 905 assistant coach who also worked with Canada’s national team — Joseph said he has gained enough confidence to feel good about “letting it fly” come game time.
“Just in terms of the way the game is going, a lot of people are taking a lot more threes . . . I just have to be a factor out there (beyond the arc),” Joseph said.
He’s enough of a factor that McMillan has been sometimes using him as a shooting guard — a diversification that can’t hurt Joseph’s market value as he heads into the off-season with a player option on the final year of his current deal. In Toronto, Joseph points out, he was only seen as a point guard. Only a few months on, the Pacer with the familiar name and the quintessentially Toronto number is becoming a considerably different player.
“I’m in a good situation to excel. I’m happy. Hopefully, sky’s the limit. We’ll see how it goes,” Joseph said, wearing a wide grin. “I’m excited for (Friday). It’s always good to play your old team. We’ll beat up on those guys. That’s the plan.”