RAPTORS KEEPING THE MOOD LIGHT AT TRAINING CAMP
‘Championship belts’ make their way to VanVleet, Leonard for solid play on Day 2
Fred VanVleet wasn’t about to let the opportunity pass.
It was VanVleet’s turn to address the media on Day 2 of Toronto Raptors training camp and he wanted to look just right.
So the rather unrealistic championship belt around his waist was cinched tight just before he made his way over to the interview area at the back of the gymnasium at the Fortius Sport and Health Centre.
VanVleet earned the belt, one of two given out each day at camp so far — Kawhi Leonard won the other Tuesday, newcomers Chris Boucher and Kay Felder won the first two on Day 1 — for his solid play in five-on-five action.
He had a number of deflections that caught the eye of the coaches, or more precisely assistant Nate Bjorkgren, who came up with the idea of rewarding players for good days.
Head coach Nick Nurse scoffed when asked if it was his idea, but he sees the value in it.
“That’s not mine, that’s coach Bjorkgren’s,” Nurse said. “You can get ’em at Toys R Us for $6.95, or less maybe.”
Nurse didn’t want to take credit for the idea, but contests with rewards like tin belts, even among grown men, tend to keep things loose and that’s not bad at a time when the Raptors are trying to figure out exactly how best to come at this season.
On Monday, the lineups were all over the place. On Tuesday, Nurse actually sounded put out by the line combinations, suggesting they might have been too predictable.
“I’m not even sure how it got to where it got to today,” he said on the day a potential starting five of Kyle Lowry, Kawhi Leonard, OG Anunoby, Serge Ibaka and Jonas Valanciunas spent a lot of time together. “It was a little too close to reality today. We’ve got 20 guys here, four teams, and they’re all mixed up; three of the teams are mixed up. We’re trying to keep the D -League guys together a little bit. We’re trying to look at all the different options and all of the different scenarios.”
But Nurse said the idea is to get away from projected or likely starters playing alongside one another. It’s not his intention to limit anyone on the team and playing only bench guys with bench guys and starters with starters would be limiting to the former group.
“I’m not trying to keep the starters together or the ( bench) mob together right now,” he said. “But it may end up that way.”
At this early stage in training camp, the emphasis has been seeing exactly what they have and the best possible way to do that seems to be a heavy dose of five-on-five scrimmages.
The drills that were the norm these past few seasons have been replaced by a lot of live game action. It’s how Nurse feels best able to see what he needs to see to make decisions on who should be playing with whom.
“I just really like playing gamelike situations, and trying to teach and learn from there more than drill, and I think they like it, too,” Nurse said. “They like to put the score on there and play it out and try to learn what we can from time-and-score situations.”
Rather than slow these games down by stopping play at each teaching moment, Nurse said he prefers to let them play on.
“We don’t stop the game much,” he said. “Every now and then I’ll jump in and say, ‘Did everybody hear that? Here’s what we’re doing.’ Right after a game or a certain segment ends there are a couple teaching moments usually there, and certainly clean it up later.”
Stopping hurts the flow and flow is a very important element in the Raptors’ offence.
“It makes it really un-gamelike if you’re stopping and teaching on everything — and you probably could a lot,” Nurse admitted.
“But we’re trying to keep the flow. It’s hard to recreate the game, the speed of what’s happening, how long the timeouts are, even when there’s a foul called at one end and there are free throws or a shot at the other, it seems like it takes a little longer in practice to get the players down to the other end than it does in the game.”
The approach, as Nurse mentioned, has been popular with the players.
“It is different than San Antonio,” newcomer Danny Green said.
“Not saying it’s any better, but it’s a different type of atmosphere. It’s refreshing. I like it. I think a lot of guys are enjoying it so far.”
The championship belt around VanVleet’s waist was just another example of how the approach has changed this year.
“Any time you’re transitioning head coaches or things like that, it’s going to bring something new to the table, this is one of the little things that they’ve got, and it keeps things light,” VanVleet said. “You want to have good energy when you’re trying to get this work in, it’s a long, gruelling season, and there are certain things throughout you can do to keep the mood light.”
It might not be the approach every head coach would take, but it’s what Nurse is comfortable with and he appears to be getting the proper response from it.