‘Anything can happen’ — just look at the Celtics
Hayward’s ghastly injury is a reminder that in basketball, there are no guarantees
DeMar DeRozan says every time he takes the court before a game, he finds some wood on which to knock.
“Just hoping for the best — not just for myself, just for everybody,” he says. “This is a dangerous thing. Anything can happen.”
DeRozan, like much of the NBA on Wednesday, was talking about the opening-night injury suffered by Gordon Hayward, who was all of five minutes into his US$128-million contract with the Boston Celtics when he came down awkwardly on his left ankle, causing it to break in such a ghastly fashion that players and coaches sitting courtside in Cleveland became an instant tableau of shock and grief.
The Toronto Raptors guard said when he saw it, he immediately thought of being on the Team USA practice court a few years back when Paul George snapped his leg. The then-Pacers star took most of a year to recover.
“It just sucks,” DeRozan said succinctly.
The Hayward injury will have many effects, not just on the 27-year-old who will have to work his way back to health and then try to play without thinking about his foot pointing the wrong way at the end of his leg every time he drives to the basket. It renders the retooled Boston Celtics an even bigger question mark than they were after they swapped Isaiah Thomas for Kyrie Irving, it makes the Cavaliers once again the overwhelming favourite in the East, and it makes life a bit easier for the next tier of teams that includes the Raptors and the Washington Wizards.
It’s also a stark lesson in how even the most careful of plans can be blown apart in an instant. Since Masai Ujiri arrived in Toronto in the spring of 2013, an existential question loomed over this franchise: tinker or tear it up?
There was much evidence to suggest the latter path was the way to go, and Ujiri even took a couple runs at doing just that before some trades that were made and some trades that weren’t turned the Raptors into unlikely division winners.
The team president has had several chances since to veer again into blow-it-up mode, but each time has come down on the side of working with what he had, bringing back Dwane Casey as coach after early playoff failures, re-signing DeRozan two summers ago, then doing the same with Kyle Lowry this past July. All along, there was the same nagging question: Could you really win with a team built around Lowry and DeRozan? And all along, the answer ended up being: We will try. Ujiri didn’t embark on a scorched-earth strategy in hopes something great would eventually rise from the ashes — he built a very good team that still has to figure out how to take the final steps to greatness.
Quite unexpectedly, the Celtics have underscored the value in going that route. Boston’s Danny Ainge has for several seasons been plugging away at the teardown and rebuild the Raptors ultimately eschewed. He pulled off the Great Brooklyn Heist that allowed his team to get young and terrible, then brought in a new coach and started adding big pieces, culminating this summer with the Hayward signing and the Irving shocker, moves that cost Boston a good chunk of its depth. It was masterfully executed, and it lasted for five minutes.
Casey said Wednesday the Hayward injury was a reminder of how well-laid plans can go poof. The Raptors think of themselves as a 50-win team with a top-10 offence and a top10 defence, but “that all starts all over again.”
“I’ve been on teams where we thought we were gonna be a great three-point shooting team or a good defensive team,” Casey said, “and lo and behold, you look like you’ve never spelled the word defence.”
Weird stuff happens, in other words. Guys get old fast, or young guys take a leap, or in the least foreseeable case, star players get taken off the court on a stretcher.
You cannot assume anything, Casey said.
“That’s how you have to approach this league,” he said. “If you don’t, it’ll jump up and kick you in the butt.”
None of the preceding means the Celtics did anything wrong with their rebuild. Boston could still be good to great, even without Hayward.
But it’s not hard to imagine an alternate timeline where the Raptors sold off their veteran talent over the past couple of seasons and came into this summer looking to build for the future. After all, how could they contend with LeBron, Kyrie and the Cavs?
Instead, they’re a veteran team buttressed by a collection of young talent, gazing up at two teams in the East standings that, via trade and calamity, look very different than they did at the end of last season.
The Raptors’ season hasn’t even begun and already they are in a better spot than they were Tuesday. Sometimes it doesn’t take long to see the value in trying to be good.