RAPS STAR PROVING HE’S UP TO THE TASK
Siakam’s maturity on display this season as he steps up to take on more prominent role
Pascal Siakam has progressed so quickly on the basketball court that it’s sometimes easy to forget what is being asked of him this season.
Siakam is being asked to fill the offensive void left by Kawhi Leonard who signed with the Los Angeles Clippers in the off-season.
It’s a bigger ask when you recall Siakam has only been playing the game since he was 16 years old.
The most improved player in the NBA receives frequent questions about filling those very large shoes. Even more impressive is his maturity.
Media ask him about his developing role. More often than not it is after a game in which he has used his unique blend of skill, speed and athleticism to put up 20 to 35 points while handling more than his fair share of rebounding and defending duties, while also setting up teammates for open looks.
But there are games when the opposition loads up its defence against the 25-year-old power forward, holding him to less impressive numbers.
Siakam still fields the same questions about his game and where it’s at and politely, if need be, reminds his questioners that he’s learning on the fly. The path isn’t always as quick and easy as he and everyone else would like it to be.
Teams got a good book on Siakam’s spin moves and his aggressive drives a year ago. Now, with no Leonard in the lineup to focus on, they load up for him.
Siakam was averaging between 24 and 28 points a game through the first 2½ months of the season. But a groin injury cost him 11 games through late December and early January and when he came back, teams were throwing even more bodies at him.
His numbers sagged a little, dropping to 20 points a game.
Again, rather than get frustrated with the attention, he continues to adapt every game.
“I’m watching the double team and obviously that is part of growing and getting better as a player,” he said during the recently completed west coast road trip in which the Raptors won four of five games. “Understanding that you command attention and making plays out of that. I think I am improving.”
It’s meant changing the very mindset at times that got him this opportunity to be the focal point of a team’s offence, but Siakam is doing it.
“It’s tough because your mentality is to score and you feel like you always have an advantage, but a lot of teams aren’t letting you play that one-on-one game anymore,” he said. “So you have to find other ways to score and also other ways to affect the game.”
It’s not an accident that his assists for the month of March are at a season-high 5.2 a game.
That doesn’t mean he’s not scoring. In addition to becoming a better passer, he’s still among the league leaders in buckets.
His 23.6 points per game are 15th in the NBA, tied with Boston’s Jayson Tatum, and only a few points behind Leonard, and Los Angeles Lakers stars Lebron James and Anthony Davis.
The difference between Siakam and Tatum — and that elite group they are chasing — is Siakam and Tatum are still reaching for their respective ceiling.
A favourite phrase of Siakam’s these days in describing his game is “taking what the defence gives me.”
Again, that speaks to his maturity. Rather than put his head down and run into those double teams, he’s picking his spots. When the defence is lined up to stop him, he understands someone else is probably in a better position to score and passes to them.
“Just watching the guys that do that at the highest level and that’s something that Kawhi always would say last year — ‘You don’t look at the past quarter. Whatever happened before has no effect on the game whatsoever,’ and for me, I just try to have that approach. After I missed the last shot, that one is over. Move on. That is what I am trying to do.
“I think it’s all mental, right?” Siakam continued.
“One of the things I have always done early in my career is that every time I missed a shot it felt like the world ended type of stuff.
“It’s something I try to work on every single day. Just understanding that the last shot don’t matter. It’s over. If you make it or miss it, nothing is going to change. So just continue to do the things you do and you work on those things every day so there is no reason you should be worrying about those things.”