RAPTORS' HOPES NOW REST WITH SIAKAM
When the snow clears and the emotion of all this Toronto Raptors upheaval is put to rest, so much of what happens with this team begins and ends with Pascal Siakam.
This is his show. He's supposed to be the star. He needs to be the difference maker if the Raptors are going to compete for big prizes in the Eastern Conference. He needs to be everything he was in the early season a year ago and everything he wasn't when the NBA playoffs began in the Orlando bubble.
Serge Ibaka and Marc Gasol have left for Los Angeles, same arena, different teams, and both will be missed in very different ways. Ibaka blossomed into a near-star in his final two seasons, the first two playing for coach Nick Nurse. He was indispensable, whether starting or coming off the bench and in a game that has become more about shooting than anything else, he was the Raptors' best shooter.
Gasol was a diminishing asset, slowed by time and circumstance, a giant of a man with a calming, curious and wondrous personality: He still can pass the ball like few others, his vision unmatched. He just can't move much, shoot well, or rebound to speak of anymore.
Ibaka, who shot almost 43 per cent from three-point land and against the Celtics, is impossible to replace. Gasol, who shot 12 per cent on threes against Boston, can be replaced by a warm body, just not necessarily in personality and leadership.
The Celtics didn't play all that well in beating the Raptors in seven games in the playoffs.
They didn't win the series as much as Toronto lost it. They lost it on the simplest of playoff clichés: Their best player wasn't their best player.
The Siakam who began last season with a giant new contract, a new place as the Raptors' No. 1 offensive option, is the Siakam they're going to need when the season begins in late December and ends some time in July.
He scored 34 points on opening night, and followed that up with 33 in the second game of the season. He couldn't have started any better, averaging 28 points a game in the first month of the NBA season.
Against Boston in Orlando, Siakam averaged 13 points a game. That's an astounding number under any circumstances. He scored more than 17 points in just one game. He shot 12 per cent from the three-point line after being a 35.9 per cent three shooter during the season. What happens now to Siakam?
A fresh start? A long memory? A check of confidence? Or have NBA teams figured him out. Scoring in the playoffs is always more difficult than scoring in the season. Every shot is contested at a much more intense level. It takes a special player to fight through that.
Except somehow, the Kyle Lowrys, the newly signed Fred VanVleets, even Norm Powell, seem to be able to get it done on occasion. What we don't know right now, what we'll figure out either in season or certainly at playoff time, is whether Siakam can be one of those special players.
Gearing up for free agency a year from now, the Raptors may have their eyes on those kind of prizes, but they still need Siakam to be a star. The better he plays, the more chance there is for Toronto success. And the better he plays, the more chance there is for him to attract free agents in the future, where stars want to play with stars.
In his first season as a first option forward, with Kawhi Leonard having gone to Los Angeles, seemingly home for all departing Raptors, Siakam was a 45.3 per cent shooter from the field, 35.9 per cent from threepoint range. Those are better numbers than Lowry put up, close to VanVleet's statistics.
Against the Celtics, Boston star Jayson Tatum obliterated Siakam, while not necessarily playing head to head. He outscored him by 16, 17, eight, one, 17 and eight and was once outscored by Siakam by a point in Game 3. Total points for the series: Tatum 170, Siakam 91.
Even losing Ibaka's 15 points a game and the seven by Gasol, the Raptors shouldn't really have trouble scoring this season. Lowry and VanVleet should be somewhere around 38 points a night. O.G. Anunoby should be able to take a step up and move closer to Ibaka's 15 per game.
The new centre, Aron Baynes, is a 10-point guy, and Norm Powell should be somewhere around 15 a game.
Without Siakam or the bench, that adds up to 78 points a night on average. Siakam should be in the 25-point range, if he can get anywhere near back to his form of the first half of last season. Then add a pinch of Chris Boucher and whomever else gets to play and there's your 100 or so for the night.
But with Siakam, it isn't so much how many points he scores as it is how he scores them, and when he scores them. He needs to be able to close for the Raptors. He needs the ball in his hands in the final seconds of a tight game. He needs to be dangerous again.
Is he up to being the NBA star the Raptors need him to be? Only he can answer that question.