Veteran Scola energized by joining Raptors
After eight years in NBA, 35-year-old Argentine enjoying time at camp
BURNABY, B.C.— Luis Scola has been around the block once or twice. The 35-year-old elder statesman of the Raptors is entering his ninth NBA season with his fourth team and he’s got endless summers of international greatness to draw on.
Nothing should faze him, this training camp should be like all the others the NBA, Europe and with his Argentine brethren.
Yet there’s a bit of a lilt to his voice and a bit of gleam in his eye when he starts talking about his first season with Toronto.
“I was thinking that yesterday, it’s fun,” Scola said. “We get a chance with a bunch of young guys — some of them very, very young — with a new team, new coaches, the excitement of a new season, the excitement of a new team. “I’m enjoying it.” That Scola would be so enthusiastic at this time in his career, when many players like him dread the mundane aspects of training camp and the overly long pre-season, speaks to his commitment to fit in as well as he can, as quickly as he can on a team where he’s the oldest player by half a decade.
“I think everybody needs it and I think it’s helping me; yes, it can drive me,” he said. “You come in and these kids give you more motivation and maybe more enthusiasm going to practice. You run a little more . . . You’re in good shape, you play better.
“Hopefully, I can keep that enthusiasm through training camp and the season.”
Scola gets his first chance to publicly show how he’s fitting in on Sunday when the Raptors play the Los Angeles Clippers (7 p.m., ET, TSN2) in Vancouver to open their exhibition season.
After a week of practice, they won’t
“You come in and these kids give you more motivation and maybe more enthusiasm going to practice.” LUIS SCOLA RAPTORS FORWARD
be anything near a finished product but it will at least be a bit of a check on where they are.
“There’s a sense of urgency that’s there more so than last year . . . It’s a different approach,” coach Dwane Casey said Saturday. “I think right now, we understand there’s so much we have to get done and learn and get up to speed with. Last year, it was a little bit easier because of the familiarity. It’s a different approach.
“I like the way our defensive progress is going. We’re not there yet, but we made some big steps this week with our changes and things we want to work on.”
Scola, wizened old vet that he is, knows what’s important for himself and his team and it’s not the result of any of the meaningless pre-season games. It’s trite, but it is the process rather than the outcome that matters most.
“The first part is getting into good shape . . . but we also have a team that wants to show, to show what we can do, to make each other comfortable. We want to make coach comfortable playing you, guys comfortable passing you the ball,” he said. “You have to create that confidence and that trust.
“If this would be my team for the last 10 years, maybe I’m thinking just get ready for the season, just get in shape. It’s a little bit different when you play on a new team, you want to do a little bit more.”