Casey craves consistency from his new-look Raptors
Off-season additions provide coach with defence-first type of players he covets
An NBA season dawns that is both exciting and terrifying for the Raptors, new players in key roles, a renewed focus on the great failing of last season and it is folly to suggest anyone knows precisely what will happen.
With the additions of DeMarre Carroll, Cory Joseph and Bismack Biyombo, coach Dwane Casey has the type of defensive-first players he craves and who should improve a glaring weakness; in Luis Scola he’s got a savvy veteran to teach, mentor and contribute.
It is a sea change from the offensively explosive team that flamed out spectacularly in the playoffs last spring and that brings with it some trepidation about a season that starts Wednesday night at home against the Indiana Pacers.
“I trust them because I see how hard these guys are working,” Casey said on the eve of the season. “Do I know exactly what we’re going to do, what we’re going to get offensively?
“No, I don’t think anyone in this room does. But I know one thing, this group is going to come out and compete for 48 minutes the hard way.”
In the endless month of practices and practice games that is the preseason, Casey has craved one thing: Consistency. As a glimpse into the difficult task of managing a gaggle of high-level young athletes, looking at maximizing their talents to the benefit of the whole, the head coach’s message has to be constant and unchanging.
It’s “not jerking guys around” Casey said the other day, giving them every opportunity to do their jobs by letting them know as precisely as possible when they’ll be asked to perform.
The subject came up in a discussion of the team’s starting power forward, the only position that was up for grabs in training camp and Casey was adamant that flip-flopping Scola and Patrick Patterson was not going to happen.
“We want to get a solid rotation where guys know when they’re going to play, know when to expect they’re going to play in a constant rotation,” Casey said.
“I think that’s a key to guys being comfortable in their role. That’s something we’re going to strive for.”
There are coaches who script rotations as far as to make the same substitutions at every point in every game, with the same one or two players coming off the bench at, say, the second timeout of the first quarter each night. Casey may not go exactly that far but he will be close.
“I’m not that strict, but I like that school of thought just from the fact that I think it’s important for guys to know,” the coach said. “Every player I’ve been around has always wanted to know when he’s going in the game, about what time he’s going in so he can start getting mentally ready. I think that’s the proven thing for a rotation.”
Players, who can be true creatures of habit and for who any disruption to what is the norm can be unsettling, appreciate the clarity.
“That’s the biggest thing man, knowing your minutes, knowing when you’re going to get in the game, so you can mentally be ready,” Carroll said.
“A lot of people think that the game is all physical. I think it’s half-physical and half-mental. I feel like if you’re mentally into the game, when you get out of there, you’re going to produce like you need to produce.”
Casey’s management of in-game rotations is only part of his philosophy of clearly defining what he demands from each player.
In a pre-practice meeting Monday morning, he doled out “role cards” to each of the 15 members of team, spelling out just what was expected of each. Defensive stopper, threepoint shooter, ball-mover, rebounder, shot blocker: Each player has no excuse about not knowing what’s expected.
“One of my pet peeves — and I learned this a long time ago — is for a player to go to you guys and say ‘I don’t know my role,’ ” Casey said. “That is the biggest cop-out I’ve ever heard. Now, I told our guys, keep one in your pocket, one in your locker and if you lose the first one, here’s a third one. Now there’s no excuse about knowing your role.”