Big leap puts NBA back in play
Montreal’s Chris Boucher enjoying a surprising emergence this season with Raptors 905
Chris Boucher is one of the more unique basketball players you’ll run across. He’s got crazy long arms and spindly legs, abundant energy and a running stride that gobbles up metres of hardwood when he’s at full gallop. He’s not Giannis Antetokounmpo, nor is he Pascal Siakam, but you look closely and you can see at least a tiny resemblance.
He’s also one of the more unique men you’ll run across, a 25-year-old basket- ball neophyte who is not only growing into the game but into his personality.
He’s only been playing the sport for about seven years and had to learn how to be a professional almost from scratch, but a background unsullied by the dangerous sense of entitlement too many teenage prospects feel has allowed him to blossom.
“It’s all fresh, it’s all new, it’s all exciting and that’s a unique situation, and that’s propelled him to where he is,” says Jama Mahlalela, head coach of the G League’s Raptors 905 and the man charged with making Boucher all he can be as an athlete and a person.
“If he had played for the last 15 years, I don’t think we’d have the same player. There’s just something about a rawness and a fervour for the game that is unruined by coaches.”
Boucher’s story is wonderful.
Born in Saint Lucia and raised in Montreal, he was a restless youth with little sense of purpose or direction — floating around, not doing much of anything.
He found basketball and basketball found him, and it’s been a torrid rise ever since.
Boucher, six-foot-10 and generously listed at 200 pounds, was the junior college player of the year in 2016 at Northwest College in Wyoming before spending two seasons at Oregon. He blew out the ACL in his left knee at the end of his senior season, went undrafted and spent last season on a two-way deal split between the G League’s Santa Cruz Warriors and the Golden State Warriors.
“When you learn how to play later … when you’re older in your head, that stuff is easier to learn,” Boucher said. “They’re telling you stuff and you can catch it. You’re older. Your mind is there.
“There’s a lot of stuff they talked to me about this year. I got a lot better in one year.”
Adds Mahlalela: “(He’s) growing tremendously, off the court faster than on. His ability to understand what being a team- mate means now: how to relate on a day-to-day basis, when we’re travelling, when we’re in shootaround, when we’re in practices. His leadership he brings to our team has been a very steady growth, and faster than I thought.” The Raptors added him to their summer league team six months ago, patiently waited for him to figure out the nuances of the game and of professionalism.
“In summer league … there was no sense of leadership that he brought to the group,” Mahlalela said. “Now with this team he’s taking ownership of this group and sort of saying, ‘This is my team, and for it to be my team I now have a responsibility. I need to act accordingly. I need to do certain things that otherwise I never would have thought of doing.’ ”
Boucher’s growth outside the game has mirrored his growth and dominance on the court. He’s averaging nearly 30 points and12 rebounds for the Raptors 905, who beat the Grand Rapids Drive 106-91 at the Paramount Fine Foods Centre in Mississauga on Sunday.
Boucher had 29 points and 19 rebounds, putting together an impressive finish after a slow start. He’s had four games of 30 or more points already this season, including a 37-point gem that’s the best regular-season total in 905 franchise history.
He’s leading the G League in blocked shots at 4.1 per game as his raw ability shines through. The intricacies of the game still have to be mastered — pickand-roll coverage, not leaving his man unnecessarily to try and block every shot at the rim — but they’re coming.
“As he’s continued to play well and score at an exceptional rate, but also block shots at an exceptional rate, I’ve said wow, this (Boucher being an NBA player) could be a reality,” the coach said. “He’s a very talented basketball player and he offers things that other teams can’t defend. His ability to get the rebound and push, and be sort of like a point centre, is tremendous and it’s very hard to guard, (in) the G League or the NBA. To me, that’s a skill that is unguardable at any level.”