Jonas Valanciunas’ team-first attitude earns him respect from his Raptors teammates,
Big centre’s attitude, ‘good-natured spirit’ earn Raptors’ respect
Nick Nurse was at it again this week, lauding a Toronto Raptor as much for his personality and attitude as for his shooting, pass, dribbling or defensive abilities.
It’s a big deal to the Raptors’ head coach — he wants guys who are good men and goodnatured humans, guys who can get along and be pleasant and be good teammates.
Nurse has pointed that out as one of the key attributes to third-string centre Greg Monroe on more than one occasion, and the coach complimented Jonas Valanciunas for the same key character traits after one of the best games the Raptors’ centre has had this season.
“He works, he wants to know the answers when he’s got questions, he wants to work in between days and things like that,” the coach said of the 26year-old Valanciunas. “He gets rewarded, I think, for just his good-natured spirit. He’s in a good place as far as being a team guy.”
The one consistent trait Valanciunas has displayed since he arrived in Toronto seven years ago is a team-first mentality. Sure, he wants to shoot more and play more and be a more vital cog because he’s like every other NBAer worth his exorbitant salary: He is convinced he can do whatever is asked of him.
But Valanciunas has been steadfast in coming across as a legitimate team-first guy.
He’s always talking about the collective rather than the individual; he celebrates the success of teammates more than he celebrates personal accomplishments.
A case in point was Wednesday’s win over the Philadelphia 76ers, where Valanciunas had a season-high 26 points and outplayed presumptive Sixers allstar Joel Embiid.
Valanciunas knew he had an excellent game after some early foul trouble, yet he still passed it off as a collective effort.
“We played pretty good defence,” Valanciunas said. “We played ‘five-guys defence.’ One guy goes down, next one steps up — we helped each other.
“We’ve been on the strings, we’ve been on a chain reaction. So that’s great. That’s what our identity should be.”
Valanciunas’ skills, and his contributions, are not lost on his teammates, nor are they under-appreciated. They know he’s good, they also know he’ll do whatever is necessary on any given night. It makes it easier for everyone to get along when a guy who could be more demanding is more pliable.
“I think JV is one of the best offensive bigs there is,” Kyle Lowry said after Wednesday’s win. “If it was a post-up game he would be max-max player, but the league has changed a little bit. But when he gets going he can make shots.
“He’s big, he’s strong. I’ve seen him for seven years now and he continues to get better. The feel he has at the offensive end is amazing.”
The game has changed, of course, in the seven-plus season Valanciunas has been in the NBA, and the strong, mobile, post-oriented seven-footer is a bit of dinosaur. But not only has Valanciunas extended his shooting range to make himself more contemporary, as he showed against Embiid, but he can also punish players of similar size and speed, should the need arise.
“I knew Embiid was out there and we all kinda said, ‘JV, we’re going to you and we believe that you can score on this dude,’ ” Nurse said. “And he did, and he drew a couple fouls and it may not seem like the best matchup in the world throwing it into JV going into Embiid, but JV had it going and he did a good job.”
And he will keep doing it because he’s a good player and his coach values the fact that he’s good guy, too.
“There’s nobody that wants to do well more than him, and when he’s missing maybe a couple (of easy short shots) or whatever he’s going to show it because he wants that,” Nurse said. “He works so hard to get it, and he wants to help the team. He wants to play and he wants to play more and he wants to play well. He’s a guy who cares a lot about our team winning and his impact on that.”