Leap year after leap year
Siakam could be NBA’s most improved two seasons in a row with unprecedented ascent
When Pascal Siakam announced his arrival at the NBA Finals with a 32point outburst in a Game 1 win, he left more than one observer agog.
Not only had he led the Toronto Raptors to a landmark victory over the vaunted Golden State Warriors, this while frustrating the best efforts of Draymond Green, only the 2016-17 NBA defensive player of the year. Siakam, once again, had also defied the conventional bounds of what we’ve come to expect from the pro athlete improvement curve.
“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Nick Nurse, the Raptors head coach, said at the time. “That’s a pretty big stage for a guy to put that kind of performance on … It’s been a pretty short run for him.”
The “short run” to which Nurse was referring has been well documented. Siakam’s unlikely basketball journey — from beginner player as a 16-year-old to the 27th pick in the NBA draft at age 22 — has always been a source of amazement. We’re living in an early specialization universe, after all, where the athletes who wind up at the top of the professional food chain often grow up as highly recruited golden children. The old saying goes that if you’re good enough, they’ll find you. If you’ve got talent, they’ll see you coming.
All of that makes Siakam’s story hard to fathom. What’s even more amazing, all these months later, is that Siakam’s improvement curve has shown no sign of a downward bend.
Last season, Siakam increased his per-game scoring average by about 9.6 points, en route to winning the league’s most improved player award. Eleven games into this season, he’s taken that MIP-worthy 16.9 points a game and tacked on another 10.3 points a night, which has amounted to a startling jump, indeed. Heading into Friday’s games, Siakam ranked ninth in the league in scoring average, at 27.2 points a game for his 8-3 team.
Not only is he making a case for an unprecedented run as back-to-back MIP. In the wake of Kawhi Leonard’s departure, and in the midst of Kyle Lowry’s thumb-fracture-related absence, he has emerged as his team’s undisputed MVP.
(Although, to toss in a Hubie Brown counterpoint, it’s not impossible to argue that Fred VanVleet, who’s admirably filling in as the starting point guard, has the potential to make a season-long most-improved bid while taking a nightly stab at the franchise’s most valuable performer. Let’s just say that, just as Siakam was rewarded with a four-year maximum salary contract extension before the season began that kicks in beginning in 2020-21, VanVleet, a pending free agent, is due a healthy pay raise.)
Let’s consider the enormity of Siakam’s jump. Two seasons ago, he averaged 7.3 points a game as a second-year player. This year, he’s averaging 27.2 points a game in year four. That’s essentially a 20-point-a-game jump in a matter of two years, which seems like the kind of hyper-speed progression we’ve never quite seen before. How to explain it?
Certainly he accepts suggestions from his coach. This month, Nurse publicly criticized Siakam for his penchant for committing what Nurse characterized as “dumb” personal fouls. In the opening six games of the season, Siakam had committed an average of 4.5 fouls a game and fouled out twice. In the six games since Nurse called him out, Siakam has averaged 2.5 fouls and hasn’t committed more than four in any one contest. But it’s more than his
facility for taking a hint.
“He’s been given a God-given ability of a big engine with a lot of energy. It allows him to work very hard every single day,” Nurse said during the championship run last spring. “That motor he’s been given, he’s using it to the best of his ability.”
His ability to continue to improve might be his best ability. Toronto’s basketball fans have seen workhorse gym rats renovate their games before their eyes, sure. When former Raptors all-star DeMar DeRozan transformed himself from a Toronto rookie averaging 8.6 points game to an allstar averaging 27.3 points a game, that amounted to an increase in 18.7 points a game, which was impressive. But the journey between those numbers spanned eight seasons. Perhaps because DeRozan had grown up as a top high-school player and a high first-round pick, his NBA growth curve wasn’t nearly as steep.
When Raptors draft pick Tracy McGrady blossomed from averaging seven points a night as a skinny rookie to 26.8 points as a first-time all-star, that was a 19.8-point leap. But the development route spanned four seasons, and the 26.8 points were scored for the Orlando Magic after a longlamented move from Toronto.
If we’re talking about fourseason improvements, Siakam’s elevation is even more astounding. He averaged a minnow-esque 4.2 points a game as a rookie. That’s a 23point increase in a quadrennial. It’s hard to find anything comparable. Reigning league MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo went from averaging 6.8 points as a rookie to 26.9 points in 2017-18 … but that was a fiveyear progression. Clyde Drexler went from averaging 7.7 points a game as a rookie to averaging 27 points in his fifth year … but again, five years. Kobe Bryant went from averaging 7.6 points a game as a rookie to 28.5 … but again, that was a five-season process.
Just as Siakam’s game defies categorization — this season he’s shown mastery as a post player, as a point forward, as an above-the-break three-point shooter – his continuing evolution confounds expectation. Which is not to say there aren’t caveats to the gushing discussion. Siakam has often faced single coverage this season — a luxury that’s not likely to persist if he continues to shred defences as the weeks progress. Still, as my colleague Bruce Arthur was saying at Thursday night’s Star subscriber event at Real Sports Bar & Grill, maybe we shouldn’t use the phrase “Pascal Siakam’s ceiling” anymore. He currently doesn’t appear to be possessed of one.
“I don’t set goals,” Siakam told reporters earlier this season. “So whatever happens, happens.”