Toronto’s changing of the guards has already begun
Rookie Flynn enters with the veterans dinged up and the playoffs iffy
The Raptors are playing games for this season and also laying the foundation for coming years, and central to both of those themes is young point guard Malachi Flynn.
He has been pressed into a significant role of late, a happenstance that dovetails with the team’s objectives as it heads into the final quarter of the regular season.
Flynn is playing more, he’s being asked to do more and, for the most part, he is giving them just what they need.
The Raptors remain at least in touch with the final slot in the newfangled process that will determine the final two Eastern Conference playoff spots, and having a true third point guard is a necessity.
But management is also playing with an eye on the future, which might not include one of the team’s two veteran point guards. Flynn is being groomed to eventually slide into that spot. It is imperative that he gets experience and learns from it, and for the most part he’s been doing that.
“We’ve seen more activity from him making plays at the defensive end,” coach Nick Nurse said last week. “I’m talking about, he’s getting in the paint and stripping the ball away and things like that. We’ve seen the volume of that increase. I think that’s kind of in his game, but since he’s been out there more minutes we’re kind of confirming that.”
Flynn’s minutes have increased lately because the Raptors didn’t have another point guard available for a five-game stretch without either Kyle Lowry nor Fred VanVleet. That’s likely to change, with Lowry back from a foot injury and VanVleet getting closer to returning from a hip injury, plus a one-game suspension that he still has to serve.
Still, Flynn has matured extensively over the last couple of weeks, and Lowry’s future past this season is uncertain at best. Turning over at least the backup job to Flynn is why he was drafted in the first round last year. He’s the future, or a big part of it.
“It’s been a great opportunity for me to really play a lot of minutes, play through some mistakes,” Flynn said. “Just continuing to learn the game at this level.
“It’s been a little bit of a learning process, but (I’m) just trying to get better every game and everybody else is just helping me along the way, so it’s been good.”
The added responsibility and extended minutes may not have translated into pure scoring statistics — he’s shooting 42 per cent from the field over the past six games — but his game is definitely evolving.
“I just think he’s understanding that the scoring will come,” Lowry said of Flynn. “Before, I think, when he first started playing he was like, ‘I’ve got to score, I’ve got to score.’
“I think now he’s understanding that the scoring’s going to come, but you’ve got to make the plays first. That’s where the maturation is coming in.”
Shooting and scoring are skills that develop over time, and if there are mechanical issues to address with Flynn’s shooting stroke they can be tweaked in the off-season.
For the rest of this season — in whatever minutes he gets while the team chases the playoffs, and any enhanced role if the Raptors are definitely out of the race — the job is to learn the nuances of the game, get used to its speed and learn as many tricks as he can from VanVleet and Lowry. The two vets have been tutoring Flynn all season and can now help finetune his game while he’s playing more.
And for Nurse? He’s more interest in Flynn’s overall improvement rather than specifics.
“I think he needs to be a guy that plays well every night,” the coach said. “That doesn’t have anything to do with whether he’s 8-for-10 or 2-for-10. There should still be a number of assists, a number of steals, some good defensive play, three-fourfive rebounds, even though he’s a point guard.
“He’s the kind of player that needs to … run the team, execute, grow in his defensive scheme comprehension, all those kinds of things.”
Now Flynn’s getting the chance to do that.