Sports Blog: Siakam at core of interesting Raptors squad
So, we’re a week and a couple of days away from the start of Raptors training camp and this, I think, is going to be an interesting team to see develop and grow.
Sure, there’s a big core, a solid core, that’s been together for a few years and it might be seamless in some regards, but without the imposing spectre of Kyle Lowry hovering over the team, finding out how the mix evolves is going to be interesting.
Make no mistake, Fred VanVleet had morphed into the team’s spokesperson and its leader and I fully expect him to keep on that path this season, but Kyle was Kyle and the strength of his personality and history with the Raptors permeated the team.
He’s not there, that dynamic has changed and it will be different.
Which brings me to Pascal Siakam, who was in the news
Thursday after he gave an interview to the New York Times that was mildly revealing and the most open he’d been in a while.
He admitted that he had COVID-19 last year — he had never said that to us despite having numerous chances to, an opportunity he should have taken to clear the air last year. He didn’t and decided to months after the fact, for whatever reason.
Most of the rest of it was rehash. He didn’t handle the 2020 bubble very well — duh! — and he clashed at times last season with head coach Nick Nurse – double duh! Both are, and were, undeniable as the difficult season went on and are, I believe, easily overcome now that things are back to normal.
The other part that got me — and perplexed me — was that Siakam somehow felt he wasn’t “the man” during last season.
That basically runs counter to all reality. He took nearly every big shot in every close game down the stretch. Every time we asked coach Nick Nurse or any of his teammates who the team’s “closer” was, Siakam was singled out and I’m not sure what else anyone could have done to make him feel his bigshot opportunities would be commensurate with his maximum salary.
That just doesn’t ring true, and I would hope there’d be further explanation coming when he has to actually talk to writers who closely watched every game last season.
And how he now fits with his teammates, and his coaches, is going to be worth watching closely when they all reconvene for a “regular” regular season.
I do imagine it’ll be fine. I think this group that returns basically all five starters from the end of last season, augmented by a promising rooking and far more frontcourt depth than it had last season, will be fine.
I’m not guessing yet where they’ll finish, but I do think it’s going to be a fun and versatile group to watch, and whatever Masai Ujiri and Bobby Webster turn Goran Dragic into at some point in the season might be the major determining factor in its ultimate success.
But Siakam has to be central to it whenever he plays, and that doesn’t sound like it’s going to be before late November since he’s not doing much basketball stuff at the moment.
He has to mature a bit and he has to feel comfortable in his role, which is already large, and if he’s really feeling like the last season and a half was a pandemic-ruined aberration he’s going to have to prove it on the court.
I do think he was bothered more by the disruption than any player or person on the team – and he seems quite willing to admit that – but it also means that if things are normal, he should be normal, too.
That’s truly a “let’s wait and see” proposition.