Warriors show what’s possible
After a few lost years, Finals foes have reclaimed status as contenders
There are always a few NBA teams that come into a season feeling wildly underestimated.
It was only a while back that Raptors fans saw the predictions from south of the border and shook their heads at the lack of respect. There was a Las Vegas over-under season win total that settled at 36 1 ⁄ . There 2 were swaths of pundits seeing Toronto outside the Eastern playoff picture.
And with the young Raptors two losses and three games into a sixgame road trip that brings them to Golden State on Sunday, let’s just say that if the proverbial jury is still out on their ultimate upside — and Pascal Siakam’s stellar outing in Friday’s win in Sacramento was a reminder that there’s plenty — the early going has also provided a stark look at their limitations.
Their shooting is frighteningly sketchy, third-last in the East in true shooting percentage heading into Saturday. Their resultant efforts to turn defence into offence with aggressive gambling have them leading the league in steals, while ranking an underwhelming 20th in defensive efficiency. They’re also 29th in bench scoring and essentially lost at sea when Fred VanVleet is not on the floor, which may explain why VanVleet is leading the league in minutes per game but has already struggled with a groin injury.
Still, the upside tantalizes. Scottie Barnes, the 20-year-old lottery pick, is a potential star. And the Raptors have plenty of promising youngsters in the fold, the 22-yearold backcourt duo of Gary Trent Jr. and Dalano Banton among them. All of which is to say: There’s hope, both this season and beyond.
And maybe Sunday’s visit with the Golden State Warriors is a good time to remember the fineness of the line that can separate NBA pretenders from contenders.
It’ll be three years ago in June that the Raptors beat the Warriors in the NBA Finals. And in the time that’s passed the Raptors have been, by some measures, the better team. Since lifting the trophy in Oakland, the Raptors have won 88 regular-season games; Golden State has won 68. The Raptors have won seven playoff games; the Warriors haven’t even qualified for the post-season.
And speaking of coming into a season feeling wildly underestimated, the bookmakers pegged the Warriors’ over-under win total at a modest 47 ⁄ — the ninth-highest number in the NBA. Sixteen games into the season, they’ve got the best record in the league, on pace to win more than 70 games. And that’s despite the fact that Kevin Durant now plays in Brooklyn and Klay Thompson, Steph Curry’s longlaid-up Splash Brother, hasn’t played a game since the night the Raptors won the title (and isn’t slated to return from rehabbing his torn Achilles tendon until next month).
With Curry playing at the MVP level, Draymond Green looking like a candidate for defensive player of the year and Andrew Wiggins prospering in a supporting role, suddenly the Warriors have emerged from the muck of a couple of difficult seasons as a viable threat to win the West. For the Raptors, in their third season since Kawhi Leonard’s exit and first without Kyle Lowry, it’s a rough sketch of what’s possible.
“I think it’s good to see their trajectory in terms of their ‘rebuild,’ from where they were the championship year and losing (Durant) and then we lose Kawhi,” VanVleet told reporters this past week, speaking of the Warriors. “They still have Steph and Klay, but for them to work themselves back up into the team we are accustomed to seeing, I think it’s good to follow.”
Last week, Warriors coach Steve Kerr, in a lighthearted call-out of those who’d sold his team short in the lead-up to the season, compared himself to Arya Stark, a character from the TV series “Game of Thrones” known as a baby-faced seeker of ruthless vengeance.
“I’m like Arya from ‘Game of Thrones.’ I have all the names of the media members who picked us to be outside the playoffs, and I’m just checking off the box,” Kerr told reporters. “I used to have to do that for a living a long time ago, and it’s really hard to make predictions and prognostications. So I don’t pay too close attention to that. I think as a coach you kind of feel a vibe in training camp and you can kind of tell what kind of team you’re going to have. Where you are emotionally as a group, it really matters. Two years ago we were shattered, literally and figuratively.”
If the Warriors were shattered two years ago, this year they’ve skilfully put it back together. And as much as it’s Curry’s otherworldly shooting that often grabs the headlines, what’s also worth following from a Raptors perspective is that the foundation of Golden State’s renaissance is defensive.
The Warriors boast nothing less than the best defensive rating in the league. For all of Siakam’s inconsistencies as an offensive force, Raptors fans had to be heartened to hear him acknowledge the most disappointing aspect of his work this season, specifically his spotty defensive engagement.
“I have to keep my consistency on defence ... and I think that’s something that I have to get better at, and I have to bring that intensity every single night so everyone can follow,” Siakam said.
It’s one thing to say it, of course, and another thing to bring it. If the Raptors hope to rain vengeance on the critics who’ve allegedly underestimated their potential, at least Siakam has identified the end of the floor where the cleanup needs to begin.