Josh Lewenberg TSN Raptors Reporter Follow|Archive
”We are going to hold everybody accountable because we need to. We need, after that performance, we need a culture reset here. We need to figure it out. Yes, there’s been some success, but at the end of the day we are trying to win a championship here. To me making the playoffs is nothing. That was back in the day. Now we have to figure out how we can win in the playoffs. That’s the goal.”
Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri
May 9, 2017
It was the morning of May 9, barely 41 hours after the Toronto Raptors were knocked out of the playoffs, again at the hands of LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. The year prior it was a badge of honour – stealing two games from the eventual NBA champs in the conference finals. This time it was embarrassing.
Reluctantly, team president Masai Ujiri delivered his annual end-of-season address. The wounds were still fresh following their second-round sweep. The off-season had just begun and he didn’t know exactly what he was going to do, but he used the opportunity to send a well-thought-out message to the organization and those within it: things needed to change.
Nobody was quite sure what a “culture reset” meant. Even now, nearly a full year later, it’s open to interpretation.
At the time, many believed it was the beginning of the end for this Raptors team as we knew it, that maybe Dwane Casey’s job was in jeopardy or the long-time core of Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan would be split up. None of that turned out to be the case.
Instead, the term has become synonymous with the team’s on-court makeover this season, the stylistic changes that have turned their once stagnant and predictable offence into an inclusive, free-flowing system. Their assists are up, they’re shooting more threes and they’re playing at a quicker pace, as planned. However, there’s more to the culture reset than meets the eye.
When Ujiri was finally able to take some time and evaluate what went wrong and how to best move forward, he looked beyond personnel. He spent most of May reviewing the team’s day-to-day procedures – how they practised, trained, travelled and interacted with one another – and asked himself: Can we do this better?
“We have to dig deep into everything we do,” he had said last spring. “We can’t just pinpoint coaching. We can’t just pinpoint not making shots. [It’s] our attitude, our leadership, everything. The way we work together. I think those things we need to revisit and then get on with it.”
“The culture change is about the whole organization,” Casey, who worked closely with Ujiri to reinvent the team’s philosophy over the summer, said last week. “It's not about offense and defense. Believe me, when he mentioned that, it was about all of us. Everything we do. From scouting, training, how we go about our day in the front office, it's included in that.”
The two words that came up most often when interviewing players and team staff members for this story were accountability and communication – a couple of guiding principles in many of the changes they’ve made behind the scenes.
PRACTICE
This season has seen the Raptors hold fewer formal practices than ever before under Casey. This is a trend that started a few years back, as the team became a winner and began prioritizing rest – especially for its veteran core. Gone are the long, physically demanding sessions that Casey would put them through early in his tenure.
The biggest difference this year is that instead of bringing guys in for partial or light practices they’ve opted to give them more days off, putting the onus on players and the assistant coaches they train with to get individual work done. In the interest of better preserving players, physically and mentally throughout the course of a long season and into the playoffs, they believe that managing their workloads on off days is every bit as important as reducing the minutes they play.
If it seems like they have loosened the reigns, think again. The longest-tenured players say the Raptors have never been stricter in enforcing team rules, all of which were outlined in a meeting at the start of training camp.
Casey requires all of his players to have their shirts tucked in during practice. He asks that players clean up after themselves, even though they have support staff on site. If a player leaves his sweaty jersey on the court after practice or on the bench after shootaround he’s forced to pay a small fine. If a player is late for a practice, film session or meeting they are fined.
“If a guy’s not disciplined off the floor he’s not going to be disciplined on the floor,” Casey told TSN. “So all those things are really important. We’re sticklers for being on time. I don’t want to take guys’ money but we will for guys being late. We go by the minute. We’ve done it all year if guys are a couple minutes late for a meeting or whatever.”
“I think the biggest thing that came out of it was holding everybody accountable, holding everybody to the same standard,” said Fred VanVleet. “Obviously we’re in a league of stars and superstars and you’ve got to massage guys’ egos, but I think this year more so than last year we’ve held everybody to the same standard and guys are being held accountable, from Kyle and DeMar all the way down to me and Lucas [Nogueira], or whoever, Bruno [Caboclo] when he was here.”
“We had a lot of things in place [already] but as a team sometimes things slip,” Casey added. “It was more tightening things up as much as anything else. Not making it like a prison or anything like that. You want it to be fun for guys to come to work, but at the same time there’s a discipline factor to it. Our guys have been great. A couple guys [have been] late but we haven’t had anything major as far as discipline is concerned.”
STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING
The organization has put a greater emphasis on weight training and conditioning. Early in the off-season they assigned players specific goals and monitored their progress throughout the summer and into camp.
One of their focuses is body fat. They challenged each player to get and stay under 10 per cent body fat, a target that all but one had reached by the end of preseason.
The team has been tracking it regularly all year. Alex McKechnie (director of sports science), Scott McCullough (head athletic trainer), Jon Lee (strength and conditioning coach) and the rest of the Raptors training staff have individual programs set up with each player. Guys that fail to reach their goal have to put in extra work on the underwater treadmill and the stationary bike.
TRAVEL
Things have also changed on the road. It used to be that players were on different schedules after practice or morning shootaround. Some would have media obligations, some would stick around to get extra work in, while others – usually the veteran guys – would finish up and take a cab or Uber back to the hotel.
That is no longer permitted. Media availability has been moved before shootaround. Afterwards, everybody has to wait around until the last guy is done before they all leave together on the team bus.
“Everything’s just kinda more team built and everything’s more team-oriented,” Lowry said. “It’s not like it was a bad thing before but we wanna be on the same page. We wanna be together, we make sure that we’re all communicating. We’re all on the same page and it’s not one person’s doing this, one person’s doing that. Everybody’s doing everything together.”
To a man, every player says the team is closer this season. Winning will do that, but they insist there’s more to it. The young guys – who make up two-thirds of the roster – spent the bulk of the summer working out together and bonding in Los Angeles, Vegas and Toronto. Meanwhile, most of the vets had been teammates before, some for years. From the start of camp the team made a conscious effort to bridge those two factions, promoting unity and togetherness.
VanVleet notes that they’ve gone out for more group dinners this year than last, some team organized but many arranged by the players themselves. Lowry says that, more than ever before, he feels open communication is encouraged throughout the organization and that everybody has a voice.
To this point, their season has been a resounding success. They’ll go into the playoffs as the top seed in their conference for the first time in franchise history. Casey did what few thought he would be able to do by revamping their style of play with virtually the same personnel. He might be rewarded with the NBA’s Coach of the Year award for it. Their stars, DeRozan and Lowry, not only bought into the so-called culture reset, they’ve fully embraced it.
They know it doesn’t mean much if their success doesn’t carry over into the playoffs. That’s what these changes were implemented for, after all.
If they do breakthrough in the postseason we’ll continue to credit their stunning on-court transformation, and justifiably so. If nothing else, those changes are quantifiable. They went from dead last in the league in assists to sixth. They went from 22nd in three-point attempts to third. We can see the difference those tweaks have made.
It’s impossible to measure how much the Raptors’ behind-the-scenes culture reset has contributed to their success. Individually, most of their off-court changes are small and seemingly insignificant, but the internal thinking is that they all add up to something bigger, something that will help put them over the top.
“They’re small details but they make a difference,” Lowry said. “If you look at our team there’s no outcast. Everyone’s together. Everyone loves being around each other. Everyone has a relationship with each individual, so that’s big.”
“I think that there’s just a little bit more of a togetherness,” echoed VanVleet. “Obviously Masai’s [culture reset], or whatever you want to call it, paved the way.”
“I’m a big believer in the basketball gods,” said Casey. “If you do things right, live right, the basketball gods are always going to [reward you]. If you’ve worked [hard] and know that you’ve done the little things there’s a karma and the basketball gods seem to always smile on you. That’s been my history throughout basketball.”
When a group of online friends and rabid Toronto Raptors fans decided to put together a book to show DeMar DeRozan how deep support for him runs, after he disclosed a personal battle with moments of depression, they had no idea how the idea would take off. As Syed Hasny stood with a group of seven others at the Air Canada Centre on Sunday — presenting DeRozan with a tome that will stretch out to more than 260 pages, plus a $3,500 donation to Lupus Canada — the sense of pride was palpable. “We didn’t ever think it would be this big,” said Hasny, who along with fellow Raptors fans Judith Wang and Aleks Sanjevic spearheaded the program. “That it’s a very global thing is even more impressive.” Read more: Raptors’ DeRozan hopes honest talk on depression helps others The submissions run from long letters to short handwritten notes, pictures and personal messages of support for DeRozan, the 29-year-old native of Compton, Calif., now in his ninth season with the Raptors.
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“You taking out the time, and thinking of me (and) doing something like this means everything,” DeRozan said. ”It’s definitely awesome. Thank you. That’s dope.” And while the young men and women who met him before Sunday’s final regular-season home game against the Orlando Magic said they were nervous and a bit awestruck, DeRozan was stunned by the scope of the project. “I really, really appreciate it,” he said. “It means a lot to me, and I’m pretty sure it means a lot to a lot more people as well. If it was one page, I’d be happy. I’m going to … sit at my locker before the game and read it.”
In a Star story published in mid-February, DeRozan spoke out about his battle with depression — “times everything in the whole world’s on top of you” — and it created ripples throughout the professional sports world. Other NBA players came forward with their own stories, each crediting DeRozan with giving them the impetus to talk openly. “I wasn’t expecting anything. I was just going off how I felt,” DeRozan said. “I wasn’t thinking anything else or the response from it. It’s probably one of the most important things I’ve done in my career. It’s awesome.” The three Toronto-area students took it upon themselves to raise money for Lupus Canada — DeRozan’s mom and an aunt suffer from the disease — as a tribute to the four-time all-star. They received submissions from around the world — Afghanistan, Taiwan, the Philippines, across Europe and Africa — and put together the final book. “We thought there’d be maybe 100 people or so in our online community, but the response was incredible from around the world,” Wang said.
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TORONTO — The Toronto Raptors have already accomplished everything they set out to in the regular season. They will finish first in their division and conference; they will go down as the winningest team in franchise history; they will enjoy home-court advantage throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs. If they miss every shot they take between now and the beginning of the playoffs next weekend, it won’t make a lick of difference.
But, when the Raptors woke up Sunday morning, their schedule still had three games remaining on it, starting that night against a long-ago cooked Orlando Magic side that won’t win even half as many times as Toronto will this season. So, what’s a first-place team to do in three meaningless games?
“You can always work on something,” Raptors head coach Dwane Casey said before his group worked on its dismantling of an inferior team, topping the Magic, 112-101. “We want to come in and work on the little things. We’ll sprinkle in some things that we want to use next weekend every now and then. A little bit of everything, really.”
The Raptors did that, shooting well (50 per cent from the field, 42.5 per cent from three), assisting on 28 of 39 field goals, and — through the first three quarters, at least — carrying over some of the strong defensive tendencies they’ve been working to re-establish for weeks.
But they also faced misfortune, as several players came out of the game with injuries. Perhaps the most concerning was Fred VanVleet, who went to the dressing room in the second quarter with lower back tightness and took the rest of the night off.
Fortunately, VanVleet’s exit was precautionary, and Casey said the 24-year-old could have toughed it out if the game meant something. But with Toronto on a back-to-back, it may be wise to keep VanVleet off his feet Monday night when the Raptors play the Pistons in Detroit.
The sophomore guard is an exceptionally important component of Toronto’s second unit, playing more than 20 minutes per night and leading the team in three-point shooting at 41.5 per cent. He’s a part of three of Toronto’s five most-used lineups (and its four most effective per net rating), and it’s not uncommon to see him on the floor with the ball in his hands at the end of tight games.
Sunday, VanVleet was due for a larger-than-normal workload because the Raptors are using the next week to steal a bit of rest for some primary players. You won’t see a full shutdown of Toronto’s starters. But you won’t see any veterans logging 40 minutes, either.
To that end, DeMar DeRozan and Jonas Valanciunas were given nights off Sunday. And don’t be surprised if Kyle Lowry or Serge Ibaka — perhaps even both — get a break Monday in Detroit. Casey is planning to use all of his regulars in Wednesday’s season finale in Miami, but even then you likely won’t see much second-half run for the team’s veterans.
“It’s not like we totally need rest,” Casey said. “But I think it’s the prudent thing to do for our team.”
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Norman Powell and Lucas Nogueira drew into the starting lineup in place of DeRozan and Valanciunas, in order to not disrupt Toronto’s revered second unit. But both left with injuries in the game’s first quarter — Powell in the game’s first minute, as he sprained his left ankle on a drive and limped back to the dressing room in considerable pain.
Powell walked back to the bench shortly after to continue playing, but as he did he passed Nogueira, who departed with left hamstring tightness and did not return. The 25-year-old centre was sent for an MRI after the game, and the team had nothing to announce regarding his availability going forward.
Of course, Nogueira isn’t a rotation cornerstone. But the Raptors would certainly like to get through these remaining contests without injury to anyone, regardless of prominence.
That means key members of Raptors 905, such as Lorenzo Brown, Malcolm Miller, Alfonzo McKinnie, and Malachi Richardson, could be in for a busy week. The 905 opened the three-game G League Championship series in Austin, Texas Sunday night. The Raptors play Monday in Detroit, and Game 2 of the G League series goes Tuesday in Toronto. One or more players could be in store for a back-to-back-to-back in three different cities.
Thanks to all those moving parts — and with only eight active players in the second half — the Raptors fielded some unique lineups Sunday and gave ancillary players an opportunity to shine. Rookie OG Anunoby was the biggest beneficiary, playing 34 minutes and finishing with a career-high 21 points, while shooting 5-of-9 from beyond the arc.
Delon Wright got to run the floor more than normal, putting up 12 points and four assists. Ibaka continued his recent run of strong play, finishing a plus-22 with 13 points, eight rebounds, and three blocked shots. And Powell had a strong fourth quarter, finishing with 12 points, five rebounds, four assists, and three steals.
Meanwhile, C.J. Miles heating up — he went 5-of-10 from distance — can be filed under promising developments.
“It’s huge,” Casey said of Miles’s night. “That’s one reason why we left him in there the other night. So he can kind of get a rhythm, get his sea legs back. A lot of times all a shooter needs is to see it go in.”
Miles entered Sunday in a shooting funk, having hit 7-of-35 attempted three-pointers over his last six games. That was somewhat troubling considering the 30-year-old veteran was signed this off-season specifically to provide the Raptors with reliable three-point shooting come the playoffs. Sunday’s game was an encouraging turn of events.
“I’m just trying to create a rhythm, find some gaps, find some consecutive shots,” Miles said. “Just trying to see the things that — when you go through some of the things you do at the gym, and you work and work — seeing those things come back out.”
With the win, the Raptors completed their most successful home season ever, winning 34 of the 41 games they played at Air Canada Centre. Only the Houston Rockets — the NBA’s best team — equalled that home effectiveness, going 34-7 themselves.
It’s an interesting thing. The Raptors don’t play particularly better statistically at home versus on the road (see chart below), with the exception of their defensive rating, which goes from 106 on the road to 100.7 at home. But for a team that will have home-court advantage throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs, it’s a good sign.
Raptors home vs. road per 100 possessions
PTS FG% 3P% REB AST TOV STL BLK Home 111 46.9 36.3 44.3 24.2 12.8 7.3 6.4 Road 110.9 47.3 35.4 42.8 23.9 13.7 8 5.6
“One of the things we said coming into the season was we want to make this place a special place to play. A tough place to play. I think we’ve done that,” Casey said. “Even some teams that don’t have big crowds in their home court come in here and get excited to start playing — sometimes we juice them up, too.”
“Best in the league.”
That’s the mantra the Toronto Raptors’ second unit repeats to each other prior to each game. And they make a good point.
Heading into the season, the biggest question surrounding the Toronto Raptors was whether or not their young and inexperienced bench was ready to contribute to another winning season. With the departures of veterans Cory Joseph, P.J. Tucker, and Patrick Patterson, second- and third-year players like Fred VanVleet, Delon Wright, Pascal Siakam, and Jakob Poeltl would be thrust into new roles with more responsibility than ever before.
A credit to that group, Casey’s coaching staff, and the Raptors’ development system from the G League’s 905 to the big leagues, what was fairly perceived as the team’s biggest weakness has become arguably its greatest strength.
But it’s one that doesn’t have a long track record when it comes to past title contenders.
The standard in the NBA is to tighten rotations come playoff time, leaning on your best players to raise their game and help carry a team to success. It’s how the last few post-season appearances from the Raptors have played out, with DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry seeing an uptick in playing time at the expense of those further down the depth chart.
Of course, this season — in countless ways — is different. The Raptors’ reserves have logged heavy minutes — both as a collective and individually — while being called upon during crucial stretches of big games throughout the season.
And they’ve had success as a result.
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The “bench mob” – Wright, VanVleet, Siakam, Poeltl, and veteran C.J. Miles — have provided the Raptors with depth and their head coach with a balanced and versatile group of chess pieces that he’s been adept at utilizing. It gives the Raps flexibility and strong counters depending on matchups, and the all-out style the group plays with has wreaked havoc on opponents all season.
The Raptors bench is fast, energetic, bouncy, and relentless. It creates turnovers thanks to swarming-yet-disciplined defence, and takes advantage in transition, turning leads into bigger leads or lifting the team if the starters are under-performing.
Per NBA.com, this season the Raptors bench ranks first in the NBA in steals (four per game), second in blocks (3.1), and fourth in scoring (41.8 points per game). Its plus-minus rating of plus-3.9 is first by a wide margin, 1.5 higher than the second-place Houston Rockets, and more than double the third-place Golden State Warriors.
So, yeah, they’re good.
But will Casey, who has been consistent in his minute allocation and player rotations throughout the season, continue to lean on his bench once the post-season comes around? And will the Raptors continue to win off the collective backs of the deepest roster the team has had under Casey?
“We are going to find out,” the head coach told reporters following a win last month over the Washington Wizards — a potential first-round opponent — in which Raps’ reserves combined to score 50 points, including 20 from C.J. Miles, along with a three-block performance from backup centre Poeltl and a pair of steals from Siakam.
“Why change because of some [hypothetical] rulebook somewhere?,” he asked. “If you find it, please send it to me because I’ve been on some teams where you keep the same rotation.”
The reliance on the second unit has played a big factor in limiting the wear-and-tear to DeRozan and Lowry. Both are averaging roughly 33 minutes per game this season. For DeRozan, it’s the least amount of minutes he’s averaged since his rookie season, while Lowry hasn’t seen his total that low since he was platooning with Jose Calderon in his first season in Toronto.
On one hand, the reliance on the bench has helped open the door for the Raps’ all-stars to again log heavy minutes and take on a bigger workload — which you can expect to see. But it’s a bonus and not the reason why Casey utilizes so many players. That relative rest is a nice benefit of having a deep roster, but hardly the sole purpose of extending minutes down the bench.
Another factor could be the bench’s relative inexperience. Aside from Miles, who has 34 career playoff games (12 starts) under his belt, the rest of the unit has only dabbled in NBA playoff hoops. Wright has averaged seven minutes in his 18 post-season appearances, Poeltl played 26 total minutes in the playoffs last season, VanVleet played 29 in seven games, while Siakam appeared in just two games for a grand total of ten minutes.
Experience is a valuable attribute come playoff time, and one that the group doesn’t have. But look closer and it’s likely less of a worry. All of those players have stepped up in high-pressure situations and against intimidating opponents throughout the season, proving they are unafraid of the moment no matter how big.
Just last season, Siakam and VanVleet helped lift the Raptors 905 to the G League championship. VanVleet travelled between the NBA club and it’s minor-league affiliate, averaging 22 points and 11.5 assists in the two games he played during the best-of-three Finals series. As for Siakam? He was an unstoppable force on both ends of the floor, averaging 18 points, eight rebounds, 1.5 blocks and more than two steals per game. He was named Finals MVP for his performance.
It’s a different environment, sure, but that’s a positive sign of how they respond in do-or-die situations. And don’t think Casey isn’t well aware of that.
Look, nobody is more important to the Raptors than DeRozan and Lowry, but those coming off the Raptors’ bench will go a long way to defining their success, as has been the case all season long.
So will it work in the playoffs?
“We have to find out,” Casey said, “unless this group proves us wrong.”
That hasn’t happened yet this season, but the tension and weight of post-season basketball is itself a game-changer. Whether or not Casey keeps his regular-season rotations intact once the games really matter and whether or not the Raptors will find the same success because of it is one of the most intriguing questions facing the team.
