Early-season injuries could be blessing in disguise for Raptors

TORONTO – The Raptors can’t seem to catch a break.

Injuries are an inevitable part of life in the NBA. They find just about every team eventually. Even still, the Basketball Gods have been especially cruel to Toronto early in the season.

Between Pascal Siakam (groin strain), Fred VanVleet (illness), Gary Trent Jr. (sore hip) and Precious Achiuwa (ankle sprain), the team was missing more than half of its offence – a combined 68.6 points, 17.2 assists and 21.9 rebounds per contest – heading into Monday night’s game in Detroit.

Things went from bad to worse when Otto Porter Jr., who was filling in as a starter, dislocated his toe and left before halftime.

Less than a month into the campaign, the Raptors have already lost 30 man games due to injury or illness. They haven’t had their presumed top nine players available at once in any of their 15 contests to open the campaign.

The hope is that they’re through the worst of it. VanVleet and Trent – both day-to-day, according to head coach Nick Nurse – could be back as early as Wednesday when they play host to the Miami Heat. But Achiuwa remains in a walking boot and Siakam won’t be re-evaluated until later in the week. Their returns don’t appear to be imminent.

These next few weeks could make or break their season, but not because of wins and losses necessarily. As of Tuesday morning, 18 teams were within three games of .500, either above or below, including the 8-7 Raptors. While they’ve suffered three bad losses over the past week, they’re a respectable 3-3 since Siakam slipped on a wet spot in Dallas earlier this month.

Given the league-wide parity, and with just four games over the next 13 days, this stretch should be manageable. They’re well-positioned to tread water until they can get healthy again.

So, why is this a crucial juncture? They’re about to find out whether their reinforcements are strong enough to withstand the grind of a full 82-game campaign.

A team can learn a lot about itself in times of adversity, as the Raptors know. When injuries hit early in the 2019-20 post-championship season, Nurse was forced to look further down his bench and realized that he had more options than he initially thought. With Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka going down at the start of a long road trip, Chris Boucher, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Terence Davis emerged as valuable depth pieces for a team that went on to finish second in the East.

Conversely, consider the following year in Tampa. At full strength, that team wasn’t nearly as bad as its 27-45 record would suggest. The problem was that once injuries (and COVID) struck, they didn’t have a viable Plan B. No one stepped up to help fill the void and it resulted in the franchise’s worst season in almost a decade.

Injuries create opportunity. From there, it’s just a question of whether or not the supporting cast can take advantage. When they do, that’s the silver lining. It doesn’t just benefit you in the short term, helping navigate through a tough stretch, but also over the course of the season. If they don’t, that’s a problem that doesn’t tend to go away. This isn’t the last time that adversity will hit. This isn’t the last time they’ll need to lean on those guys at the end of the bench.

So, what is this team made of? The early returns are encouraging.

Down three regular starters and a couple key reserves, and with Scottie Barnes struggling and likely playing through an injury of his own, that supporting cast was able to lead the Raptors to a much-needed 115-111 win over the Pistons.

Dalano Banton followed up a solid 14-point outing in Saturday’s loss to Indiana with a career performance against Detroit. Getting a spot start with Trent ruled out earlier in the day, the sophomore guard scored a personal-best 27 points to go along with four rebounds, four assists, three steals and two blocks in 25 minutes.

Thaddeus Young, who also started, was subtler in his contributions but despite taking just four shots and scoring only six points, the veteran forward made a big impact with his passing and hard-nosed defence.

By the second quarter, Nurse had already used all 11 players available to him. Ten of them scored, excluding Porter, and each chipped in. Fifty-five of the team’s points came from the bench, led by Boucher, who scored 20 on 7-of-12 shooting. Malachi Flynn was productive in his 15 minutes backing up Banton, scoring 12 points and dishing out four assists. Starting the second half in place of Porter, Juancho Hernangomez had his best game as a member of the Raptors, scoring nine points and grabbing six rebounds.

Even two-way guard Jeff Dowtin Jr., who was called up from the G League over the weekend, logged 15 high-energy minutes. He was on the floor and made a couple big defensive plays in crunch time.

“I think everybody that played contributed in some way,” Nurse said afterward. “That’s what it takes when you’re thin and playing different guys, everybody’s gotta do something… It was good to see.”

Nurse was leaning heavily on his starters and using a tight rotation to open the season, which has generally been the case over his five-year tenure as head coach. Most of these guys were playing sporadically, if at all, just a few weeks ago. Dowtin wasn’t even with the team when they began the recent road trip, having to fly from Toronto and meet them in Indiana just in time for Saturday’s game. But with nights like Monday, Nurse’s exclusive circle of trust should continue to expand.

As Nurse reiterated throughout training camp last month, the league has changed. It’s no longer good enough to go into the season feeling good about nine or 10 guys. The season is too long and there’s simply too much that can happen. With injuries, illness, rest nights, slumps and trades popping up, all 15 players on the roster – 17 if you include the guys on two-way contracts – could be called upon at some point. They have to be ready and able to rise to the occasion at a moment’s notice.

Even once they get healthy, this is a team that could always use the added depth. At this time last week, the Raptors ranked 29th in bench minutes and 26th in bench scoring at roughly 29 per game. But over the last three contests, their subs have accounted for a total of 154 points, or an average of 51.3.

Coming into the season, one of their stated goals was to lighten the workload of their starters, namely VanVleet and Siakam. That becomes a lot easier if a few of these sparingly used reserves can establish themselves as reliable contributors.

Surely, the ongoing development of the backup point guards could go a long way in taking pressure off VanVleet and helping to preserve him. Without VanVleet against Indiana and Detroit, Banton and Flynn combined for 61 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists in 76 total minutes.

Banton, in particular, is intriguing. With his length and athleticism, as a big 6-foot-9 guard, he fits the mould. His minutes and production have been up and down to start his second season, but the former second-round pick was excellent in training camp and continues to show signs of growth.

After shooting 26 per cent as a rookie, Banton’s hit 36 per cent of his three-point attempts this season, including 5-of-10 over the last couple games. He’s improved his free throw shooting from 59 per cent to 88 per cent and went 6-for-6 from the line against Detroit, hitting four big ones to ice the game.

With the Pistons making a late run – and coming off a loss in which his team surrendered a 15-point lead and collapsed in the fourth quarter – Banton scored 11 points over the final five minutes.

“The coaches trust me enough to put me in the starting lineup and the guys trust me, they see the work that I put in,” said the 23-year-old home-grown guard, who grew up in nearby Rexdale, Ont. “Whenever you get an opportunity, like Coach Nurse says, you’ve gotta make the most it. I’m just trying to continue to carry that over, night in and night out, every game.”

For now, the Raptors don’t have much of a choice. They need all hands on deck until their best players are on the mend and back in the lineup. Injuries have opened the door for Banton and others to play, learn on the fly, and prove that they belong. If even one or two of them can take this opportunity and run with it, this early-season adversity could end up being a blessing in disguise.