Rookie Shead a pleasant surprise for rebuilding Raptors

TORONTO – Jamal Shead’s teammates were in awe, even though they had all seen it before.

The Raptors’ 6-foot rookie point guard was lurking in the paint when RJ Barrett drove to the basket in a game against Washington earlier this month. As Barrett’s layup hit the rim and bounced out, Shead went up and threw down a one handed put-back slam. 

The bench’s reaction was relatable in that moment. Jakob Poeltl chuckled in disbelief, Scottie Barnes’ jaw nearly hit the floor. They, like most fans, were trying to comprehend what just happened.

Shead was 15 when he first dunked a basketball before an AAU game in between his freshman and sophomore years of high school, but he doesn’t do it often.

 “I know that I can dunk,” said the 22-year-old. “I think everybody else doesn’t know that I can dunk. I don’t dunk in practice. I just don’t like dunking. It’s very uncomfortable. It hurts my hands. I think they’re surprised because I don’t do it much.”

Even still, that was the third dunk of Shead’s young NBA career and he’s added another one since – a tomahawk slam from just inside the free throw line in Golden State last week. For context, in 16 combined seasons with Toronto, Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet – both listed at the same height – never dunked in an official game (though Lowry famously dunked in the 2015 All-Star Game). Joel Embiid, who’s a full foot taller, only registered five dunks this season, albeit in just 19 games.

But Shead is used to flying under the radar and catching people by surprise. He’s been doing it all year and for most of his life. Despite his many accomplishments in four seasons at the University of Houston – where he was the 2024 Big 12 Player of the Year, a two-time Defensive Player of the Year, and led the Cougars to a couple conference championships and Elite Eight appearances – the undersized guard fell to 45th in last summer’s NBA draft. 

There were questions about his jumper and his upside as an older prospect, but mostly, his size made it easy for teams to sleep on him. 26 of 30 clubs passed on him, some of them multiple times, before the Raptors called his name in the middle of the second round, with a pick they had acquired from Sacramento on draft night.

For a rebuilding team with depleted organizational depth, it’s hard to overstate how well Toronto did in the 2024 draft, especially when you consider the overall strength of the class – regarded as one of the weakest in recent memory – and where the team was selecting from. Even without their own first-round pick – the eighth-overall selection, which was conveyed to San Antonio as part of the Poeltl trade – they came away with Ja’Kobe Walter (19th overall), Jonathan Mogbo (31st) and Shead, as well as sharpshooter Jamison Battle (undrafted) and a long-term prospect in Cameroonian big man Ulrich Chomche (57th). 

Outside of the Washington Wizards, no team has relied on first-year players more than Toronto. Each of those guys has enjoyed standout moments and proven that they belong at this level, from Walter’s game-winner in Orlando to Mogbo’s hustle plays and Battle’s three-point shooting. But as we near the end of their debut campaigns, Shead is looking like the real prize, and perhaps, one of the biggest steals in the class of 2024.

He came to training camp as the third point guard, but an early opportunity presented itself with Immanuel Quickley missing most of the pre-season and then 38 of the first 47 games. By mid-season he had jumped Davion Mitchell in Darko Rajakovic’s rotation, making the veteran expendable at the trade deadline. Since then, he’s averaged 22 minutes over 21 games, starting five of them.

What’s unique about his season is that, unlike the other rookies on the roster, it hasn’t been broken up by a long (or multiple long) G League stints. Outside of a brief assignment in December, Shead has been up with the NBA club and a mainstay in the rotation. He’s played in a team-leading 65 games; nobody else has appeared in more than 57. That’s par for the course – in four college seasons, Shead didn’t miss a single game due to injury. His minutes have gone up each month and so have his point production and assists. If he’s hit the dreaded rookie wall at any point, it hasn’t shown or lasted very long.

While he wasn’t among the 14 first-year players selected to the Rising Stars Game last month, Shead has a legitimate case to earn All-Rookie honours. In 16 games since the all-star break, he’s averaging 8.1 points and 4.7 assists in 23 minutes. For the season, his 7.5 assists per 36 minutes ranks 15th among qualified players across the league. He’s third among rookies in assists and ranks fourth among bench players in that category, trailing only TJ McConnell, Scoot Henderson and Payton Pritchard.

His biggest area of improvement, according to the player himself, is the jump shot. Shead is hitting 34 per cent of his three-point attempts, up from 30 per cent in college. He knows there’s still work to be done – league average is around 36 per cent and that’s the goal, at minimum – but he’s come a long way in a short period of time and is shooting the ball with more confidence than ever before. He’s hit 38 per cent of his pull-up threes this month, up from 19 per cent earlier in the season.

But he still prides himself on being a defender, first and foremost. According to NBA tracking data, via stats guru Keerthika Uthayakumar, 22 per cent of the isolation possessions he’s guarded have ended in a turnover. That ranks seventh in the league, among qualified players. He’s second among rookies in offensive fouls drawn and leads all first-year players in taking charges.

“I’d say the thing that kept me up here is my defence,” said Shead. “Your defence doesn’t take skill, it’s more about effort. Maybe I have hit a rookie wall on offence, but defence is just effort. So, I think that being consistent with the defensive part has kept me up here.”

In the last two games alone, Shead has gone head-to-head with a couple future hall of famers at his position. Last week, he chased around Steph Curry and did an admirable job face guarding the two-time MVP and denying him the ball before he left with a back injury in the second half. On Sunday, he held Chris Paul to two points on 1-of-4 shooting in 22 minutes, while going off for a career-high 17 points on 7-of-14 shooting himself. He was only a minus-5 in a game that his team lost by 34 points.

“He continues to impress us every single day with his play,” Barnes said. “He’s young, but he plays like a vet.”

“Biggest thing for him over here in this stretch is getting opportunities to start some games, to play against the starters in this league, and that's a completely different game than going against backups,” said Rajakovic. “Over the course of season, he did really good job as a backup point guard, but now getting out there and playing against greats like Chris Paul. There's so much to learn. How he's controlling the team, how he's communicating, for him to be on the court to experience all of that is really, really going to help him to get to a next level. Overall, I think he's doing good job and I think he has more to give as well.”

This season has been a trial by fire for Shead and the other rookies, but despite the expected growing pains that have come with it, they should be better for the experience in the long run, and so will the organization. Out-of-nowhere success stories like Shead’s used to be the norm in Toronto. Finding and developing hidden gems late in the draft, or even outside of the draft, helped them build a championship team from the bottom up.

Doing it again will require Barnes’ continued ascension to superstardom, Quickley and Brandon Ingram to stay healthy and make good on their new contracts, and some lottery luck this May, among other things. 

Much has been made about the importance of landing a top pick in the upcoming draft and hitting a home run with that pick, but for the Raptors rebuild to be swift and successful, they’ll also need to hit some singles and doubles. Yes, they need more high-end talent to pair with Barnes and the recently acquired Ingram, who isn’t expected to debut with the club until next season, but it’s imperative that they find quality and affordable complementary pieces to round out the roster now and for the future.

 It sure feels like they’ve done that with Shead and this group of rookies.