There is a mercenary quality required to be an elite professional basketball player.
It needs to be tempered: No one is going very far if they can’t play well with others, but you need to be an opportunist, too. The best have a sense of the moment.
There could be some new opportunities as the Toronto Raptors head into their much-anticipated second-round series against the Boston Celtics with a big question looming over the availability of Kyle Lowry, who suffered an injury to the arch of his left foot early in the Raptors’ 150-122 win over the Brooklyn Nets that completed the first sweep in franchise history.
Hello Fred VanVleet, in other words.
We’ve been down this road before.
While a lot of Raptors watchers were ringing their hands last summer when Kawhi Leonard and then Danny Green left in free agency, a lot of Raptors were rubbing their hands in anticipation.
Nothing against Leonard or Green, but hey, NBA math works a little like this: more minutes = more shots = more money.
Raptors head coach Nick Nurse was attending a show in Las Vegas when word came down that Leonard was gone, which would precipitate Green’s departure. He didn’t panic.
“The first two guys I saw were Kyle and Fred, and they were both saying that 30 shots were open by Danny and Kawhi leaving, and they were ready to take them,” said Nurse. “It’s just kind of the way we approached it.”
Perhaps no player on the Raptors’ roster has benefited more from increased opportunity than VanVleet, though Norman Powell and Pascal Siakam might want to have a word.
What that could mean in the coming days with Lowry’s injury isn’t yet clear, as the team awaits the prognosis for an MRI done on the arch of his foot. But with the Raptors starting their series against the Celtics on Thursday, any scenario in which Lowry can’t play or is less than peak form means more of a burden for VanVleet.
The Raptors aren’t going anywhere — big picture — without Lowry available and able to play at a high level, but VanVleet at least gives some hope they can hold the fort if they have to.
VanVleet wasn’t a big factor in Game 4 as he picked up his third foul before the game was eight minutes old.
The mail was carried by the Raptors’ bench that combined for an NBA-record 100 points, with Serge Ibaka and Powell leading the way with 27 points and 29 points, respectively.
But VanVleet will undoubtedly see an opportunity where others might see disaster.
In his first three seasons the undrafted point guard established himself as a valuable role player who can be trusted to run the second unit and be on the floor at the end of games as a primary or secondary ball handler.
This season? VanVleet has proven himself as a championship-level NBA starter and maybe a lot more if his performance in the Toronto’s first-round sweep of Brooklyn is any indication.
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Heading into Game 4, VanVleet had been the best player in the series, averaging 25.3 points and 8.7 assists while shooting 54 per cent from the floor and 55 per cent from three on more than attempts a game. This is after his scintillating finish to the Raptors championship run last season, when VanVleet came off the bench to give Toronto 14 points a game on 53 per cent three-point shooting, harassed the Golden State Warriors all over the floor and finished them off with 22 points on 12 shots in Game 6, including 12 in the series-deciding fourth quarter.
“He brings it. If I can sum it up, he brings it,” said Nets interim head coach Jacques Vaughn after spending a series trying to game-plan the Raptors. “Their guards really set the tone for the team, offensively and defensively. He makes big shots. You see him dive on the floor in front of our bench on a loose ball the other day.
“You see the first shot that he shoots last game, no bounce, no rhythm, Jarrett Allen’s hand up and he’s two or three feet behind the three-point line. He has a calm but also an aggressiveness about him. Obviously, he’s not scared of the moment. Really impressed with his play.”
Now he’ll have to bring it a little bit more, as will all of the Raptors, assuming Lowry is not at 100 per against the Celtics. The good news is Toronto — plagued by injuries all year — were 12-2 without their iconic point guard.
VanVleet was a big reason why. He took the leap he made in the playoffs last season and extended it.
Is he a better player than he was even 18 months ago?
“Yeah, I hope so,” he said. “I work too hard to not be better than I was. I think I’m better in every aspect. Shooting the ball, decision making, creating shots for others, getting into the lane, finishing at the rim. I pride myself on being a hard worker.
“I pride myself on coming back better each year. I think I worked my butt off during the [NBA hiatus] and I think I’m better now than I was during the season. I’ve got to keep continuing to grow each day. I would hope that I’m better at a lot of things. I think, for me, just continuing to be aggressive for our team and help us win as much as possible. So, going forward you’ll keep seeing that.”
The Raptors have never needed it more.
