TORONTO — During the first time out in the first quarter of the Toronto Raptors game against the visiting Houston Rockets, the anticipation started building as the lights dimmed a bit at Scotiabank Arena.
Rockets guard Fred VanVleet — it still feels odd to type that — wasn’t able to play in his first game back in Toronto after seven fruitful seasons due to a groin strain, but his tribute video was up and running. And it was predictably great – VanVleet’s rags-to-riches NBA story writes itself. And because VanVleet was in street clothes, he didn’t have to pretend he was too locked in to notice what was going on.
When the roughly 60-second montage played out, finishing with VanVleet’s epic, head-back roar during Game 6 of the 2019 NBA Finals, VanVleet took to the floor and applauded the fans in all four corners of Scotiabank Arena, where he’d made his journey from unknown and undrafted to champion and all-star.
But the Raptors have very much turned the page on what was the most magical era in Raptors history. There’s no going back now, the trade deadline is over with, the changes have been made.
“Now we know what we got and we can try and build on this,” said Raptors centre Jakob Poeltl, who only had three teammates left who were on the team when he was traded to Toronto a year ago. “We know this team is going to stay together exactly this way at least until the end of the season. Obviously there’s just like a new wave of young players and we’re trying to build something. So we can look at the rest of the season for us to like get a head start there.”
That the Raptors were able to avenge the Rockets’ blowout win over Toronto in Houston last week was a bonus, but also hopefully the start of something for Toronto, who were mostly in control from the opening tip in a 107-104 win despite some tense moments down the stretch.
The Rockets pulled within five with 4:35 to play on a pair of consecutive threes by Canadian national team star Dillon Brooks, but the Raptors responded with a putback by Scottie Barnes (13 points, 10 rebounds, eight assists) and a dunk from RJ Barrett (21 points, seven assists) to put the lead back to nine with 3:17 to play.
They needed that cushion as the Rockets pulled within four with 29 seconds to play — and it should have been three after Houston scored on a steal that was incorrectly ruled a foul. The call was reversed by a coach’s challenge but the basket — which would have cut the Raptors’ lead to two — didn’t count because the play was deemed dead on the whistle.
Houston kept the ball and didn’t score initially but then the Rockets won another coach’s challenge on an out-of-bounds call, Brooks hit his third triple of the last five minutes and cut the Raptors’ lead to one. Barrett hit a pair of free throws to give Toronto a three-point lead and the Rockets missed two chances to tie before the final horn and the Raptors survived to win their second straight game and improved to 19-33 on the year as the Rockets fell to 23-28.
It was closer than necessary, let’s just say.
“I told guys, ‘We just need to learn how to close those games: what it takes, how to execute, how to get that extra rebound that we need.’” Said Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic. “It came down to the last couple of possessions that we needed to get a stop. It’s going to be a really good film for us to watch and then learn.”
Toronto got the victory without the benefit of newcomers Kelly Olynyk and Ochai Agbaji, acquired from the Utah Jazz at the trade deadline on Thursday. The pair will make their Raptors debut Saturday night when the Raptors host Cleveland, but whether it was playing at home for just the seventh time since Jan. 1 or having the stress of the trade deadline behind them, the Raptors were as engaged and spirited as they’ve been in some time.
The ball moved for the most part (15 of their 24 assists came in the first half, but still), there were offensive contributions from up-and-down the lineup and defensively the Raptors took advantage of the Rockets, a team that looked disorganized for long stretches without VanVleet to settle things down. Toronto held Houston to 44.7 per cent shooting and forced 22 turnovers which was likely the most telling single statistic in the game. Immanuel Quickley led the Raptors with 25 points while Brooks, who had 50 friends and family on hand to root for the Mississauga native, led Houston with 20.
It wasn’t quite out with the old, in with the new on Friday, but it was somehow fitting that VanVleet’s special moment came the day after the NBA trade deadline. One day after the Raptors’ makeover since their former point guard left for Houston in free agency last summer was complete, at least for this season.
The debate about why VanVleet left, exactly, or why the Raptors couldn’t find a way forward with the likes of homegrown stars OG Anunoby, Pascal Siakam and the new kid on the block, Scottie Barnes, will probably never be completely put to rest — certainly not with Siakam set to make his first visit to Toronto with Indiana Pacers on Wednesday — but it’s dying down.
As VanVleet told me last week in Houston, when he looks at himself, Siakam, Anunoby (now with the Knicks), and even former head coach Nick Nurse, “it’s like everyone is in the right place.”
VanVleet added Friday:
“That’s really the only way it was ever going to go,” he said of the Raptors rebuild. “It was just a matter of when. Once you set off on that trajectory, this is what it looks like. I think it was time to turn over a new leaf.”
It helps that some of the new faces that have arrived are obviously pleased to be in Toronto, even if it means joining a team that has a ways to go to return to the level of year-in, year-out competitiveness that the franchise enjoyed for most of VanVleet’s times in Toronto.
Consider Kelly Olynyk, the 11-year veteran who was on the first thing smoking out of Salt Lake on Friday morning.
Olynyk was born in Toronto and got his start in basketball here before moving to Kamloops, B.C. with is family. His mom, Arlene, was a well-respected referee and was part of the Raptors’ original scoring crew. His father, Ken, was the head coach at the University of Toronto and spent a season as a guest coach with the Raptors in 2002-03, a 24-58 season that ended with then head coach Lenny Wilkens being fired.
After stops in Boston, Miami, Houston, Detroit, and Salt Lake City, to say that Olynyk was excited to have a chance to play for the Raptors is an understatement.
“It’s a full circle moment,” said the long-time Canadian national team star. “It’s really cool to look back at your life and everything that you’ve done up till now and how monumental the Raptors have been in my life. My mom was a scorekeeper here. My dad was an associate coach here for a year. Ya know, just being in the driveway pretending you’re a Raptor growing up. I used to fall asleep at night with a little alarm clock radio listening to the FAN590 and Chuck Swirsky. So to be putting on this jersey and you know, these shirts and hats and stuff. It’s like, it’s something that you can’t even put into words.”
For Ochai Agbaji, the excitement comes not from getting to come home and live out dreams hatched in childhood, but to get a chance to realize hopes and dreams that hadn’t yet been realized in Utah for the 14th pick in the 2022 draft.
“Yeah, I’m ready for this one,” said Agbaji, an athletic wing who averaged 20 minutes a game over a season-and-a-half with the Jazz. “And ever since I got that, call that phone call yesterday, I feel like it’s a fresh new start, new team obviously, new coach, and new staff but a different approach at the same time too. Coming in here, doing everything and giving you my all to win every single night.”
Even Bruce Brown, who seemed the Raptor most likely to be traded since he was acquired as the primary incoming piece in the Siakam trade, seems pretty happy to be in Toronto for the remainder of the season and possibly beyond.
How was it not to be traded?
“It feels great, it feels great,” said Brown, who spent the trade deadline holed up watching the opening round of the Waste Management Open. He got word at about 1 p.m. that he wasn’t going to be dealt and enjoyed the rest of his off day. “Obviously it’s nice to have some stability. I didn’t know what was going on. So it was great. I’m glad to be here for the rest of the season and then try and work things out.”
How things shake out will likely be the most fascinating part of the 30 games remaining in the Raptors season.
VanVleet was an integral part of the Raptors’ culture almost from the moment he began his first training camp by going straight at Kyle Lowry in an effort to serve notice that he was going to more than training camp fodder. He proved his point and has become part of Raptors lore.
His toughness, his will and his basketball IQ were championship tested.
But the rest of the Raptors season is about moving on and finding new ways to compete and different ways to win.
Building a new culture on the efforts of a group of players looking for a special place to play is as good a way to start as any.
