Alijah Martin can run and jump with the best of them. His defensive tenacity is unmatched, and through hard work and diligence, the Toronto Raptors rookie has turned himself into a more than passable three-point threat — at least at the G League level, where he has converted 39.5 per cent of his shots on nearly six attempts per game.
But his winter game? A work in progress.
“My winter skills are very low,” he said, when we spoke Sunday in Oklahoma City as the Raptors were getting ready for two significant challenges: competing against the defending-champion Thunder and navigating the way home through Toronto’s record snowfall after the team charter touched down in the wee hours of Monday morning.
Martin and his teammates did just fine against the Thunder, squeezing out a 103-101 win to vault the Raptors into sole possession of third place in the Eastern Conference, a half-game up on the fourth-place New York Knicks, who visit Toronto Wednesday night.
But the Raptors vs. Toronto’s record-setting January weather is more of a mixed bag.
Martin — like several of his teammates — can claim a lack of experience on the latter. He was born and raised in temperate Mississippi and spent four years in college in sunny Florida.
“My winter skills are not the best based on my equipment, based on my attire,” said Martin. “I’m just not used to it, but I’m learning, you know? Just got me a snow scraper, ordered some gloves …”
Wait, it’s January and you just got gloves?
“Yeah, I need them to walk my dog.”
Why, yes. Yes, you do.
The 10-day forecast shows overnight lows in the negative double digits and without a daytime high above the freezing mark in sight. Gloves are good.
“I ordered some beanies, couple of beanies,” Martin added. “I’m getting there.”
Not a thing, he was told. Those are toques.
“Toques? I call them beanies.”
That’s wrong. “Yeah. Well, we improving, we improving.”
He is, he is. In late December, Martin posted a video on social media of himself posing next to his car after a fairly minor snowfall. He looked pretty cool. Leather jacket, no toques or beanies in sight.
He’s since bought the required outerwear and some snow tires. And after using a golf club to clear his car of snow the first time, he got himself a scraper too.
But as a rookie in the NBA and a rookie at winter, Martin’s learn-as-he-goes approach is understandable, and he’s not the only Raptor with room for improvement.
Immanuel Quickley grew up in Maryland, where snow is not unheard of — they got nearly 30 centimetres in the Washington, D.C., area Sunday — and went to school in Lexington, Ky., where winter shows up every once in a while.
He then played three-plus seasons in New York, where winter is real.
But his strategy for dealing with it is mostly to pretend it’s not there.
“Winter skills? Zero,” said Quickley, the NBA’s reigning player of the week in the Eastern Conference.
Despite being in his third season with the Raptors and having spent his entire pro career in cold-weather cities, Quickley has yet to take the plunge on snow tires or a scraper, but has good reason: his winter commute is — in the grand NBA tradition for northern climates — from garage to garage.
“I don’t go outside much,” he said.
Which is also the strategy RJ Barrett — one of two Canadians on the roster — uses to cope in winter after high school in Florida and college in North Carolina. His favourite thing to do in winter?
“Be cool (figuratively),” said Barrett. “Stay inside and be comfortable.”
Now, being an NBA player comes with perks. Among them is having their cars running, warm and cleared of snow when they are ready to go as the team charter lands in the wee hours after a road trip. One of the staffers even took it a step further when — before their 3 a.m. arrival Monday — he had shovelled a path to the team’s cars so they didn’t have to clamber through the record 46.2 centimetres that hit the ground at Pearson International Airport on Sunday.
“It was cold, super cold,” said second-year wing Ja’Kobe Walter, who grew up and went to school in Texas. “But they made it super easy for us to get to our cars and get out. Darko (Rajakovic, Raptors head coach) was telling us before practice, there’s a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes that we don’t see, and that’s another one. There’s a lot of people working for us, so you just got to appreciate them.”
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And driving home in the snow?
“I’ve never driven in snow like that before, but you know, I just kept my pace, didn’t try to go too fast or anything,” he said. “And I have snow tires.”
Adding snow tires was part of Jamal Shead’s rookie year learning curve, also. The fellow Texan didn’t have them on when he had his first experience driving in snow last winter. “That was the only time I was late (for the plane),” said Shead, who had never experienced a snowy winter before. “I was like 45 minutes late. I didn’t have snow tires yet, and I was not driving fast. I had my hazards (lights) on, showed up extra late, took the fine and I was like, I’m getting snow tires on as soon as I get back.”
Are they worth it?
“Heck yeah.”
The way around all of these details is to take Brandon Ingram’s approach to winter driving: Hire someone. “I’m not dealing with all that,” said Ingram, who is from North Carolina and had played professionally in Los Angeles and New Orleans before heading north.
Then there’s the shovelling. A good number of the Raptors live in condominiums, so physically moving snow is not part of the job description.
And then there’s Rajakovic, who considers himself a “tough Serbian” when it comes to winter’s challenges but isn’t above a little help from technology. His west-end home has a heated driveway.
“It’s like a cheat code,” he said. There were still sidewalks and walkways to do on his off day on Monday, however, and his eight-year-old son Luka — enjoying a snow day with schools closed — was eager to help, although he did barter his labour for an extra 30 minutes of video game time. “Everything is a negotiation with him,” said Rajakovic.
A future player agent, or front office executive, maybe.
Perhaps the most experienced winter expert on the team is Jamison Battle, who comes from Minnesota, which makes Toronto winters look like a starter kit.
He said he didn’t feel compelled to offer advice to his less-expert teammates. “They have to figure it out themselves,” he said.
Harsh like January, but experience is the best teacher, as Martin would acknowledge.
“Driving in snow? Just go slow and controlled,” he said. “Nothing sudden.”
But if Battle did have advice for conquering a northern NBA city?
“My tip would be to get a snowplow service,” he said.
Noted.
