MONTREAL — Moving their training camp around Canada every year serves a pretty clear purpose for the Toronto Raptors: To continue to grow their fanbase around the country, bringing their brand of basketball to markets and people who may not otherwise get a chance to experience it.
It’s fitting, then, that Friday’s open scrimmage at McGill University came down to a few of the team’s Canadian players deciding the outcome.
On one side, RJ Barrett and long-time (and multi-time!) Raptor Jakob Poeltl orchestrated what parts of the Raptors offence they could without the full complement of starters. On the other, Kelly Olynyk had his role expanded and Chris Boucher brought his usual brand of high-energy play. Down a number of key rotation pieces, the trio of Canadians and one of the longest-serving Raptors in Poeltl – plus a very motivated Ochai Agbaji – would be the determinants in whether Team Grey (“Toronto”) or Team Black (“Raptors”) won the crowd over.
It was an intrasquad scrimmage so competitive, and so tight, that it required overtime to decide a winner.
In the end, Olynyk’s prowess stepping into a pseudo Scottie Barnes role and Boucher’s verve proved too powerful, and the Jama Mahlalela-led side came out on top. (Pat Delany coached the other team, with head coach Darko Rajakovic roving between benches.)
The coaching staff had intended to alter the time-and-score situation to work on late-game execution even if the game hadn’t been so close, and while there were some fun after-timeout plays scripted, the execution was still in training-camp mode. Mostly, it was exciting to see a few names pop and the end-game scenario come down to Barrett and Poeltl battling Olynyk and Agbaji, two pairs that will ideally be big parts of Toronto’s first and second units in a few weeks.
The results don’t really matter here, other than the fact that the crowd had a great time, bookended by monster dunks from the game’s primary standout, D.J. Carton. Boucher, a Montrealer, got the largest reaction among player introductions before the game, followed by the other Canadians and sophomore Gradey Dick, Ulrich Chomche may have had the best in-game moment finishing a lob from Poeltl, and though it didn’t secure a victory, Barrett’s huge and-one after a late offensive rebound could have been the story.
While the team does play five-on-five in practice, this was the team’s “first time playing competitively” for the season, per Mahlalela. Stats were kept but not with rigorous accuracy, so what will follow are more scouting-based takeaways than necessarily results-based ones.
Injury notes – Shead and Temple make it six players out
The Raptors were without five players for this one, four of whom are projected to have real roles this season. On the bright side, that gave us all a longer look at players competing for bench spots, roster spots, or even their Raptors 905 roles.
Barnes remained away from the team due to a personal matter. He has not yet rejoined the group in Montreal. Meanwhile, Ja’Kobe Walter is still a couple of weeks away, and Bruce Brown is still a week away from his next check-in on his knee. Immanuel Quickley also sat out as a precaution with the thumb sprain he suffered before camp. Quickley did participate in drills before the game action, and Brown was by far the most vocal and active player (or coach, really) on the sidelines.
Garrett Temple was also absent from the game due to a personal matter and is expected back by Sunday when the Raptors face the Washington Wizards in a pre-season game in Montreal.
Finally, Jamal Shead was a late scratch after taking a shot to his hip earlier in the week. This was just a precaution and he, too, is expected to be good for Sunday.
Scouting takeways
Again, there were no stats available, so you’ll have to just trust my eyes.
• Carton was the player who stood out most relative to expectation, or where he lands on the team’s current pecking order. He’s a player I was really interested in when the Raptors added him mid-season last year, but an ankle injury shut him down almost immediately upon signing. He’s a player who’s made great use of the G League over the past three seasons, improving notably year-over-year. Armed with a good outside shooting stroke and an ability to play on the ball and get two feet into the paint, he has a more clear path to being a bench-calibre point guard offensively. He had a number of good drives, in face-up situations and attacking seams on scrambled plays. It will be really interesting to see where he slots into exhibition game rotation plans versus some of the other guards here.
• Branden Carlson had a great start to the game, blocking Olynyk in the paint and then hitting a three as the trailer back the other way on the same play. The rest of the game didn’t go quite that well, with a few missed pick-and-pop jumpers and some expected adjustment to the physicality even NBA bench bigs bring. His combination of rim protection and outside shooting make him a G League piece to watch, especially if the Raptors plan to get him outside his comfort zone switching some pick-and-rolls and playing some four defensively, as they have early in camp.
• Agbaji had a really strong showing. As a third-year player, he should look better than the end-of-roster or G League pieces in camp, but that wasn’t always the case last year. Agbaji and Barrett battled all night one-on-one, and while Barrett got the better of him a few times – you can’t stop this man going left! – Agbaji offered a nice blend of physicality and discipline on his drives and navigated Poeltl screens well. Offensively, Agbaji was given more opportunity to run some side pick-and-roll and work as a roller. Where he really stood out (and did at times last year) was as a cutter. He has a great sense of when to glide to the rim underneath the Raptors’ actions up top, and if he can make that a regular occurrence, it’s a way of mitigating some of the spacing issues his lack of shooting introduces. (Better shooting would, too, a work in progress.)
• Barrett, Olynyk and Poeltl were who they are. It was great to see them look pretty comfortable so early. Dick also looked good moving off the ball to get open, and he had a stretch of play where he caught fire and the Raptors kept going back to the well on a similar play for him. (Barrett’s late and-one also came on a play where a hammer action for Dick is also a read, with Poeltl sealing his man from the corner. Watch for that as an early-season after-timeout play.)
These are the names that popped, at least for me. I have a few notes on the others, too, but I’ll bank those and roll them into notes coming out of Sunday. Nobody looked bad, just in varying degrees of finding their role, playing a different role due to the thin rosters, or getting their conditioning up. You could take something positive from everyone’s day, I think.
By the way, Team Grey included Carton, Jared Rhoden, Agbaji, Boucher, and Olynyk as starters with Jamison Battle and Bruno Fernando off the bench. Team Black had Davion Mitchell, Barrett, Dick, Joanthan Mogbo, and Poeltl as starters with Carlson, Jahmi’us Ramsey, and Chomche off the bench.
Raptors & NBA Canada community work
The Raptors held a pair of community impact clinics on Friday. The first, conducted in French, took place at L’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). The second, conducted in English, was held at Kateri School: Kahnawà:ke Mohawk Territory, in Kahnawake, just a bit outside of Montreal. These are always a highlight of the Raptors’ trips around Canada, to both the team and the communities they’re visiting.
Over at Maison NBA, NBA Canada’s 12,000 square-foot activation on Rue Saint-Jacques in Montreal, a trio of notable names will be making appearances this weekend. “Junkyard Dog” Jerome Williams (Saturday, 1:20 p.m. ET), long-time Canadian national team stalwart Natalie Achonwa (Sunday, 2:20 p.m. ET), and soon-to-be Hall of Famer Vince Carter (Saturday, 4:30pm ET) will all be popping by. More information can be found at NBA.com/Maison.
What’s next
The Raptors will host Swiss-Canadian prospect Kyshawn George, former Raptors centre Jonas Valanciunas and the Wizards at Bell Centre on Sunday for their first exhibition game. Even with a few expected absences, it should be telling to see who gets second-unit minutes versus third-unit minutes, and who isn’t used at all. It’s our first true look at where Rajakovic and Co. have these guys on a theoretical depth chart.
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