LONDON, Ont. — When competing for a spot on an NBA roster, every opportunity counts. The Toronto Raptors only have five exhibition games before the ball goes up for real on Oct. 20; rosters are finalized Oct. 17.
For those without a guaranteed contract and trying to crack a roster, there are no off days. Relaxing isn’t an option.
So, while an intra-squad game with four 10-minute running quarters where the score is barely being kept is a long way from the NBA playoffs as a true measure of a player’s abilities, it’s all the Raptors have for now, and yes, it matters.
“The handful of guys that are in that position are being evaluated all the time,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse after a spirited open scrimmage at Budweiser Gardens in front of 2,600 fans, the first to see the Raptors play in Canada since February 2020. “And this was another day of evaluation, maybe a little bigger than normal because it was a little bit more organized and things like that.”
The Raptors have 20 players in training camp. Of those, 12 are on guaranteed contracts and — barring the unforeseen — will be on the roster when the season starts. Two more — second-round pick David Johnson and undrafted rookie Justin Champagnie — have already signed two-way contracts. That leaves six players on non-guaranteed deals battling for three roster spots: Yuta Watanabe; Freddie Gillespie; Sam Dekker; Isaac Bonga; Reggie Perry and Ishmail Wainright.
Among them is Gillespie, the raw big man with the never-ending arms, the positive attitude and a motor that is always in overdrive. But he came into camp firmly on the bubble. The Raptors gave him $50,000 to battle for a minimum contract. If he doesn’t perform or they want to go in another direction, it’s a small investment to write off.
Still, after a promising 20-game stretch at the end of last season when he was signed out of the G-League, Gillespie seemed like he might have an inside track on a job for a team as size-starved as the Raptors were last season.
“Yeah, I mean experience gives anyone an edge, but it’s not anything I look at to just rest on and ‘OK, I can sit back. I’ve got this much space,'” he said. “It’s a cutthroat league so I’m grateful for any experience I do have, any edge I do have, but that doesn’t slow me down or keep me relaxed."
The line is that fine. As well as things went at the end of last season, a lot of that good work was undone with his performance in Summer League where Gillespie seemingly came unglued — or at least his hands did. He shot just 22.7 per cent from the floor, almost all of them from point-blank range. He looked anxious and frustrated.
“Sometimes things just happen,” he said. “I mean I’ve been a good finisher since I was in the G-League, college, Division III and I don’t look at three or four games and think, ‘Man, what is going on now?’ I just say this isn’t happening and I keep working on what I do and I keep doing it and I get better."
Gillespie will never earn an NBA job based on offence — for the moment the 24-year-old will be expected to screen hard and battle for scraps in the paint. But no one can get away with failing to finish over and over on what should be dunks, put backs and tip-ins.
So it was encouraging to see Gillespie finish everything he got his hands on in London, even if it was just a scrimmage. The fumbly hands and uncertain footwork that plagued him in Las Vegas were nowhere to be seen. He made a nice interior pass to a cutter; he blocked an OG Anunoby dunk attempt.
“He had a day; he was pretty much flawless you know?” said Nurse. “He was on the offensive glass; never gives up at the rim to contest, even though he's a bit undersized and doesn't necessarily jump out of the gym but he'll be there and he'll take a swat late and save some baskets on that stuff and it'll get you some extra possessions.
"He had a good day, which was good, I think we're going to need some depth at that position on certain nights for sure.”
Among the others on non-guaranteed deals, Watanabe looked fantastic, both driving the lane with a newfound aggressiveness and finishing with some craft when he got to the rim and stepping into multiple deep threes with an obvious confidence. It would be a shock if the Raptors don’t pick up their $1.8-million option for 2021-22.
After that, Dekker knocked down some threes, showing off the range he added in Europe. It’s a small sample, but better than not hitting shots the Raptors will need him to make. It was hard to judge where Wainright, Perry and Bongo stand, at least from where I was watching.
For his part, Gillespie is trying to keep his focus narrow. The life of a fringe NBA player doesn’t lend itself to looking too far into the future. But he played well and tomorrow’s another day.
“I think you know with this league, a lot of things change day by day. I don’t think anyone can say what tomorrow looks like or next week or definitely next month looks like,” he said.
He’s under no illusions about where he stands.
“The mindset was just come in and compete and control what you can control honestly," he said. "I think for me since I’ve been playing basketball, there is a lot of outside noise and chatter [and] a lot of things outside your control and there is no point stressing over it because you can’t change it. So I just look at things I can control like how much work I put in, my attitude, my energy, nutrition, conditioning, all that stuff. Everything else just has to fall into place from there.”
It's a cutthroat league. If he makes the roster it means someone else will be heading down the road. Gillespie is okay with that, too.
“I’m a nice guy but I think if you are at this level you have cutthroat in you,” he said. “I think some guys might show it more than others, but I think at the highest level of anything you've got to have that competitive cutthroat to you.”
A good showing in a scrimmage is another step along the road to a guaranteed deal. On Monday night against the Philadelphia 76ers, the exhibition games begin.
NOTES
• In addition to Pascal Siakam (recovering from shoulder surgery), four Raptors didn’t participate in the scrimmage. Chris Boucher dislocated his ring finger on his left hand; his return is to be determined. Similarly, Gary Trent Jr. was out with left quadriceps soreness. Both will likely be out for Monday’s exhibition game. Khem Birch is out due to health-and-safety protocols related to COVID-19.
• The Raptors were in London as a show of solidarity with the Muslim community in wake of a murderous hate crime this past summer that claimed the lives of Madiha Salman and her husband Salman Afzaal, their daughter Yumnah and Afzaal's mother, Talat Afzaal. Their son Fayez Afzaal, nine, survived the attack.
Said Raptors guard Fred VanVleet: “We can only do so much and be so many places at once but I thought it was just a nice gesture to make a short drive down to just show where we stand on things and just make it clear that we’re against all forms of hate and we definitely stand with the Muslim community — and all people but the Muslim community that was affected here in London — it was important for us to show that we stand for them and we stand against hatred and just make it clear, that clear distinction, this is who we are, this what we’re about.”
