If you’d walked into the Toronto Raptors’ OVO practice facility at any point over the past couple of weeks, there’s a good chance you’d see some zippy one-liner slapped across the jumbotron screen in size 1,000-point font. After a season marred in negativity last year, the Raptors have been trying to radiate positivity in every way possible. “Alone We Can Do So Little Together We Can Do So Much,” the board said one day. “Win The Day,” it read the next. On Tuesday, though, there was no message when the media walked into the practice facility. Instead, workout schedules dawned the far corners of the board with no text in the middle. After three straight losses including two nightmarish losses to the Chicago Bulls and Portland Trail Blazers, that positivity the Raptors has been preaching has been a little less easy to come by.
OK, the missing big board message was probably nothing. Probably? But the typically happy-go-lucky Darko Rajaković seemed a little less upbeat on the heels of his first extended losing streak as a head coach. How can you get Gary Trent Jr. better looks on offense considering his slow start to the year, one reporter asked.
“I don’t have the ball in my hands, so I cannot pass the ball to Gary,” Rajaković responded. “It’s our team that needs to recognize what kind of shooter he is to put him in situations that when they’re helping off of him, and it’s also he needs to work better off the ball, getting to his spots, and we as a team just need to do a better job of finding him on the court.” At this point in the year, that’s probably about as direct as you can expect any coach to be when his team isn’t playing the way he’d like.
“Obviously I’m trying in timeouts, I’m trying after free throws, but I’m not able to call every single time down to call plays because of the pace that we want to play with,” Rajaković continued. For Pascal Siakam, the start of the year has been particularly difficult. He’s been asked to change the way he attacks offensively, and it hasn’t been easy. He’s averaging just 15.3 shot attempts per game, his lowest number since Toronto’s championship season, and his points per game sit at just 16, the lowest since before Toronto’s title run.
“I think that I’m trying to figure it out, we’re all trying to figure it out as a team,” Siakam said. “We knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Everything is new and there’s going to be rough times. As long as we don’t go away from each other during those times I think that we can continue to fight and see it through.” The team’s offensive struggles were always to be expected this year. The Raptors have been among the league’s worst half-court offenses for three years now with a nearly identical roster. Anyone expecting shooting to sprout up overnight and the ball movement to be crisp was always dreaming.
But Toronto isn’t ready to give up on this new offensive philosophy even if the results haven’t been pretty so far this year. “We have to continue to work hard,” Siakam said. “It’s four games, one possession here, one possession there and it’s a different outcome and you guys aren’t asking these questions. So we have to stick with it, continue to play hard, continue to trust each other go out there and try to get wins.”
That’s not going to be easy, though. Toronto’s schedule ahead includes a murder’s row of teams running through Milwaukee, Philadelphia on a back-to-back for the Raptors, followed by Victor Wembanyama’s Spurs, Dallas, and Boston before wrapping up the first ten with what should be an easier game against the Washington Wizards. It wouldn’t be at all surprising if Toronto ended this stretch 3-7.
It was easy for this team to be positive when there weren’t any losses on the record. A perfect preseason, relatively good health, and a new era of Raptors basketball had everyone with good vibes. But nobody ever expected this season to be smooth sailing for Toronto. And when it comes to positivity, Siakam will be the first to share the truth. “Winning is fun. At the end of the day, I don’t care what you do. I don’t care how excited you get. When you don’t win it’s going to look a certain way,” he said back in the preseason. “So yeah, I think vibes depend on winning.”