Morning Coffee - Nov. 15, 2024

Agbaji shining when injuries gives him space | Can Dick be the focus? | Raptors host Pistons tonight

Raptors must improve defensively to take next step - Sportsnet
Poeltl was withering in his assessment after Sunday’s loss in Los Angeles where the Raptors gave up 70 points on 56 per cent shooting in the second half, a game that Toronto had fought back to tie early in the third quarter. 

“We have to hold ourselves to a higher standard … we shouldn’t be making so many mistakes. We have these little miscommunications where we don’t really know what’s going on on the court,” said Poeltl. “We should know how to guard these actions. It’s not like they were throwing stuff at us that we didn’t know was coming. We should know our coverages in these situations and that really wasn’t the case.” 

It wasn’t all doom and gloom, but Poeltl wasn’t pulling any punches either. 

“I think our mindset is in the right place, we just have to get better at executing it,” he said. “I think the groundwork is there, we’re trying to be aggressive, we’re trying to do the right things, we’re just not good at it yet. Especially when you get exposed by more experienced teams. They find loopholes, they find ways to break it down, and we’re not good at adapting on the fly yet.”

Statistically, the Raptors are exceptionally bad in two main areas: 

The first is they foul too much. Heading into Friday’s game against Detroit the Raptors are a distant last in the NBA in opposition free throw rate. They put opponents on the line after 35.4 per cent of their field goal attempts. As a result opponents are scoring nearly three points more per game at the free-throw line (24.8) than the next most foul-prone team in the NBA, the Washington Wizards (22.1)  and 10 points more per game than the league-leading Boston Celtics (14.2) give up.

Just tidying that up – improving to say, the 26^th most foul-heavy team in the league – would improve the Raptors' defensive totals by nearly five points a game. Do that and the Raptors would have a look at nudging into the NBA’s middle-third, defensively.

The front office always believed in Ochai Agbaji. Now he’s showing us why - Toronto Star
Sure, Agbaji wasn’t great in Las Vegas and he wasn’t great in the final couple of months of last season when the Raptors waved the white flag and populated the roster with more than a few players they knew would never be NBA regulars.

But they knew, as certainly as they could, that the 24-year-old was a keeper. All he needed was a role with a legitimate team and he would more than fill it the way they envisioned.

“Everyone knew it was different, the whole aspect of Summer League was different for me,” Agbaji said. “We all kept that in mind.

“It was obviously tough going through that and seeing that and the outcome of Summer League and (the thought of, ‘Damn, what we do now?’ ”

What the Raptors did was run him out with teammates who can find him and coaches who know he’ll do what’s best for the team.

And, today, Agbaji is at least tied with Gradey Dick as the best early-season surprise on the Raptors. He’s shooting the lights out of the ball — a stunning 48 per cent from three-point range, which is not sustainable — and he draws the toughest defensive assignment of each game.

He is doing it because he’s not the player he might have appeared to be in Las Vegas or in too many nights late last season when the Raptors relied on two-way and 10-day guys to get through games. He is a bit of a bigger- picture player — and a good one — that every good team needs.

It may seem logical that players are better when they play with better teammates, but that’s not always the case.

Players tend to push the envelope. They get surrounded by teammates who might be able to do more and they try to one-up them when possible. It’s not to suggest that Agbaji doesn’t want more and doesn’t expect more; rather he’s comfortable playing off the other guys. It fits his game.

Ochai Agbaji Has Been a Revelation for Raptors Early This Year - Sports Illustrated
Who expected this?

Supposedly Dick did.

“Of course, the way that he works you can't not see it,” said Dick who spent the offseason working out with Agbaji in Kansas. “The way that he goes 100 miles an hour every single drill. I feel like a lot of coaches say that guys go hard every drill, but if you watch Ochai work out behind closed doors, away from the media and stuff like that, and you can actually tell there's a difference to his work ethic. Everything that he's doing is earned, for sure.”

What’s been clear is Agbaji put in a ton of work reforming his shot with Toronto’s coaching staff and working on improving his balance. He was regularly seen getting in reps with Raptors coach Darko Rajaković and Toronto’s assistant coaches as they tried to tweak his mechanics.

The results?

Agbaji is shooting 47.9% from three-point range and leads the league in corner three-point efficiency at 62.1%, the best of anyone with at least 20 attempts so far this year. Those percentages mark an increase of roughly 20 percentage points over Agbaji’s percentages last season.

“Leading up to the season, before training camp I was working at nights, coming in for some touch up, getting some shots up, that really hasn’t stopped,” Agbaji said Thursday.

This is what this year is all about for Toronto.

Raptors need to be more Gradey Dick-centric to assess if second-year wing can handle the load - Toronto Sun
In the absence of Barnes and Quickley, the Raptors approach, beginning with Friday night’s home date against the Detroit Pistons in Toronto’s second game of the league’s in-season tournament known as the NBA Cup, must be Dick-centric.

Allow him to have ball in his hands more often and see if he can create off the dribble, give him the ball on every possession and see how he reacts when opposing teams are sending an extra defender, continue to monitor how he reacts in times of stress.

The season began with this rebuild theme, a year of growth and assessment, but things changed during the recently competed road trip when Dick emerged.

The first-half Dick in Milwaukee in Tuesday night’s loss opened all kinds of possibilities if his play could be sustained.

Given the obvious talent deficiency with this current roster, Tuesday night’s second half showed it could be maintained.

People often wonder whether Dick’s tires have been prematurely pumped or whether one should put the brakes on, metaphors that could easily apply to Dick because he is, after all, only in his second season.

Even this season’s sample size isn’t big enough to make any definitive conclusion.

There’s no denying his talent, no questioning his growth, no telling what kind of player Dick will eventually become or whether he’s even used as some kind of trade chip as part of a deal to acquire an elite player pining for a change in scenery, that rare talent that will allow Barnes to slide into the role as the Raptors’ No. 2 option.

1 Contract Decision Looming Over Every NBA Franchise - Bleacher Report
Agbaji is already on his third NBA team, though he never played for the team that drafted him (Cleveland Cavaliers) in 2022—as part of the Donovan Mitchell trade with the Utah Jazz. Eventually, Utah sent him to the Raptors with Kelly Olynyk, where he's grown into a productive starter.

Look for Toronto to give him a rookie-scale extension this offseason, at or above the NTMLE number. Davion Mitchell, who will be restricted this offseason, seems likely to return as well.

Other free agents: Chris Boucher, Bruce Brown Jr., Bruno Fernando, Mitchell, Garrett Temple

1 Trade Every NBA Team Should Propose Right Now - Bleacher Report
Toronto Raptors Receive: Ousmane Dieng, Malevy Leons

Oklahoma City Thunder Receive: Chris Boucher or Kelly Olynyk

(*Trade cannot be completed until Jan. 31)

This framework deserves its own asterisk. The Thunder may not need big-man reinforcements by the end of January. Isaiah Hartenstein should at least debut by that point, and Jan. 31 post-dates the timeline for an update on Holmgren.

Toronto and Oklahoma City can break bread now if the latter subs in the injured Jaylin Williams. But that may require the Raptors sending out more value of their own.

At any rate, the overarching point stands: Toronto should be drawn to any opportunity that ends with them securing a flier on Dieng. He is incredibly raw on the offensive end and can be too rigid defensively. But there is real feel to the way he moves with the ball, and he has the size and length at the other end to be moved all around the positional spectrum.

Dealer's choice for the Thunder will require at least some waiting even if the two sides rework this package. Olynyk has yet to make his season debut as he recovers from a back injury. But either he or Boucher holds some value to an Oklahoma City rotation that could feasibly be without Holmgren until after the trade deadline.