Morning Coffee - Nov. 4, 2024
Drake fires at DeMar. Vince's jersey is retired and we can all move on with our lives. RJ is legit. Gradey making his case.
Gradey Dick's offensive versatility at forefront of early breakout for Raptors - Sportsnet
There are more layers ahead for Dick, too. He’s tallied 13 assists in seven games and has the potential for far more, as he makes good reads on the catch or when attacking, reading the defence's next reaction and what will open up in a moment. He needs to get better at executing those passes cleanly, and the Raptors need him to be aggressive as a scorer right now, but he has that in him. Dick’s also been challenged by Rajakovic to guard across four different positions, with earlier pick-up points and less “hiding” him (something the team doesn’t have enough defenders to do right now, anyway). That’s been hit or miss, with Saturday’s Kings game standing out as a high-water mark for his defence.
Most importantly, everything Dick is doing becomes even more valuable when Barnes, Barrett and Quickley can see the court together. Dick’s usage will almost certainly go down in terms of shooting volume when everyone’s healthy, but the amount of sets he’s involved in and the amount of off-ball work he’s doing should continue. That makes life easier for the three play-initiators, drawing attention and providing them space and giving them a high-yield kick-out option. Dick’s percentages could improve, too, with defences less able to overload onto him with better players around him.
Seven games is not a massive sample. Defences will be given the chance to respond to what Dick’s showing, tweaking schemes or personnel to take away the areas where he’s succeeding. He’ll be challenged to grow as a passer, as a finisher, and as a defender. The MIP award is not locked up yet. Necessary caveats noted, it’s hard to overstate how dramatically different — better, stronger, smarter, more comfortable, and supremely confident — Dick looks right now compared to this time last year.
Vince Carter Touched the Rafters - Raptors Republic
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that type of emotion. A huge, hulking individual, crying so hard that the tears don’t just run from his face, but leap. They leap, and are immediately replaced by more. It was like there was no end to them, drawing from a well that could never go dry. His fists were clenched, and when he released them he let his arms out, taking in the moment, and he was trembling. He held his arms wide like Christ the Redeemer in Rio, and he let the moment he’d been waiting for, for so long, wash over him completely. More tears. The crowd built to a fever pitch, the moment was written on his face, and he started screaming “COME ON” to the crowd.
It looked cathartic, and I imagine it was. It was visceral from my vantage point. Tears bounced off of his cheek as he screamed out to the stadium of people cheering for him. The music that was swelling behind him subsided, Carter screamed once more, and then he saluted the crowd. The ceremony began after that.
The ceremony was just that: ceremony. It was cool to see stars across the league wish Carter well, and to see it from Kyle Lowry & DeMar DeRozan. Everyone was surrounded by so many Raptor greats, because that’s what the night was for. It was for fans to revel in their once-beloved-again-beloved star, and to swim in the all the nostalgia attached to that. It’s an opportunity to stop and remember how things were, and to let those memories find their way to celebration. Carter had to thank people, and he had to cross the t’s and dot the I’s, and the organization had to figure out how to make this about everyone in attendance, and the man himself: Half Man, Half Amazing.
Vince Carter’s Toronto Raptors jersey retirement had something most don’t — catharsis - The Athletic
There are no opinions left to have about the Raptors honouring Carter; you agree with it or you don’t, and nothing that was going to happen Saturday was going to change that. There are valid reasons to hold both opinions.
What was cool about it, though, is that it didn’t feel like a normal celebration of a player. It sounded and looked like a typical hagiography because these things inevitably trend that way. It is the language of the jersey retirement.
It was the messiness of everything — the highs and lows — that made the Carter-Raptors relationship so different and made Saturday different.
Relationship. That is the key word because it connotes the fullness of what has been involved between Carter, the Raptors and their fans. No highlight, sentiment or image can capture the quarter-century Carter and the Raptors have been in and out of each others’ lives, which is precisely why Carter has been so overtly emotional over the last month.
Celebrating Vince Carter’s legacy through the Raps-Kings game - Raptors HQ
In his rookie season, Vince Carter dropped jaws, made it onto Sportscentre’s Top 10 regularly, and almost never provided the same highlight reel moment twice. Yet, the emotion he most evoked was hope.
The Raptors HQ crew chimed in on their fondest memories of VC.
JD Quirante: “Migrated to Winnipeg in ‘99. The first time I saw VC’s reverse dunk over Chris Mullin, that’s when I knew I had to move to Toronto and watch these games live.”
Chelsea Leite: “For me, it was just the impact he had no matter where you were. My town was very much a soccer place and not a basketball place. Yet, kids still had Vince Carter jerseys and would try to dunk like him. His impact just went so beyond the basketball community itself.”
Joseph Strauss: “I was born in 2000, so I missed the whole VC era. My first time ever at a game was against the Nets in ‘07, and I just remember the crowd booing him relentlessly. It was crazy! I didn’t even realize why until a few years later when I learned how to use Wikipedia. My fondest memory was when the team honoured him during the 20th anniversary season and, for the first time, (seeing) the boos turned into cheers. You could see the emotion on his face and how much it meant that the city still loved him.”
For me, Vince Carter represented the first homegrown superstar....and he was OURS. My dad introduced me to basketball during the Celtics-Lakers rivalry in the 80’s. I’d marvel at Larry Bird and Magic Johnson and think how lucky it was for Boston and Los Angeles fans, respectively, to have superstars try and lead their respective franchises to championships. When Toronto was awarded an NBA franchise, I wondered when we would have someone like Larry or Magic in Toronto. Vince Carter was that superstar and he made it known immediately. I remember seeing the clip below — just 10(!!) games into his rookie season — and thinking, “oh my gosh, we have HIM!”
Raptors' RJ Barrett stepping up big time in filling the void caused by injuries - Toronto Sun
It was Kings head coach Mike Brown who mentioned during his pre-game availability how he felt that second-year wing Gradey Dick was an early-season candidate as the league’s most improved player.
Barrett would easily qualify, as well. His leadership is undeniable, his will unquestionable, his ceiling still quite high if he continues to trend upwards.
But once Quickley returns, which seems likely at some point with the team embarking on a five-game road swing — beginning Monday night in Denver — the ball won’t be in Barrett’s hands as often.
And once Barnes is back, which won’t happen anytime soon, some kind of chemistry among the Big 3 must be developed.
In the meantime, Barrett has been the guy, stringing together three games of scoring at last 31 points. In that time, he has also dished off 26 assists, including a career-high 12 dimes in Friday’s loss to the Lakers.
Drake takes shots at old friend DeMar DeRozan on Raptors broadcast - Toronto Star
“If you ever put up a DeRozan banner, I’ll go up there and pull it down myself,” the Raptors global ambassador said, unprompted. At another point, he called DeRozan a “goof.”