The Toronto Raptors have some new kids on the bench
By Jared Dubin
Over the last several years, the Toronto Raptors emerged as one of the premier teams in the Eastern Conference. They did so in an unusual fashion.
The Raptors of recent vintage being as good as they were was a bit of a happy accident, as they had intended to tank away the 2013-14 season. They started the process by trading Rudy Gay, and planned to trade Kyle Lowry as well, only to see Knicks owner James Dolan scuttle the deal because he didn’t want to see his team potentially get swindled by Masai Ujiri for a third time. The Raps are obviously lucky he did, because Lowry has been one of the best players in the league, and the Raptors one of the handful of (semi-)legitimate contenders for the Eastern Conference Finals, ever since.
In itself, a team that was planning to plunge to the bottom of the standings instead rising toward the top would be weird enough, but the Raptors’ outlier nature didn’t end there. Most teams, even the best ones, are good because their starting lineup pummels the opposition and their bench units are good enough to hold serve. An average of 17.7 teams saw their starters record a positive net rating (points scored minus points allowed per 100 possessions) over the last three seasons, per NBA.com, while only 12 teams saw their bench units do the same. The Raptors were not only one of just five teams with a positive bench net rating in each of the last three seasons (Hawks, Warriors, Spurs, Jazz), but their bench actually out-performed their starters in each of those three seasons as well. (They’re the only team in the NBA for which that’s true.)
The unit that came to be known as Lowry And The Bench, in particular, ended up being one of the Raptors’ most effective groups, but they were also generally better when DeMar DeRozan played with the bench or when Lowry and DeRozan shared the floor with three subs. The Cory Joseph-Patrick Patterson duo was often on the floor for the Raptors’ best moments, usually along with Lowry, DeRozan, or both. The bench units didn’t play all that differently than the Raptors’ starters, but the additional spacing afforded to them by Patterson’s shooting, combined with Joseph’s straight-line speed, often helped goose an offense that could get bogged down in the half-court on occasion.
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It was reasonable to expect the Raptors to take a step backward this year, given all the change they underwent during the offseason — including a pillaging of the bench unit that had powered so much of their success. Terrence Ross was included in last season’s deal for Serge Ibaka. Patrick Patterson signed with the Thunder. Cory Joseph was shipped to Indiana in what was essentially a sign-and-trade for C.J. Miles. DeMarre Carroll was traded to the Nets, pushing Norman Powell into the starting lineup. P.J. Tucker left for the Rockets.
In place of the departed subs, the Raptors have turned to three little-used players from last year’s team, plus Miles and rookie OG Anunoby.
Delon Wright was the Raptors’ first-round pick in 2015, but he appeared in just 54 games and played only 675 minutes across his first two years in the league. He’s averaging 27.5 minutes a night so far this year, averaging 9.5 points, four rebounds, and three assists while occasionally working in with the first unit alongside Lowry and DeRozan as well.
2016 first-rounder Jakob Poeltl averaged 11.6 minutes a night in 54 games last season, and he’s nearly doubled his minute load this year. He’s been an absolute monster on the boards, collective 14.9 per-36 minutes, and has flashed improved play around the rim on both ends of the floor. He is finishing better near the basket and has gone from blocking 2.8 percent of opponents’ two-point attempts to 6.5 percent, per Basketball-Reference.
Undrafted free-agent signing Fred VanVleet played in 37 games a year ago, seeing the floor for 294 minutes. He’s now playing nearly 12 minutes a game as Lowry’s backup. VanVleet himself has not had much individual success, but the team has so far performed ever-so-slightly better with him on the floor. Anunoby slipped in the draft because of concerns about his surgically-repaired knee, but he was more than ready for the start of the season and already appears to be the rare rookie that is a positive influence on both ends of the floor. He can guard players across four positions and has shown an advanced feel for the game on offense. He’s even knocked down 4-of-11 3-point attempts. Miles is shooting the lights out from deep (40 percent on 30 attempts in four games) and playing his usual plus defense against smaller wings and so-so defense against bigger ones.
Through four games, Toronto’s bench five is actually its most heavily-used lineup, thanks to an injury to Jonas Valanciunas. VanVleet, Wright, Miles, Anunoby, and Poeltl have played 35 minutes together, and they’ve outscored the opposition by 17 points. The Raptors ended up losing both games, but the full-bench unit did well against the Spurs on Monday (+3 in 10 minutes) and Lowry/DeRozan And The New Bench groups helped the Raptors strip the lead away from the Warriors in the fourth quarter on Wednesday (they went from down seven to a tie game before the Raptors had more starters than subs back on the floor) before they squandered the game down the stretch.
This bench group is quite different than that of the last few years, and not just because Miles is the only player with extensive experience. There’s a bit more burden-sharing that has to go on, given the lack of a true primary perimeter creator; but that serves the players within the group fairly well. Wright and Anunoby, in particular, have shown that they know when and where they should pass the ball, both on the break and in the half-court. Poeltl’s two-way play has been a revelation, and the shooting offered by Miles and Anunoby has given everybody ample room to operate.
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Given the lack of experience both in general and playing together, it’s fair to ask whether the New Kids On The Bench can keep this up. It’s tough to say that they definitively will, but solid or better performance against the bench units of the Spurs and Warriors are certainly encouraging. But if the Raps get this kind of play from a group from which it could likely only count on “hold serve” quality coming into the season, they might not experience the kind of drop-off many thought they would from a year ago. Given the wide-open state of the race for the second-best team in the East, that would leave them once again firmly in the mix.