Though they’re new to the idea, the Toronto Raptors have acclimated nicely to the role of playoff front-runner.
Before the beginning of hostilities, there’s only one rule: be nice.
Asked what he thought of the team’s first-round opponent, the Orlando Magic, Kyle Lowry went bland and positive.
“They’re long,” Lowry said.
That’s true.
“They’re really talented.”
That isn’t. The Orlando Magic are not “really” talented. A team that wins only half its games doesn’t get an adverb in front of that word.
What the Magic are is physically imposing, well coached and willing to nibble around the edges for six months. That’s how you get a seventh seed in the lesser of two conferences.
A parade of Raptors was presented on Thursday to deliver this modern take on phrenology. They have all stood beside the Magic and decided they are, indeed, quite tall. Somehow, that tallness translates into talent. Which it does not.
Toronto coach Nick Nurse was able to expand at much greater length on the things the Magic do well (e.g. “… are methodical in their offensive execution”). Again, it didn’t get anywhere close to ‘really talented’.
But there’s a rule for a reason. Don’t poke a bear. Even a long, awkward one.
It’s true that the Magic played the Raptors tough during the regular season. But as Toronto has a long history of proving, the NBA regular season and postseason bear little resemblance to one another.
Position-by-position, up and down the bench and including the people who collect discarded warm-up gear, Toronto is better than Orlando. Here’s a contender for the worst sentence in sports: This series is a two-foot putt, even for a team as habitually cursed as Toronto.
We cannot yet know to a certainty that this time is different, but it does at least sound different.
This team has spent years faking confidence in public, which is the toughest sort of acting. We may all be fooled by a sad story or an outrageous lie, but most of us can tell when someone’s trying a little too hard to convince us of something. (Because we all have a lot of experience at it ourselves.)
That’s how the playoff Raptors used to come off – “Can’t wait to start … Feeling really good about the team” etc. etc. And you just knew. Something around the eyes or about the body language. Just a little hinky.
So what a lovely surprise when you are told things are going well and it does not hit you like the first few bars of a time-share pitch. Even the banter was better.
Someone asked Lowry if this is the “strongest” Raptors team he has yet been on.
“What do you mean ‘strongest’?” Lowry shot back. “Weightlifting-wise?”
The Raptors have been a steady playoff presence for six years now. They’ve won a total of four series.
But have they ever been favourites? We’re not talking about Vegas book favourites, but the sort of team you felt in your bones was a mortal lock on the way in.
No, never.
They have always given off the sense of a team right on the edge of a breakdown. They have the unfortunate tendency to play first games like the playoff ball is made of heavier material. Once released, their yips are airborne and contagious.
The Raptors have typically been an illustration of how proficiency does not equal excellence.
But now they’ve got a little something going on. Lowry called it “true professionalism.” Nurse called it “emotional balance.”
I would call it élan. This team has style. Its personalities are diverse and complementary.
A very good team can be boring, but great NBA teams are always interesting. It’s the end product of confidence. Confidence frees each player to be himself.
Once so freed, a delightful, collective weirdness emerges. Truly exceptional people will always seem weird to the rest of us.
From Kawhi Leonard’s extreme introversion, Lowry’s tactical surliness, Marc Gasol’s cosmopolitanism, Danny Green’s effortless cool, Pascal Siakam’s bubbliness, and on down the line, this isn’t just the most interesting Raptors team in history. This is the Algonquin Round Table of pro sports. Enjoy it. You may not see its like again.
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Of course, a good, overarching storyline does not guarantee performance. But the two things seem twinned in sports too often to be a coincidence.
On the other side, the Magic are what the Raptors used to be – boring, understaffed and having very little to lose by losing. That last bit should be the only thing that worries Toronto.
On paper, this series goes one way – it’s a low-key warm-up and then on to bigger fish.
If you’re thinking, ‘Don’t say that. You’ll curse them,’ your lack of confidence is showing.
Do you think anybody flinches in San Francisco when someone says, ‘Can’t wait for this thing to get serious in May’?
They do not. Which is part of the reason Golden State wins so much. It’s not all talent. Part of it is will to power.
No Raptors team has ever been in this position with so much ammunition on hand. They are in possession of every superlative. They can play every which way. They are as good or better than everyone they might possibly encounter, short of a final. And after an entire year of coddling of him, they are about to release Leonard, a stone-cold postseason killer in the same class as Michael Jordan. All of that is brand new.
But mostly, right now, what they do is pass the highly unscientific personality test. They sound right. They sound ready. And though you could not say exactly how, you can tell they aren’t putting you on.
Cathal Kelly