Justise Winslow could barely contain his excitement.
“Can I curse?” he asked the assembled media after walking off the court in his first basketball game in almost a year. “It was f***ing amazing. Sorry, excuse my French.”
The 27-year-old former lottery pick finally made his season debut Tuesday night with the Raptors 905, the G League affiliate of the Toronto Raptors. It was his first real game action since suffering a season-ending ankle injury last December as a member of the Portland Trail Blazers.
“No, but seriously, it was a lot of fun,” he told reporters post-game. “I told myself when I spoke to people before the game, I just wanted to have fun. I just wanted to smile and laugh and be competitive and have that competitive spirit and play with grit. Truthfully, I was not really concerned with the numbers, it was more just go out there have fun and feel the game out and feel my body out and speaking my body, things feel great.”
But if you did want to look at the numbers, they looked like the kind of player who won’t spend the whole year in the G League. He had 13 points in 16 minutes while shooting 4-for-8 from the field.
“He was so locked in,” said Raptors 905 coach Eric Khoury. “He had a pretty solid offensive game for his debut, but his defense game was probably 10 times even better. He’s a great guy to have.”
The 905 are going to play it slow with Winslow and keep him on a minutes restriction for the next little while. It’s part of a long and at times frustrating process for the oft-injured Winslow who admitted that working to get healthy has been the hardest part of this journey.
“Obviously, this wasn't the path I wanted to go, but I'm here and I've embraced it and it's been very good to me,” he said. “But just, I wanted to be ready by training camp. I wanted to be able to do workouts for teams before that and I wasn't able to. But I think the hardest part was just being patient and believe me, there were some rough days, went through some rough patches, of course.”
Winslow said he’s found support from being around children throughout this process. He has a son and another one on the way and has spent time during his recovery helping to mentor children in Toronto and within his circle. At the 905 game, there were two cheering sections full of children ready to support Winslow in his debut.
“Would love to continue to embrace the City of Toronto and have them embrace me but having that family be a part of my journey has been really special for me,” he said.
The Raptors don’t currently own Winslow’s rights outside of the G League meaning any team could sign him whenever he’s healthy to return to the NBA. Without an empty roster spot, Toronto would have to waive someone to sign Winslow, but it’s clear there’s a connection between Winslow, the Raptors, and Toronto’s head coach Darko Rajaković who previously worked with Winslow in Memphis.
Once Winslow is healthy, the Raptors are likely to be first in line to take a shot on the 6-foot-6 forward. That’s not to say other teams won’t try to sign him, but Toronto will have a front-row seat for his journey back and likely the first chance to bring him back up to the big leagues.
More must-reads: