Remember Masai Ujiri’s call for patience?
It was just a week ago the president of the Toronto Raptors explained how this rebuild was going to take some time. Other teams get five to six years to rebuild, he said. Does Toronto have patience for a three to five-year rebuild, Ujiri asked.
Toronto has lost three straight games since Ujiri's comments and what’s clear is the rest of this season is going to require a lot of patience.
The Raptors are already 12 games below .500 and, despite Ujiri saying the goal is to win this season, Toronto has made it clear the organization is focused more on developing their young players for the future.
“I think of the big picture of where the team is going and how we need this team to develop toward the end of this season and into the summer and into next season, that trumps everything,” Raptors coach Darko Rajaković said Wednesday following practice.
The Raptors have shown that’s the direction already. Not only have the trades suggested Toronto's direction for the future but, the Raptors opted to throw Gradey Dick into the closing lineup against the Memphis Grizzlies to allow the 20-year-old guard to experience closing minutes in a somewhat close game.
Toronto plans to take that focus a step further, Rajaković said. In-game schematic decisions will be with an eye toward the future as will essentially everything else this organization does over the final 38 games of the season.
“If that means we’re going to play less zone, so we can get better in our individual defense and really focus on that, then it's going to be that,” Rajaković said. “We’re not gonna sacrifice anything on our team development or player development; that's most important thing for us, establishing the chemistry between the players and developing those guys on the court and off the court is the absolute priority.”
Nobody is using the T word these days. Considering Toronto is likely without its first-round pick this year tanking isn’t necessarily a wise decision. But if losses are the byproduct of giving young players more playing time and more room to make mistakes this season, then so be it.
Maybe in a few years, this will all have been worth it. It’s just going to take some time.
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