Jonas Valanciunas Will Define the Toronto Raptors' Next Step
Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan might be the Toronto Raptors’ two best players—a backcourt duo with enough offensive firepower to single-handedly win games and, given the right opponents, a playoff series or two.
But it’s the development of another talent the Raptors are hoping can transform them from plucky upstarts to full-fledged conference contenders.
We’re talking, of course, about Jonas Valanciunas, whose breakout performance at the 2014 FIBA World Cup gave Raptors fans a first-hand glance at just how much the burly Lithuanian has left to offer entering his third NBA season.
More importantly, Valanciunas’ teammates are lobbying on behalf of an increased role for the 6’11” center as well.
“We have to start games off (feeding Valanciunas in the post), we need him, we’re going to put some pressure on him to score the ball for us,” Kyle Lowry told the Toronto Sun’s Ryan Wolstat during a recent media session. “We can’t just do all guard-oriented types of things. We have to make sure he’s more involved and have to put a little pressure on him to score the ball.”
On the surface, Valanciunas’ production during his first two seasons (10.3 points on 7.3 shot attempts per game) would seem in keeping with both the 22-year-old’s position as well as his prospects.
Still, for a player with a true-shooting percentage of just under 60 percent (not to mention a FIBA-high 70 percent field-goal clip), Valanciunas’ 18.5 percent usage rate—below the likes of Anthony Bennett, J.J. Hickson and Andrea Bargnani—leaves much to the imagination.
While perhaps not an airtight bellwether, Valanciunas’ performance down last year’s regular-season stretch paints an optimistic picture for what a bigger offensive role might yield Toronto.
To wit: Over eight April games, Valanciunas registered 16.8 points and 11 rebounds on 58 percent shooting (with 10.6 shot attempts per contest, no less). In fact, only once in that stretch did Valanciunas tally fewer than 10 points—a meaningless 95-92 loss to the New York Knicks in which he played just 16 minutes.
Unfortunately, his role was scaled back once the postseason started, with Valanciunas hoisting just seven attempts per game in Toronto’s seven-game defeat at the hands of the veteran Brooklyn Nets. All despite Valanciunas’ sterling 63-percent clip from the field.
Buoyed by his impressive spring run, Valanciunas entered the offseason determined to further expand his offensive repertoire. The first order of business: signing up for a one-on-one session with NBA legend—and noted big-man tutor—Hakeem Olajuwon.
“I worked a lot this summer. I was working out with Hakeem with a running coach, so I think that’s going to help me out a lot, especially in the low post,” Valanciunas told Wolstat. “He’s one of the greatest players. He moves fantastic, so I want to get something from him and I want to use something that he taught me.”
How much Valanciunas truly gleaned from what amounts to a two-week accelerated course in post-up proficiency is, as Grantland’s Brett Koremenos underscored last fall, a subject of some debate.
Criticisms aside, Olajuwon’s tutelage is as much about bolstering a player’s confidence as it is adding to his tool belt. Exhibit A: Valanciunas’ impressive FIBA performance, a kind of international coming-out party for a player long the pride of his native country.
Still, as the National Post’s Eric Koreen recently wrote regarding the Raptors center’s putrid Game 7 performance against the Nets, Valanciunas’ learning curve is as much about the flow of the game as it is about baby hooks and bullying up-and-unders:
"It was particularly bizarre because when Valanciunas has failed in the past, it has usually been the result of overzealousness, not tentativeness. Valanciunas rarely lets the game come to him, as the cliché goes, and that can be both good and bad. The final game of his NBA season was one strange, massive anomaly.
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In a league becoming increasingly perimeter-oriented, building an entire offense around a center’s low-post repertoire has become as rare as coaches in checkered suits. As such, Valanciunas will likely never be more than a secondary or tertiary option.
Besides, if you ask head coach Dwane Casey, Valanciunas’ biggest room for improvement lies at the other end of the floor entirely.
“We were 29th in (defending shots) attempted at the rim against us,” Casey told the Toronto Sun. “So JV’s got to do a better job of protecting the rim, Amir (Johnson) has got to do a better job of protecting the rim.”
The stat Casey cites isn’t the only one that bears out Valanciunas’ volatile value. According to NBA.com (subscription required), Toronto’s 4.8 net rating with Valanciunas off the floor was second only to that of John Salmons (6.4). By contrast, the Raptors’ 2.5 net rating with Valanciunas on the floor was only good for eighth overall on the team.
Yet despite Valanciunas’ somewhat middling defensive presence, the Raptors still managed to finish ninth in overall defensive efficiency a season ago.
Getting him more involved in the offense could help mitigate this discrepancy; the more adept he becomes at drawing fouls on the opposing frontcourt, the less prone Valanciunas himself should be at the other end, why with backup bigs less likely to command touches down low.
That, coupled with improved footwork and vertical positioning on dribble-drives and cuts, should lend itself to a marked improvement in terms of Valanciunas’ overall defensive presence.
With the Eastern Conference power structure undergoing more of a lateral shift than a top-to-bottom improvement, the Raptors’ playoff prospects remain virtually unimpeachable.
Having one of the league’s best backcourt tandem’s locked up at least through the 2016-17 season doesn’t hurt, of course. However, it’s in Valanciunas—officially eligible for a four-year extension next summer—that Toronto near-future prospects find their most crucial hardwood harbinger.
The NBA may be trending farther and farther from the paint. Without its paint-bound big man, though, Toronto's masterpiece may wind up little more than mere brushstrokes on the fringes.
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