1 Raptors player in danger of losing starting job in 2023-24 NBA training camp

09/18/2023 11:15 PM

The Toronto Raptors took a step backwards last season. After jumping from 27 wins in 2020-21 to 48 in 2021-22, they were unable to return to the playoffs, splitting their regular season down the middle with 41 wins and 41 losses before losing in disappointing fashion to the Bulls in the first play-in game.

This season, there will be a couple of changes up north. Up until around the All-Star break they had a relatively consistent small starting lineup, a small-ball, long-armed group consisting of Fred VanVleet, Gary Trent Jr, OG Anunoby, Scottie Barnes and Pascal Siakam. VanVleet is now gone, having signed a huge deal as a free agent with the Rockets, but that gap will presumably be filled by recent FIBA World Cup MVP Dennis Schroder, who signed with the team in the off-season on a two-year deal worth a little over $25 million.

Outside of that, the Raptors will likely want to continue to explore the potential of their multi-winged lineup, with a core of Siakam, Barnes and Anunoby one which could cause plenty of damage at both ends of the floor if everything clicks. But that group is probably best suited with a point guard, which will be Schroder, and a center, rather than a secondary guard, which leaves one member of their most common starting lineup from last season in the firing line as the most likely to lose his starting job.

Gary Trent Jr.

Gary Trent Jr. has been a very consistent presence in the Raptors’ starting lineup since he joined the team in 2020. In his abridged first season with them, he started 15 of 17 games, and the next 69 out of 70. That continued for the bulk of last season, with the talented shooter starting in 43 out of his first 53 games for the season.

There was a good reason that he started for all of those games. He averaged close to 20 points through that time, shot in the high 30%s from long range, and is a good defender. And while question marks surrounding him have often centered around the fact that if he’s not shooting well, he doesn’t provide a whole lot else, he has actually been remarkably consistent. He’s had the occasional shocker for the Raptors, but who hasn’t, and for the most part he’s proved able to chip in for 15-20 points on any given night.

But the reality is that having a traditional center alongside this rangy Raptors lineup makes for a more rounded starting group than two guards, and it’s for that reason that they recruited Poeltl to the team. And once they did, the coaching staff opted to use that bigger lineup, starting the 7’1″ Austrian and resigning Trent Jr. to the bench for his last few games of the season.

That is likely to continue in season 2023-24. The Raptors have already spent plenty of time looking at their small ball line-up, with the 6’8″ Barnes and/or Siakam at center, and it just didn’t quite cut it for them last year. Poeltl will almost certainly start to give them that rim protection which was so lacking with their smaller group, leaving most likely just the one guard spot up for grabs alongside Anunoby, Barnes and Siakam. Those guys, particularly the latter two, can certainly do some ball-handling, but they’re better served by having a traditional point guard like Schroder on the floor rather than someone like Trent Jr. What’s more, Trent Jr’s scoring punch means he can be an ideal player off the bench playing alongside the second unit. Particularly with Schroder having played as well as he did at the FIBA World Cup, the final starting spot is his for the taking, and Trent Jr will likely be the collateral.

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