Evaluating Gradey Dick’s Rookie Season | Raptors Show Full Episode

Evaluating Gradey Dick’s Rookie Season | Raptors Show Full Episode

Hey what’s going on good morning welcome to the Raptor show I’m Blake Murphy will is off today I did think about hijacking the show today and doing another Jays Talk Plus because the Toronto Blue Jays opened their season yesterday uh with an 8 to2 Victory it was a very very fun

Game very good start to the season they’re back in Action uh again today and all weekend on Sports at 590 the fan on the sports at television side as well we’re not doing Jays today though um there were a couple very spicy March Madness games last night as well and

We’re not going to do those either it’s the Raptor even though will Lou is off other the Raptor show is brought to you by Campbell’s new chunky spicy soup it’s time to get fired up and today we’re going to get fired up about Grady dicks rookie season and the kind of three acts

That this season has played out in the early struggle the valley where he was down with the 905 not playing particularly well pulled out of games for a couple weeks to to work on his conditioning and now this last chunk of the Season where he’s basically been the

Only positive in a lot of these Raptors games and as take those three chunks of season we’re going to take today we’re going to recontextualize the season as a whole what it means for where Grady’s at and his development and what it could mean for him next year and moving

Forward with the Raptors to help me do that Samson folk of raptors Republic asand AR barany of raptor Republic forb whatever we’re GNA call you Raptor Republic Doo right now let’s rock with it what’s up guys uh doing good speaking of the Grady dick thing last year I went

To Salvador Deli his like impression or surreal EST art based on Dante’s Inferno hell Purgatory Heaven the Ascension through it all that’s kind of Grady season man so I’m I’m excited to talk about it we talk Grady every time I’m here the last time both of you came on

And like that wasn’t intentional but as I was going through and looking at that I was like it makes sense we we did the like this is really bad check-in and now we’re doing the things that are a lot better check I got a little dolly right

Here a little melting clock on with yeah yeah took wild to get there there’s a lot of stuff on here I don’t remember what is where um sometimes uh anyway s how are you man great piece at Forbes today uh talking to um the president of the basketball

Africa league and about what they are amadu Gallo fall is his name and they are they’re what four years in now yeah they’re starting their fourth season uh and I think most of the conversation I had an hourong conversation with him which is rare to get like a commissioner

Of a basketball league to sit down for an hour but he was great he pretty much broke down the the goal that they have with the league and a lot of it sort of reminded me of the industry they they’ve built basketball-wise in Canada he was

Like man at at as the same time as all these like African NBA players are growing and becoming Stars you’re seeing afrob beats becoming popular you’re seeing a African culture and African movies becoming popular and you know in some ways like Canadian that’s sort of what happened over the last decade or so

With basketball it’s like you see some of the artists from Canada that are popping off Drake you need to respond and you see some of the other stuff you know Canadian basketball Raptors Championship it’s kind of it’s interesting to see the I guess the comparison there yeah and and look the

The biggest takeaway I I got from your P at Forbes and everyone should go check out your Twitter and check that uh check that article out is this idea that this is not it’s not just about creating the next wave of basketball players and I talked to Messiah a little bit about

This through Giants of Africa as well last summer I did a feature piece on a WWE wrestler named Omas who came to America from Nigeria through Giants of Africa to play basketball his college basketball career didn’t work out and now he’s a WWE wrestler it’s like there are other opportunities here and your

Chat with um amadu Gallo fall you know the the quote of we’re also trying to create like the next Messiah jury so this basketball infrastructure people to not only get interested in the sport and come to love the sport but to have multiple paths to making a life in the

Sport um so it’s cool I mean I I’m sure you could I’m sure we’ve all heard msai speak about this but how much of that echoed you know obviously Messi doesn’t have a direct hand in basketball Africa league but it does seem like their goals and the goals Messi has talked about for

You know a decade two decades really with giants of Africa are fairly hand inand yeah I mean sorry go ahead no I was just going to say they’re friends like they talk all the time and obviously MSI was there for I think the inaugural season the the opening debut

And like it all goes hand inand you talk about basketball without B borders NBA Africa they have the NBA Academy which a couple of the top prospects for the 2025 draft will be a part of that Kaman Malak who’s South Sudan big man going to Duke next year to play alongside Cooper flag

Like these are guys who came out from the ba wonder if he’ll be on the Olympic roster maybe yeah he probably will be he was in the feeble World Cup roster for them so like there’s yeah why not unless Duke is like yeah Blue Devils are like

Don’t do it but no South Sudan also another kind of check in the like accomplishments for the continent cuz the youngest country ever to clinch an Olympic birth they’ve been around for years and you know he credited dang for his ability to sort of like build up

Thatr so yeah things are growing man it’s awesome to see it’s it’s great that the NBA can like build a foundation there and then create this sort of Industry around it that can support not only basketball players but creating jobs for people building Futures building careers like the wrestler that

You and all the skills that you can build just by being around sport more right and I know obviously there was access to soccer and in some of those countries cricket and things like that but it never hurts to have more opportunities to build the the kind of

Skills that that Sports bring out of you especially at a young age yeah and I was just going to say I really love that you wrote that because a lot of people the way they view it is like this homogeneous idea that it’s like NBA talent in Africa but similar to the

Division one basketball is like nobody goes to the NBA it’s infrastructure to support people as they pursue things that they enjoy as they build themselves up as people and then set themselves up to succeed so widening people’s perspective on what happens time is really important so like 1% of D1

Athletes end up getting to maybe less yeah not everyone is one and done at Kansas and then the youngest player in the or one of the youngest players in the NBA draft and then hey here day one you’re in an NBA rotation we use that as

A pivot point unplanned we are going to talk the most of this hour about Grady dick um so again the season kind of broken into chunks shaky start and there was that window in the first couple games was like oh the shot’s not dropping but he’s doing some other cool

Stuff and then that kind of went away whether that was confidence-based or or trying to do too much or or rushing things or whatever and he was out of the rotation and then he’s down with the 905 and things didn’t look good with the 905 and I can throw the caveats out there

That oh he was playing down there when all three point guards were hurt and like there was no one to get him the ball it’s not a great environment for shooting Specialists anyway uh just the way you know those offenses work and you know there are lesser Defenders but it’s

Also like you might be playing with two guys who just got in an Uber from Charlotte to Greensboro for a game that literally happened once this year of like we don’t have enough players to play two guys in an Uber let’s get them out here they might not be able to run

The offense that well they’re where they’re setting your staggered pin Downs might not be in the right spot um they might not make that pass in your shooting pocket and things like that but if you are a certain level of talent you’re expected to figure that out at

The g- league he didn’t really do that and when he got called back up and was put back in NBA minutes I was a little skeptical I didn’t think he had shown me enough at the g-league level um at that point I’ve been wrong he he has

Basically since he’s come up and there have been little there have been little dips but basically since he came back up and re-entered the rotation which was around uh January 20th I think was kind of the or that was the that was the last game he he hasn’t missed a game since he

Hasn’t been out of the rotation since it’s been not linear but pretty smooth since then um so let’s zoom out and look at this season as a whole right now and there are 10 games left but um we can do this right now um so Samson I’ll start

With you where how are you feeling at and we’ll get into some of the specific play types you know what he’s doing skill wise and stuff but the Grady dick 72 games in rookie exp 73 games in rather rookie experience how are you feeling I feel really good and because

We’ve seen the ceiling of what he can provide I know he just set his career high really well done the things that needed to to translate have translated at this point 36% from three isn’t a home run necessarily but for a guy who had to kind of like stay afloat during a

Really long streak of 25% around that you know the changing body getting stronger getting the cardio in a better position great to see and we also see like incredibly soft touch at The Rim can can finish with both hands can do it over contact and around contests we see

Him like one of the best Cutters on the team will be one of the best Cutters in the NBA by the time he’s able to weaponize everything at once and then also on top of that I think we see a guy who’s his movement helps liberate others it’s like that Maryann Williamson you

Know the quote that was like misattributed to Nelson Mandela what’s your greatest is fear you know we we allow others to yeah anyway but yeah he’s been doing great I’ve enjoyed the season these qu first answer about like Salvador Deli and and the the stages of

Dante’s Inferno is one thing but hey man um this teenage rookie out of Kansas he like well let me get into this NE Nelson Mandela comp let’s okay let’s uh let’s kick it to S here be a little I don’t have any grounded you don’t have uh any misattributed quotes from some of

Important figures in sports history or world history generally um okay how are you feeling about how this has gone and and I guess um more to the way I’ve set this up The Path the season has taken how has that you know versus if he had

Come in and been a little less than he is now a little more than he was at the start but it was pretty even all the way through what has what have the ups and downs um how have they informed your opinion of where Grady’s at right now I

Think those ups and downs were going to be natural for any rookie you look at a lot of the rookies that are in the league right now I mean scoot Henderson is one of those guys that is a pinpoint for a lot of people where he hasn’t had

A successful rookie year whatsoever and so people look at that and say well where do we draw our takes from our perspective from to move forward with this guy’s career and he’s had his up and downs but he’s he’s been good like he’s had moments he’s had flashes and

With Grady I think it’s been more than flashes he’s had opportunities to really expand his game especially down the stretch here and I think part of the struggle I’m not going to pull out out a quote I’m not going to pull out a quote but part of the struggle is important to

The process uh and I think you know that g-league run that he had where you said like he was not good whatsoever the one positive that you can take away from that was that I think he got what 30 minutes a night 35 minutes a night and

It was pretty consistent run and so that helped him build up his cardio get his cardiovascular muscles up a little bit you know get the lung capacity going and so it helped I thought that element provided the foundation for what we see in the second half of the Season uh and

Man it’s been awesome to watch him sort of work through the Kinks of what he can do skill set wise too yeah and look that g League um in addition yeah he he averaged almost 35 minutes a game and got up 14 shots a game which he wasn’t

Now he’s allowed to do that but when he was you know coming off the bench and the Raptors had five actual NBA starters starting games and things like that there weren’t going to be 14 shots a game there I did shoot 28% on threes uh

In the G League which was you know also a little concerning and I don’t know how much of that is you know as he does this conditioning program in season how much of that’s getting your legs under you um that I mean just that little ability extra ability if you’re above the break

And coming off of movement um to have a little more in your shot um so let me ask you about that obviously the three the three-point percentage is going to be the headline item with Grady for a long probably forever no matter what he rounds out his skill the three-point

Shooting is going to be um his biggest weapon and you mentioned Samson that he’s gotten that up now to where he’s at 3 6% on the season completely reasonable for a rookie even one who came in with high expectations for a shooting when we look at that a little closer he’s been

One of the very best corner three-point Shooters in the league um he’s shooting 47% that’s top 20 among guys with the the cuto off that I use for Corner three volume so that’s that’s really really good and then on the above the Break Stuff it’s at

28.4% now that is to be expected a little bit The League wide people shoot better out of the corners obviously above the break that’s a longer three usually it’s a more difficult because more of those are self-created or off movement things like that um Samson when you hear those splits when you’ve

Watched Grady and obviously the better he is the more you’re going to want to move him out of the corners right like like there’s a reason that Superstars have zero Corner three-point attempts because you don’t want your best offensive weapons in the corners um what

What do you make of that and where he’s at as a spot up guy right now versus a guy who can be a little bit more dynamic as a shooter I think that the efficiency is leaning towards just like spot stuff but his usage with the Raptors is

Leaning towards somebody they view as a guy who not is just isn’t just a shooter but can be like a topd down decision maker that allows the team to kind of benefit from everything he does so as far as like above the break screening he’s the 99th percenti as far as like

Wide pins everyone should remember that as kind of like the Norman pal play yeah and basically so the stat here is among players who have received over 50 wide pins he’s fifth in the NBA in screens used per game okay so so is this a second Spectrum St someone’s feeding

You exactly per data provided to sports exactly because it’s not provided to Raptor Republic right now it’s provided to exactly yeah um okay so those wide pin Downs anyone who’s received a certain amount of them he’s at the very tippy top very tippy top we’re talking about like Klay Thompson we’re talking

About lri Markin then we’re talking about like Jordan Clarkson Max stru these guys that they want to get them room to draw gravity to draw guys out to be able to make these lay down passes to guys rolling to the rim and to be able to shoot and so he’s around middle of

The pack in efficiency on those but if we look at the corner shooting where he’s been fantastic almost 50% on the season pin in screens he’s almost 1.2 points per possession on those and basically a pin in screen for people who don’t know is like when somebody’s in

The corner and a guy who’s in the dunker spot screens the corner man to create an opening in the corner it’s not the like best screen in basketball but it’s a good one and he can’t triple Z of it’s also like very often an illegal screen

There are lot of guys who just kind of Shuffle with the defender like Mark Gasol was unbelievable at those and it’s just like some of it is he’s huge but some of it is also Mar Gasol is very very smart at like oh ref’s got his eyes

Elsewhere I can I can grab and stay with him a little bit um yeah those are those are fun um s when you look at the the kind of variability in Grady’s package that that um that Samson’s laying out here um obviously again the corner three-point shooting is great and you

Can always tick that volume up um there are gu like Malik Beasley has taken 200 Corner threes this year that is great he’s taken in the 80s so there is obviously a way to scale up your corner three usage but if you look at the guys

Who have taken the most Corner threes in the league it’s Malik Beasley Mel Bridges sadique Bay Dante Devan chenzo torine Prince uh Harrison Barnes those are not guys maybe a little bit with male Bridges but like those are not guys you’re running a lot of offense for

Right those are role players who are spotting up so when you look at potential growth for gry or even what you want to see over these last n games how much of that is focused on what’s the above the break stuff that’s really going to make Grady scale into a more

Important offensive piece I think that’s an eventual uh thing that I want to see I I think more so if you look at what his role will be next season with this team or in the foreseeable future with this team he’s going to be playing alongside guys like quick Scotty right

RJ and those guys for the most part are going to be handling the above the break shots the creation load and so he’s going to be camped out in the corner quite often and I I think you know you look back we’ve all been there early in

Raptor games to see Grady work out and like go through his workout process a lot of what he starts with is that corner offense it’s coming off of a pin down it’s kind of working through the shot selection that he goes through the footing the the foot placement that he

Goes through just to like get those shots right uh and I think the evolution of what that looks like next season is going to be important to get to that point where he’s taking 200 Corner threes and that’s part of the like when we look at how Grady can look in his

Next step his next process it’s mastering that corner spot and I think so far he’s done that the next step is making plays out of the corner too and for what it’s worth I think he has had moments where he’s taking the ball getting downhill drawing the defense or

At the same time if he’s coming off of two pin Downs there’s two guys already flying to him and he’s making the pass over top or he’s making the read to the extra open man and so like those aspects are such a he has such a high level of

Feel already for making reads and just making like the extra pass that eventually it’ll start to expand out to the above the break shots and that’ll work yeah some of those good turnovers as well as Samson likes to likes to point out he doesn’t have a lot of them

No but there was there was one uh last week like right and I made a joke on about it on Twitter like right before the media game you were like see some turnovers are good and I was like are you priming us for the turnovers you’re

Going to make in this game but yeah being able to see those those reads and anticipate what a defense is going to do you know that’s usually that’s a layer further right like it’s especially as a rookie you know we talk about this more with scorers who have the ball in their

Hand but the first thing is can you score and then it’s like okay can you score against the best defender okay well now a defense is going to react to you maybe they send two things like that can you react to that and then eventually it’s like okay you’re going

To get trapped on every pick and roll can you handle that and then that last layer is can you anticipate what a defense is going to do and even manipulate them into doing what you want so you can open things up and some guys don’t get there right like that’s the

Point in my opinion Jason Tatum stuck on right now he hasn’t got to that level he can react to What a defense does but he’s not manipulating them you’re not overhauling your defense to to take stuff away from Jason Tatum because what he can do I’m not saying grd Dick’s

Going to get to that but as an off ball guy the evolution is kind of okay hit the corner three okay hit off of movement and now yeah this is something Gary’s improved at a lot as well and Gary uses it more to get into his kind

Of sidestep long two package which on this team is a is a okay shot um you know on some in some team environments you maybe wouldn’t want that and then to a lesser extent to get into that like elbow extended floater range stuff that he does but with Grady what you probably

Want to see is can you get to the rim first of all because that’ll you know that’ll speak to his burst and his you know strength really like you mentioned he has some nice finishes and and I do like he’s got that nice little attack

Out of the corner on the Baseline do a little reverse finish move but he’s also shooting like 59% or something like that at The Rim like he’ll have to get stronger and finish that more but that’s one layer and then yeah the layer you’re talking about is okay well then there’s

The lay downs and things like that and then it’s like I’m going to come off of this and I already know that that weak Corner help’s coming in case I get to the paint and that guy’s going to lift out of the corner when that help comes

To the paint and I’m going to swing that over um you know to to the Wing part of of the corner and and so the fact that he is seeing those things and reading those things pretty early is encouraging Samson I know that that those kind of

Plays were something that Drew you to him in the first place like we talked about him before the draft last year and he was a guy um that you were high on that was there a little bit at the start of the Season like I remember the

Opener I think or the home opener he did a bunch of those cool plays but it kind of went away um how much of that do you think is just like the Comfort level or how much of it is once the threes drop that stuff opens up a little bit more

Comfortably for you I think threes dropping obviously makes everything easier because it gives you more room to operate but also if you’re going to draw these you know advantaged Closeouts if you’re get a lot of movement from the defense you have to expect digs and rotations and so the biggest problem for

Grady right now as far as you know initiating above the break is like lack of burst out of the handle out of a pick and roll and also that when the Dig comes from the weak side at the nail he struggles with that a lot and typically

The only pass he’s been making is to above the break behind himself or above the break across from himself and there’s not a lot of creation there because usually teams can recover on that if you help if you dig at the nail you’re still like one good defensive

Slide away from that pass and and there’s not a ton of like he’s not manipulating it that like as soon as the player digs that’s when the pass goes out it’s like the Dig comes he picks up his dribble the player starts recovering out and that’s where a lot of his

Turnovers come to to your point about like building out the offense from the corner I think above the break is really important as well like not even just working towards that in the future but immediately over these 10 games we see him come off like a curl do the shoulder

Check like Paul George behind him put one dribble down and throw an oop to Chris buet making that cut out of the corner great pass we also see him like as far as two-point shots very tight contests he shoots 48% against them tight contests he shoots 48% of them

High release point he can manage like his shot and get to it in the middle of the four that allows him to expand his playmaking from the middle of the four I talked to him the other night when you play Jaylen Brunson do you look at how

He manages the middle of the floor how he uses his pivots and size to be able to create for himself and he and I asked him like do you look to do that in your own game to open this kind of stuff up and he said yes these are learning

Opportunities for me to grow my own game so it’s about getting like downhill to create because as you mentioned like making these passing reads this is something that really popped off for him in his draft workouts teams run through those like okay we’re bringing the weak

Side help it’s a like a weak side zone are you baiting the guy above the break or to the corner which pass do you make is like a consequence of that be better than Jason Tatum in this workout basically and so he did really good at

Making those reads and as like s said getting out of the corner a lot of that is like a physicality thing too you see like when he’s working pregame a lot of what they talk about is like the guy working with him is just going to like

Lean on him put an arm around him seat belt him and it’s like okay burst it back like go back door make sure you can finish there but ideally is why they run like 99th percentile wide pins they want Grady bringing teams to step up above

The break like you don’t want him in the corner forever you don’t want to space to the corner you want to space above the break so that cuts are more dangerous and this is an NBA wide thing it’s not unique to Grady is that corner threes are still valuable and that’s

Helpful spacing but geometrically basketball has mostly figured out how to defend space horizontally and the next way like the reason that guys like Steph and Dame and Kyrie are so dangerous is that they’ve they’ve forced defenses to to stretch out vertically as well and that creates obviously more space and if

You have to defend the pick and roll at 30 ft instead of 25t you know that’s more ground your def offensive explosion right yeah it’s more ground your Defenders have to cover those fouron three situations that materialized that LeBron and JJ were talking about on mind

The game those now have more space to operate if you’re Draymond underneath that step trap you’ve got an entire court to play four on three and instead of from the free throw line down where everything’s tight and you have to make those decisions a little quicker um so

That is important when it comes to how and look we’re we’re getting a healthy dose of what dark o envisions Grady’s role being in terms of like tactics and play calling and things like that because he’s their number two source of offense after Gary Trent right now and

Some of the stuff that you would run for those two guys is is kind of similar right like the old Terrence Ross stuff from The Playbook that Gary inherited and Norm inherited um there there aren’t a lot of guys you’re you’re running stuff for so when it comes to and I want

To save the like okay how does this fit with Scotty how does it look next year at least a little bit for the second segment of the show but when it comes to how the Raptors are using Grady now how much does if those above the break 3es

Which are at like 27 28% now those can become like 34 35% how much does that open up Playbook wise and just like in terms of what you can do with a guy like Grady dickas I mean the first thing and this was applicable when they were

Playing with those guys too uh using him as a screener like a screen the screener if we’re bringing up the whole LeBron James pod they talked about that a lot inverted pi and roll is a big aspect of that too and you can use Grady as a

Screener for Scotty or whatnot and like we can talk about that in the second segment but in general using him like you said above the break to create for a guy like Scotty to get downhill or a guy like quickly to get downhill slipping these screens ghost actions to be able

To open himself up and so you know you we’ve seen it so far he draws a lot of tension attention but did I say tension a lot of attention coming off of multiple screens uh and I think that just that a raises a level of like it’s

Shooting gravity you know we’ve seen it with Klay Thompson for the last like 10 years of his career the fact that when he’s coming off of screens or if he’s coming off of a handoff two guys fly to him almost immediately because they’re aware especially above the break that he

Can let go and let that fly and so once Grady starts to add that element in there’s these drop off passes four on three situations like you mentioned that open up the floor and the Raptors have so many good connectors that the offense can start flowing that way too Scotty’s

A great connector yakob right Kelly and you have these these guys who can make these secondary reads it opens up the offense to be very very potent and I think a lot of that can come from Grady too so one other thing we’ve seen Grady

Do a tiny bit of but not a lot when you look at you know like his play types and stuff like that it’s a lot of spot up transition and off screen he’s actually one of the highest volume offscreen guys just in in terms of all screen not just

The wide pin Downs you were talking about uh Sam 93rd percentile in uh in possessions used off of screen which weirdly you would think the numbers were high like it’s only 58 times finishing a possession off off a screen and that’s 93rd percentile but whatever is that is

That like per 100 no that is just uh that’s just overall per Synergy yeah I mean Synergy play type stuff is not as it’s not as High Fidelity is the second Spectrum stuff um anyway according to this he has only had 14 possessions as a pick and roll ball

14 possessions finished he’s run more than 14 pick and roles um but only uh 14 possession where he’s shot out of a pick and roll as the Handler and 35 overall which includes passes made out of things like that we saw the other day him and

Oai run a pick and pop successfully um where s where are you in terms of a lot so much of what we’re talking about is okay Grady spotting up or Grady off the ball using his gravity coming off of screens and things like that to open

Things up either for himself or for the next pass with the ball in his hands we still haven’t seen a ton of it in addition to only 35 kind of pick and roll possessions he has not really been asked to isolate at any point as you’d

Expect um but how much have you been able to get out of those few possessions we have seen Grady where they ask him to initiate a little bit more is it too still too too early to really read much of anything from it it’s not been very

Good I think he he’s definitely more potent in handoffs like he’s strange that he’s 77th percentile as a passer out of handoffs which which speaks to like coming up the floor we talk about that vertical spacing again you force the step up cuz he just had last game he

Ran out of the corner Gary Trent handed him the ball and he just banged one from 26 27 feet that’s like the promise of Grady that you want to see and so that kind of stuff gets teams to step up and handoff is much better for Shooters and

Like active off ball guys because it doesn’t require you to have like an elite dribble to get around and basically like everyone remembers watching Grady I can’t remember who stole the ball from him maybe it was maybe maybe it was Tatum I can’t remember exactly but he dribbled the

Ball up the floor and it was like the Jaws music was playing and like you knew he was going to lose the ball and so the handle isn’t where it needs to be for like this high level creation and that’s not a knock on Grady oh it’s very early

For that still and we even that’s something we see with Scotty like the handle and the manipulation is he can’t really take an ice make it into an over or like beat an under by like being really clever about getting into the rescreen like Grady is not close I don’t

Think there’s anybody on the Raptors that is but that’s a different story I mean quickly would be the closest yeah but even he would like if somebody goes under he’s not trying to rescreen he’s just going to pull but regardless Grady has a ton of work to do there I think it

Makes more sense like as you talked about you two pin Downs like coming off of a stagger and using Scotty as one of those screeners so that if teams Chase over we see the Miami Heat do this all the time with Jimmy in a stagger it’s

Like Brady comes over gets the ball pops the ball over to Jimmy and you can run a pick and roll with like Jimmy and Bam who are the Stagger screeners and and then the shooter relocates dunan Robinson off into the oppos something and so you can get the defense in motion

To step up so that players like Scotty or Jimmy Butler who don’t typically Force teams to defend at 25 30t for a pick and roll you can change the complexion of the defense by forcing the team to step up to guard Grady and then running a pick and roll against a

Defense that is stepped up so that if you want to make that high low read to yakob if you want to make like Scotty getting downhill the defense isn’t you know batten down their hatches in the paint like there’s tons of things you can do like that and Grady can be you

Know a a vehicle for those types of sets just not only as like a scorer or a passer but a movement shooter to change the shape of the defense there’s uh there was actually it’s funny you mention that because in the LeBron and JJ pod they sort of mentioned that same

Action and having a big who’s not necessarily a shooter on the weak side where they can essentially like JJ’s flying off of two pin Downs if nothing happens then he pitches it to either embiid or whoever it was on the Sixers or even the Clippers Blake Griffin and

Then they’ll do a handoff action it’s a wide open Corner three for JJ all the time and like that’s that’s some of that offb movement just like gravity stuff that you can create an element of I don’t know it’s it’s shot making in its own right but it’s not necessarily

Creation juice I’m so pissed man that like M the game is a thing now everyone’s going to think I’m getting all my stuff from LeBron bouncing around you were first and honestly maybe more people understand what you’re what you’re saying right it’s like um and like look

The sorry go at the media game they like um Pat’s team they ran America’s play off the inbounds yeah yeah we did I was like as you guys were running I was like you guys are running America’s play he he drew it up and then we’re like you

You expect us to to to run this properly and yeah it worked it worked yeah it was it was a fun little little battle neither team executed the stuff very well you guys going one4 flat with the like we’re going to run around and us doing screen the screener stuff or or

The yeah the OG play even just like double drag stuff but it’s like we don’t have two people large enough to screen yeah um this is where I would had some Val someone who could just stick a screen and get in the way uh physicality wise but the reic thing is a good

Example right because that Series in 2019 where he’s on Philadelphia against the Raptors and he’s not the second best player on Philadelphia in that series not remotely close but I bet if you were in those film sessions when it comes to how much work you have to to do on a guy

And their part of the Playbook and what your defense looks like reic is probably right thereafter okay what are our double team principles on embiid what are our help principles on embiid and then after that even though this is a team with Jimmy Butler and Ben Simmons

And Tobias Harris um after that it’s probably well they’re going to run all this JJ stuff and even if JJ only gets 15 points in this game if we don’t lock in on that stuff it’s going to be 15 points for JJ and a couple extra easy

Points for for Jimmy and a couple extra easy points for embiid a corner three here and there for Mike Scott or James Andis or whoever um yeah like guys like that really Mike Scott wow that’s a pro man the office himself Emoji tattoo yeah um yeah I believe a big hockey jersey

Collection too which was funny when he came to Toronto um okay so we’re talking a lot about what’s been good with Grady and a lot of that is centered on the last well certainly all of the good stuff is centered on the last two months and there’s been some really good stuff

The last couple weeks that’s been a lot while Scotty Barnes is he’s only played 33% of his minutes this year alongside Scotty Barnes uh so let’s take a break when we come back we’re going to talk about what this version where Grady is right now and we’ll talk

A little bit about what he could look like next year he’s got a whole offseason of development that I think will really focus on the strength and and physicality kind of stuff um but when Scotty Barnes is back and the other pieces are back how does this version of

Grady transport to a more competitive Raptors environment with some of these guys back uh that is next as the Raptor show continues on the sports radi Network welcome back to the Raptor show on the sports at radio network brought to you by Campbell’s new chunky spicy

Soup I’m Blake Murphy will L off for a well-deserved little long weekend here uh he had to carry the show with me on the sidelines so Samson and ask got to uh guest host a couple of those episodes and and they did okay so we brought them

Back we we we brought them back um they asked for us back who’s they they the you know out in the almighty they no the that be the most feedback I’ve gotten lately is like shouldn’t you just start Jay’s Talk Plus now at this point in the

Raptor season that was from me cuz I need it for my walks yes for your commute um that’ll be soon April 18th is the official day there’s also one day next week where I’m double dipping we got we’re going to do this 11 to 12 and

Then the Jays play at one so I’m just going to do 12 to one to you’re a grinder man no those days are fun though like the pregame slot when there’s a weekday afternoon game is so good early baseball kind of rocks they talk about everything is like interesting and cool

And just like I don’t know like there’s a 130 game today and a three clock game today and then the the Jay’s play at 650 I have to like switch my mindset we are both fans of football club Juventus right and like when when I’m watching

Them I have to like completely switch if I’m watching a different sport so for you to be like oh yeah this to this for two hours and then switch over I’m like damn that’s that’s impressive in its own right yeah I mean it’s fun it’s uh it

Also it gives you like a little bit of insulation if one team is going to be bad for a little bit true it’s like oh well um yes in the next couple games where RJ and Emanuel quickley are probably back but even looking forward when Scotty

Barnes is back when yaka is back when this team is a more competitive team um s how do you see some of what Grady’s done here translating to a more competitive environment where he may not be as high a priority but he’s around better players yeah I I mean going back

To the corner offense aspect I think that’s where that’s why they’re doubling down on this so much and saying hey you have to maximize this area of the floor for yourself and then from there there’s a trickle down effect of the different types of things

That he can do on the floor whether it be the cutting and I think the the off ball movement the The Cutting aspect is something that’s going to shine more once he’s playing with the yaka Purtle once he’s playing with the Scotty Barnes because those guys are so great at

Making passes in tight Pockets that it’ll open up the floor for him more often and also you talked about it with JJ like yes he’s he was like the fourth option but also like you have to plan for him on the scouting report in a certain way same thing’s going to apply

To Grady with the Raptors where okay On Any Given night people are going to be worried about Scotty and his downhill game iq’s pull up shooting RJ’s ability to Barrel to the paint yakob maybe in the kind of like a screen Setter rolling aspect and then Grady will have the

Opportunity to Feast off of any advantages those guys create and I think the feel that he’s already shown this year is going to allow that to not only become more efficient but also like dabble into things that we’ve seen him just flash this season whether it’s the pound dribble settling into a mid-range

Jump shot whether it’s finishing at the basket whether it’s like the backo cut if they’re top blocking him like all of these things can just be enhanced because he’s playing with better players and no offense to like any of the guys on the roster right now it’s just

Natural right so it’s the the g-league thing you’re like damn this doesn’t look that good at the g-league level but everything is Multiplied once he gets the NBA level and look like again the the better Grady dick performances have trended toward the later part of the

Season but even if you look at what his efficiency numbers are with and without Scotty I only looked at Scotty I didn’t even look at yakob RJ quickly and things like that true shooting percentage up around 59% when Scotty’s on the floor with him down around 52% when he’s not

So even with the improvement over this last little bit um you know you put the guy who defenses are most worried about on the floor and at least in a small sample Grady’s I I would assume gotten a little bit of room some of that’s maybe

He’s just in the corner a little bit more but also there’s a little B more room to operate um let’s focus this just on the Scotty element Samson um you know so much of what we talked about when Emanuel quickley came over was how that works with Scotty and even when quickley

Had a couple of really nice games in a row while Scotty was out but before quickly had to had to be out for for the family matter um there was at least a little bit of like okay well how does this work with Scott like they had negative chemistry when they were

Playing together um Grady is someone I’d imagine even if he’s not in a direct action with Scotty you’d probably see a lot of opportunity to hey Scotty is drawing an extra body shaded to this side of the floor what can we do on the other side of the floor how do you see

Grady helping Scotty and vice versa so I think the the easiest thing the simplest thing is we’ve talked about earlier the JJ retic MB two man game out of the corner that’s something hopefully basically why that works is JJ reic can shoot off of movement which means that

The two players guarding that action have to be connected to pop out so that he doesn’t have clearance and that’s it’s really important that Grady has for example on two-point jumpers 48% against tight contest 48% against very tight he can get the shot up comfortably and make

Those the same way JJ R well not the same way JJ R he can he’s also like five inches taller than JJ which this may like three okay but anyway so regardless also like it should be said JD retic is like the best example in league history may of like being able

To understand the and like even like kind of patent that one dribble like you come around a screen and you take that one side dribble to just create a little extra space from that rearview contest or late challenge around the clothes and stuff like like JJ reic top tier like

It’s yeah like a 100th percentile outcome as like an off ball mover and understanding spacing and things like that but yes the fact that Grady is a little taller um you know there’s a reason for example Matt Thomas role couldn’t skill even though he shot a lot

Of Threes is like just couldn’t get that separation to get that shot off at volume and so the big deal OB obviously is that you’re going to create these dramatic contests over top which create laydown opportunities but even we talked about using that as like a main Corner

Offense you can run the primary action with Grady in the corner and you can just automatic as the secondary action into something that should be in the future really dangerous and playing next to Scotty who is not a fast line drive player like Shay Alexander or like

Darren fox or like TJ McConnell Scotty is a guy who does bully drives which is this unique mix of like posting up flipping hips getting downhill teams start to shade all at the same time and it becomes really teams have to be really principled to guard against cuts

And to guard against drives that are bully drives and so Grady a very intuitive cutter when teams aren’t making these big drastic changes because it’s like okay a guy’s in the paint we bring the low man the other guy recovers out to the strong side corner it’s like

No the team is like slowly morphing to this drive Brady’s intuitive cutting off of Scotty for those 45 spaceline oh the strong side corner is not in the corner anymore like that guy’s not he’s lifted out and then cut or something like that so um it’s important it’s it’s a very

It’s a hand and glove fit and also like you just look at like second Spectrum handoffs with Scotty between Grady as the handoff guy it’s it’s yeah yeah exactly it’s it’s a good little play for them and honestly when you look at like Grady’s points per chance in anything if

He he doesn’t have to be 70th percentile which he is in some things but even if he’s just around the middle of the pack for a rookie who had to buoy the start that he had any of these numbers being anything like you know palatable is a

Huge deal and also the film like pops the hell off so it looks good I I’ll just say on top of that I think it takes a certain type of person to be willing to like hey I’m not very good at these certain things or I know I can be better

In these certain areas and I’m just going to consume as much film as possible be sponge like everybody you talk to about Grady whether it was Garrett Temple whether it’s Gary has said like he is one of the best Learners that they’ve worked with because he’s so

Willing to be like I’m not good at this but I can also work on this aspect I’m able to be a sponge he’s mentioned that like 101 times if you look at the quotes Grady has had it’s like I’m trying to be a sponge I’m trying to be a sponge he is

Absorbing that knowledge in a lot of ways he’s thugging out trly humble under God he’s humble learning position just trying to be the best man he can be can I can I just say something about the Scotty note that you mentioned I the the one thing is also like Scotty has to

Work to realize that like these relocation Shooters are also there in some aspects because I don’t think he’s used to playing with guys who are at maybe Fred to a certain extent like he was great at working with Fred but was he well um I think generally you look at

Some of the screening actions with IQ some of the actions he’s with Grady and it’s just not there in terms of him realizing okay he is shaking up to the corner or he is or like he’s shaking up and like in general you want him to get

Better as a screener a guy who can be able to improve on that aspect too to open up opportunities for these guys so that’s it’s a twom man game for a reason and like both sides sort of have to develop that chemistry it’s not just Grady finding ways to assimilate or IQ

Finding ways to assimilate to Scotty okay so we got five minutes left here um one thing I wanted to know because you you mentioned you know just how bad the start was um one thing that I was tracking early in the air and this was a little tongue-and-cheek in me being a

Jerk but if we look at dunks and 3.com which hosts estimated plus minus EPM which you know catch all metrics aren’t everything but if you were going to pick one this is the one I like most there’s a good chunk of the Season where Grady was dead last in the entire league and

This is like rookies because they don’t have a large sample like you’re regressing to League average a lot of that performance so to be last in the league is like extra impressive he has climbed up even as the Raptors have been really really bad he’s like safely not

At the bottom anymore um which is nice to see too it doesn’t mean all that much but it does suggests that while things have been really really bad for the Raptors it’s at least been a little better when Grady’s on the floor which for a guy who isn’t your you know isn’t

A number one doesn’t have the ball in his hands a boatload is a is a positive indicator even over the last couple games where they’ve not last game because everyone got their teeth kicked in last game but there was a like he was a plus six I think in the game before

That and uh I think he had a plus zero in there somewhere in games that like the team’s not competitive which these things don’t really matter when you’re losing by 20 and 30 and 44 um but at least the team’s playing okay um so one of the remaining concerns with Grady

Dick the offensive stuff is really coming along and the defensive side some of this is maybe going to be the strength and conditioning stuff over the offseason even on offense he can like we saw against um Utah and Orlando the physicality of bigger teams was still

Getting to him a little bit um where are you guys at defensively I know you had the Tweet the other day about like hey the fact that Grady was put on Jaylen Bronson I don’t know may for for a good team that tells you that uh yeah for a

Good team that would tell you well this coach maybe thinks more highly about this defensive player than you do uh in this situation was probably just to get him some uh a reper to doing that but in seriousness um we’ve only got three minutes where where are we on Grady’s

Defense and you know has there been development there is that’s still where we we kind of expected so the defensive playmaking is not as high up as I thought it might might be but the defensive impact overall I think is higher now than I if you would ask me

Before the season even where I expected it to be and maybe it’s because he is getting so many more minutes and he gets to like as a guy who is a cerebral Defender instead of like a really athletic player he has to beat guys to spots he has to be familiar with the

Scouting report he has to rely on like other players tendencies that he can sit on to be impactful and that’s how you see him like beating guys to spots taking charges and like honestly just being like in the gaps to help those types of things the work he puts in

Being a sponge perhaps in different ways not just on offense that’s really important and so those things are showing up he’s still not a good Defender though he’s he’s a a young man who doesn’t have the same body that everyone else does just yet and he’s not

Like the fastest foot speed also we weren’t expecting him to be a good Defender coming in yeah I I mean I agree with everything that you said uh double vouch on the just in general that he’s not a good Defender but I think there are moments where you can see him

Process the defensive side a little bit more uh make the read and even if he doesn’t get to the spot because of that foot speed like he he knows that’s the rotation he’s supposed to make and so that’ll eventually grow and I think that’s a growing issue for the Raptors

Moving forward is just how are you going to be able to scrape up a good enough defense in general you see like Jordan war and Jaylen McDaniels they’re icing the screen and Jordan War iced did and then Jaylen McDaniels played it like he was like going to hedge so the whole

Side of the floor open up is a wide open layup Grady doesn’t make those mistakes yeah which is nice yeah uh all right we’ve only got a uh two minutes left here so very very quickly tomorrow is the Raptors Republic 3 on3 tournament uh down at down at tmu how you guys feeling

You taking this down or I I made the schedule yesterday do I don’t know what our groups are like do we know who we’re playing I I don’t know they didn’t even put like I think they labeled us as RR even though we’re the pullup try team oh

You didn’t have a name yeah just it’s so Z zarar sent me the list of teams and like everyone’s like self evaluation of how good they are so I Tred to balance the group set a little bit but obviously like the group you guys are in I loaded

Up with the media teams so good okay so from last year and this is like where Miami Heat this year Trey is down like 30 lb alg’s down like 30 lb I’m down like 15 lbs if we’re not better we’ll look better okay notice how he didn’t

Mention me I’m I I was also going to say wasn’t a lack of size the issue last year you guys should have been you guys should have been getting better we’ve got we’ve got the muscle to to contend now yeah yeah you guys are going to yeah

You good look I’m going yeah your lungs are going to be in great shape after all those losses after you guys get posted up into Oblivion not not in the not in the group stage I I think looking at who the teams were that I put in your group

Stage uh I think you’ll probably be okay in the group stage but yeah like there’s there’s a a division because like there were only 15 teams this year so I had to redo the usual format so the number one overall gets a buy out of that like really good division with like the

Defending champs and stuff so um yeah if you run into those the defending champs are tough man the first guy I defended last year was 6’6 like I it was like 8:45 a.m. and I had to you need a fire hydr in the post you use your knee as a

Lever to take their legs out and then they can spin off of you but you have to be okay yeah all right well good luck tomorrow we don’t need to break down the film that does it for us today s folk as fandy AR bar Haney uh thanks for coming

On guys uh I’ve been Blake Murphy will will be back with me on Monday this has been the Raptor show on the sportset radio network brought to you by Campbell’s new chunky spicy soup it’s time to get fired up

Blake Murphy is joined by Samson Folk and Esfandiar Baraheni to discuss Gradey Dick’s ascent, learning from his mistakes, the strides he can make in the final few games and what he looks like when the Raptors are fully healthy.

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