Lucas Nogueira & Raptors musical chairs at center

Lucas Nogueira seemed to enter Dwane Casey’s doghouse last season, and hasn’t emerged in pre-season. What are the Raptors trying to achieve at center?

I had hoped that the Toronto Raptors pre-season would provide some clarity on an issue which has been a head-scratcher for months, to wit: what are the Raptors plans at the center position?

Since the drafting of 7-footer Jakob Poeltl in 2016, the Raptors have employed 3 centers: the young Austrian, incumbent Jonas Valanciunas and Lucas (Bebe, The Apprentice) Nogueira. While the summertime news clips were filled with speculation about JV being shipped out of Toronto, that didn’t happen. In the Raptors’ 5 pre-season games, JV has looked excellent, and has earned praise from coach Dwane Casey. Poeltl has been the first big man off the bench…and there’s Bebe, a cheerleader until garbage time.

[20-second timeout: To those of you saying to yourselves: What about Serge Ibaka at center?…my reply is – keep reading.]

One might be forgiven for thinking that Nogueira’s career has topped out at the not-so-tender age of 25. If the Raptors don’t believe in Bebe anymore, why not move him? While his position may appear to be redundant in this new era of small-ball, don’t believe it. No team can survive without rim protection.

Bebe, despite averaging a pitiful 11 minutes of floor time Per Game [PG], leads the Raptors in blocked shots with 1.6 PG. Extrapolate that over 36 minutes and you’ve got a healthy number indeed. He also has hit 2 (of 4) long balls, or 2 more than JV and Poeltl combined.

CHICAGO, IL – OCTOBER 13: Antonio Blakeney /

Not again, Dwane

With Lucas, we seem to have another example of Norman Powell Syndrome, which is an inability on Casey’s part to decide on a player’s role. There’s another, more Machiavellian, explanation: coach is spotlighting JV to increase his market value in advance of a trade next week. That’s a tough one for me to swallow. If Casey’s praise is followed by JV’s (or any player’s) departure, coach will lose the dressing room. Put bluntly, his players won’t trust him. Even a defence of “I didn’t trade him, the front office did” won’t wash.

We haven’t had a troubled dressing room in the Casey era, and we emphatically don’t want one now.

I’d like to see Lucas get more minutes, particularly with Serge or Poeltl as the power forward. The opposition would likely counter by going small, and we’d be able to determine whether our guys have the speed to defend successfully against Smurfs. Experimentation is one major purpose of pre-season. Serge at center is OK in small doses.

The most anodyne explanation for Bebe’s lack of minutes may be the correct one. Coach wants to keep four big men on the roster as injury insurance, and someone’s got to be on the bottom of the ladder. I can grudgingly accept that. However, Lucas is being undervalued, and I look to Casey to find him a proper, meaningful role.

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