Toronto Raptors: Whose stock is up/down, plus multiple career-nights

Pascal Siakam – Stock Up

The first of our career-high scorers of the week is Pascal Siakam. A player whose career arc has shifted significantly this season since becoming the starting power forward for the Raptors.

Siakam has already broken his career-high scoring mark several times this season. Scoring career-best marks of 22 points, 23 points and 26 points all before his 28-point explosion against the Utah Jazz. More importantly, Siakam hit three three-pointers in that game, also a career-high for him. Siakam averaged 15.5 points in the last four games. The average was brought down by sub-standard performances against the Magic and Spurs, games the Raptors were blown out in.

The week began with Siakam scoring four points against the Orlando Magic, he only hit one of his eight shots for the evening and turned the ball over twice. It was always going to be a tough match-up against a similar player in Aaron Gordon but the two athletic power forwards canceled each other out for most of the game, with Gordon eventually coming out on top.

He followed up the subpar performance by playing out his skin against the Bulls and Jazz, when Siakam gets rolling his unique style of play becomes so much harder to stop, add in the fact that he’s now shooting 34-percent from three – something that seemed unthinkable in stretches last season – and Siakam’s game becomes that much more dangerous.

Siakam has been hit with the turnover bug recently, accounting for four of them against the Spurs on Thursday night. He tends to over-compensate by trying to do too much when attacking the paint when things are going awry. It’s admirable but ultimately futile.

Still, Siakam has had another solid week.