Toronto Raptors offseason preview: Pascal Siakam

Siakam’s outlook for next season

With Kawhi gone, Siakam is now the No. 1 guy on the Toronto Raptors. He will have the pressure of being the primary option on offense, along with having the pleasure of guarding the opposing team’s best wing scorer for the majority of next season. It will be interesting to see how he handles this new responsibility after he got some taste of it last season.

Kawhi missed 22 games last season with Toronto. In those games, it was on Siakam to provide the offensive production for the Raptors. He actually scored a career-high 44 against the Wizards when Kawhi wasn’t playing. Yeah, the sample size is small, but he seems ready to take the next step and become “the guy” on an NBA team.

Something that P-Sizzle will have to adjust to for next season is the increase in expectations. It’s one thing to have a great year when nobody expected you to; now that Siakam made his emphatic arrival in the NBA, many have very high expectations for the 25-year-old Cameroonian born player.

This will be a big year coming up on many levels for Pascal Siakam. He will have the duty of leading the Toronto Raptors on their quest of defending their NBA title. This is a tall task to ask of a player coming into his fourth year, especially with the lack of star power around him. But hey, these are the cards he was dealt. Now, it’s just a matter of playing his hand to the best of his ability.

This upcoming season is going to be a spicy one for Spicy-P. He not only has a lot on his plate when it comes to his developmental path, but he also has a lot on his plate when it comes to the expectations of him as a player.

It will be a much different season from last year for him, but he seems ready to take on this challenge. If Siakam takes another leap this season, don’t be surprised if his name is brought up in All-Star conversations, maybe even All-NBA conversations as the season unfolds.