Toronto Raptors: Stock up, Stock down after 2 preseason games
By Mike Luciano
Stock Down: Freddie Gillespie
We promise we are not an anti-Gillespie site. He’s got an outgoing personality and helped give the team some rebounding last year. However, everything that he has done since then during his quest to make the final roster has been very disappointing, and last night was not excluded.
Gillespie was shockingly inefficient in Summer League play, and that lack of offensive skill has carried over to the start of the preseason. In just over 12 minutes, Gillespie has just two points and one rebound while recording five fouls. Nick Nurse is giving him some minutes, but he isn’t taking advantage.
First Raptors off the bench: Freddie Gillespie, Yuta Watanabe and Svi Mykhailiuk (which I'm still learning how to spell)
— Josh Lewenberg (@JLew1050) October 4, 2021
Freddie Gillespie hasn’t impressed the Toronto Raptors.
Even if the Raptors accept that Gillespie is a below-average offensive player, the fact that rebounding, interior finishing, and rim protection are areas where he’s struggling has to set off some serious alarm bells. If he can’t do that at an above-average level, where can he dominate?
While there hasn’t been much movement on the non-guaranteed players from outside of Yuta Watanabe essentially becoming a rotation lock, Gillespie has been given more minutes than players like Ishmail Wainright, Sam Dekker, and Reggie Perry. Unfortunately, he isn’t making the most of them.