A Christmas wish list for the Toronto Raptors this holiday season

Can we stop overworking our starters?

Nick Nurse is one of the finest basketball coaches on the planet. His unmatched creativity is only rivaled by his passion for the game. Many a Toronto fan has seen him crouching on the sidelines, searching the game to see what strategic counters he has left to snatch up.

He won the title in his freshman year as head coach and he won Coach of the Year his second. Through the ups and downs, he’s been nearly flawless. Nearly. After almost four years of perfect coaching, we may have finally found a flaw in the strategies of Nick Nurse. He plays his starters too much.

It’s not the end of the world. Many great coaches have leaned heavily on their top-notch players. “Play your best guys as much as you can” is a pretty simple way to win more games, but the flip side is not to ride them too hard and break them down.

Toronto Raptors coach Nick Nurse is leaning on his starters.

A famous example of this is now Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau. The former coach of the Bulls, Thibs had the same reputation then of playing his best men for heavy minutes. A Bulls roster littered with stars, headlined by 2011 MVP Derrick Rose, the Bulls were plagued by injuries until they washed out of contention.

Now with Nurse showing the same knack for riding his starters, it begs the question if the Raptors’ now climbing injury total is a side-effect.

Right now, Nurse has five players averaging 33+ minutes per game. Fred VanVleet leads the league in MPG with an average of 37.7. Both OG Anunoby and Scottie Barnes are above 35 minutes per game.

All five of the Raptors starters have missed time this season due to injury. Add bench players like Achiuwa, Khem Birch, and Yuta Watanabe to that list, and a pattern starts to form.

Now, some of why Nurse is placing this heavy load on the backs of his main guys is out of necessity. Nurse is trying to be as competitive as possible with the tools he’s been given. That’s admirable, but only to the extent that it’s safe for the future of the franchise.

There’s a lot of guesswork involved, but as fans, and hopefully within the front office as well, we must start weighing the cost/benefit relationship of both constantly putting our best men on the court as well as trying to keep them healthy and available.