3 Players who must get axed from the Raptors’ playoff rotation
By Mike Luciano
The Toronto Raptors are trying everything in their power to make it to the postseason despite their injury troubles, lackluster bench, and issues with consistency making it very tough for Nick Nurse and the rest of the squad to sustain any sort of positive winning streak.
The Raptors’ depth has been the biggest bugaboo for this team, as a starting lineup that has been excellent following the addition of Jakob Poeltl has been consistently let down by a bench that will often fail to even crack 20 points in a game despite Gary Trent Jr. supplying double-digit scoring efforts every single night.
Nurse has earned a reputation as a tinkerer that will switch up all sorts of lineups if he thinks that the Raptors can gain an advantage. However, if Toronto makes it to the playoffs, it may be time for Nurse to throw his best players out on the floor and hope for the best against another hungry .500 team.
These three Raptors getting any sort of significant rotation time in the postseason would be an egregious misstep, as none of them have shown enough promise on both ends to warrant such a substantial investment in them when the stuff hits the fan and the heat gets ticked up a notch.
3 Toronto Raptors that can’t be in the postseason rotation.
3. Christian Koloko
Koloko has received a few extra spurts of minutes at the NBA level in the last few games, as Precious Achiuwa continuing to fall flat prompted a light roster shakeup from Nurse. While Koloko is once again getting some slight run in the pros, he hasn’t done enough in the NBA to keep Achiuwa and others at bay.
Koloko’s shot-blocking and offensive rebounding have shown to be NBA quality at this stage, and he offers a quality defensive presence that could help Toronto in the minutes Jakob Poeltl spends on the bench. However, he just isn’t there as a scorer just yet.
The Toronto Raptors must work on Christian Koloko.
Koloko’s offensive game is limited to putbacks and a handful of post moves when given ample time to set up. Working on him will require patience and nuance, which is something that is in very short supply in the postseason. Expect more of the Achiuwa and Chris Boucher show when the calendar flips over.
The Raptors sending Koloko to the G League earlier in the season shows they are willing to be as patient as they need to be in order to make Koloko into a player that can eventually hold down a valued postseason spot in the next half-decade.