With summer league basketball over, the Toronto Raptors' new focus becomes training camp. The Raptors’ camp is set to open at the end of September in Calgary, and I expect that period to bring a really exciting competition between two summer league standouts, Seth Lundy and Nate Bittle. Both players were Toronto’s most impressive players not named Allen Graves during the team’s time in Las Vegas and are assumed to be back with the Raptors come camp.
If the Kawhi deal is processed before camp tips off, the Raptors will have two open roster spots and one two-way opening. This creates an interesting debate and competition between Bittle and Lundy on whether both players can earn a standard deal or if one player will be brought in on a two-way.
That’s where Bittle has a massive leg up on Lundy, as given the way Toronto’s depth chart currently looks, the need for center play heavily outweighs the need for wing depth. Considering two-way players can only appear in a maximum of 50 regular season games, having Lundy on that deal and Bittle on any everyday NBA one seems more likely.
Seth Lundy faces an uphill battle
When you think of exactly what this Raptors team needs from the wing position, there are a few traits on the checklist: Shooting, defense, length, and energy. Lundy fits all of those.
Going back to summer league, he led Toronto in scoring, averaging 20 points, 3.8 rebounds, 2.3 assists, and 2.1 stocks (steals plus blocks), all while shooting 43.8 percent from three. When it comes to Lundy’s shooting, he’s always been someone who was viewed as a catch-and-shoot player, not an overly strong creator from the perimeter. But with more opportunity to have the ball in his hands in Vegas, we saw that shooting off the dribble is definitely something he’s been working on.
We’ve seen in the past just how important Jamison Battle can be on any given night because of how elite of a floor spacer he is, and Lundy can provide a similar boost.
Defensively, he’s strong from the point of attack and uses his 6-foot-10 wingspan to generate steals and start the fast break, which suits that defense-to-offense style Darko Rajakovic has implemented. At 6-foot-4, he isn’t going to be a rim protector or elite shot blocker. But we saw against Indiana that if the team needs a big play and he’s near the rim, he has the physical tools and skills to have game-saving blocks.
All of this sounds incredible and makes Lundy one of those players that, in any other situation, Toronto could give a standard deal to. The issue is that Collin Murray-Boyles, who isn’t a traditional big man standing at only 6-foot-7, is the Raptors' only secondary source of center play behind Jakob Poeltl.
It would be one thing if Bittle was underwhelming in summer league or if he didn’t flash a little bit of potential, but he did. He showed strong processing, maturity, good rebounding and rim-protecting instincts, set hard screens, and even spaced the floor. He also had stats to back up the eye test, averaging 9.8 points, 6.8 rebounds, 2.3 assists, and 2.8 blocks while shooting 43.8 percent from three on over four attempts per game.
That type of production is hard to ignore when you’re a team like the Raptors in dire need of backup center play.
Do I expect both of these players to be part of September's training camp roster? Yes. Does Seth Lundy have a much harder path ahead of him to earn a standard contract than Nate Bittle? Absolutely. All Bittle has to do is continue to play his game and show the coaching staff and front office he’s a reliable backup five. For Lundy, he’s going to have to blow the doors off the gym.
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