Samson Folk & Trevon Heath detail the latest with the Raptors.
From Louis’ QR:
Allen Graves | Grade: A
I’m ready to admit that Graves is much better than I thought he was coming out of the draft. I liked his pick-and-roll creation early on, as the Raptors had him handling with Chucky Hepburn out with injury. He picks up his dribble a touch early, but he has the size and timing to find his rollers deep in the paint. He did fantastically to minimize turnovers. And he just reads the floor and the rotations of the defence so smoothly. It looks like he’s trying to speed up his jumper, which is a very nice sign; he’ll need to shoot faster at the NBA level. He shot well against Miami, too. He even cut backdoor when he was off ball. Hunted offensive boards, and even if he didn’t put any in the box score, he drew fouls doing so. His finishing wasn’t fantastic. Another offensive negative was that he couldn’t create for himself in isolation, but that simply won’t be an element of his job in the NBA, so it doesn’t matter at all.
Defensively, he had some elite rim protection as a helper with a fantastic swipedown in the second. Those hands, man. In the third, he swatted a shot as a helper when Bittle got lost chasing the ball-handler and gave up and easy lay-down pass. Those hands, man! The broadcast was gushing over him.
Nate Bittle | Grade: B+
If his jumper is as real as it has been so far, the Raptors should probably get this guy a big-club contract yesterday. He opened the game with a wing triple, and followed that with a pump-and-go drive that created a layup (which he smoked), and later hit another pick-and-pop wing bomb. He actually won some contested defensive rebounds, too, which had been slightly disappointing in Summer League. He passed well, as always, with the highlight being a backdoor bounce feed to Graves for the and-1. (He also had some backdoor passes that went to the defence, too.)
Defensively, he fell for some fluff and was out of position in the paint as a helper a few times. I didn’t love his work there.”
Have a blessed day.