{"id":4963,"date":"2017-03-07T15:23:54","date_gmt":"2017-03-07T20:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/?p=4963"},"modified":"2017-03-07T18:22:59","modified_gmt":"2017-03-07T23:22:59","slug":"evaluating-toronto-raptors-trade-acquisitions-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2017\/03\/07\/evaluating-toronto-raptors-trade-acquisitions-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Evaluating the Toronto Raptors’ Trade Acquisitions: Part Two"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Toronto Raptors\u2019 acquisitions of power forward Serge Ibaka<\/a><\/strong> and small forward P.J. Tucker<\/a><\/strong> significantly increased the team\u2019s chances of returning to the Eastern Conference Finals. In part two of a two-part article<\/a>, we’ll\u00a0examine Tucker’s impact\u00a0on the Drakes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Evaluating the Toronto Raptors\u2019 Trade Acquisitions: Part Two<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Pure Grit<\/strong><\/h3>\n

After being acquired on February 23rd, it didn’t take long for Tucker’s new coaches and teammates to learn\u00a0what type of player he was. Prior to the Raptors’ February 24th match-up with the\u00a0Celtics, Tucker was 30-hours sleep deprived, having flown into Toronto on a red-eye the morning of the game. The new\u00a0Raptor chose to dress that night and surely surprised his coaching staff, finishing the game<\/a>\u00a0as the leading rebounder for both teams. Tucker added three steals, including two pivotal ones in the fourth quarter. To put the icing on the cake, he\u00a0nailed four free throws in the final 19 seconds to close out the 107-97 win, all while playing\u00a029 minutes. Toronto’s new small forward\u00a0was ready for bed<\/a>\u00a0postgame (check out his first response).<\/p>\n

Efforts like that are\u00a0what\u00a0Tucker is all about. The\u00a0impact he has on games doesn’t\u00a0always show up\u00a0on\u00a0the stat sheet<\/a>, yet\u00a0his intangibles always show up on the hardwood. Those intangibles are what made Raptors’ General Manager Masai Ujiri<\/strong> give up two second-round picks and Jared Sullinger<\/a><\/strong> for his services. Tucker’s most valuable intangible is his gritty defense, something Raptors’ star\u00a0DeMar DeRozan<\/a><\/strong> knows\u00a0first-hand.<\/p>\n

A recent\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0by Raptors’ beat writer Doug Smith\u00a0featured\u00a0a quote from DeRozan, which highlighted\u00a0how the four-time All-Star\u00a0felt Tucker guarded him the best out of anyone in the NBA, prior to his arrival in Toronto.<\/p>\n

“The crazy thing, people always used to ask me: Who are the three toughest players that guard me the best? I always put P.J. in there first,” DeRozan said.<\/p>\n

\n

If Tucker defends opponents the way he used to guard DeRozan, especially in the playoffs, teams should tread lightly. You\u00a0never know when the 6’6″, 245-pound Tucker will rip the ball out of your hands.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Fourth Quarter Defender<\/strong><\/h4>\n

With the addition of Tucker, Head Coach Dwane Casey\u00a0<\/strong>has a proven defender he can insert into fourth quarter lineups. In his brief six-game tenure as a Raptor, Tucker has averaged 25 minutes per night, with most of those minutes coming in the fourth quarter. That shows how much trust Casey already has in Tucker in such a short time. With the playoffs a mere 19 regular season games away, it appears as though Tucker has supplanted the injured\u00a0DeMarre Carroll<\/a><\/strong> as the\u00a0player\u00a0tasked with guarding\u00a0LeBron James<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0down the stretch in a potential Cavaliers-Raptors Eastern Conference Finals series. That is, if the Raptors advance\u00a0deep into the playoffs, as they hope to.<\/p>\n

Tucker is a prototypical ‘3-and-D’ player, with a stronger defensive presence than Carroll, and\u00a0nearly identical<\/a> three-point shooting percentage. If Carroll is healthy come playoff time, the Carroll\/Tucker combo will\u00a0be vital in guarding the opposing team’s best player. Casey could experiment with lineups featuring the duo, given their\u00a0above-average ability to switch\u00a0defensive assignments on the fly. That may be difficult, though, with Carroll’s latest injury.<\/p>\n

In case you missed it: part one of this article focuses on Serge Ibaka<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Main Photo:<\/p>\n

DALLAS, TEXAS – MARCH 17: \u00a0P.J. Tucker<\/a> #2 of the Texas Longhorns shoots a free throw against the Pennsylvannia Quaker during the first half of the First Round game of the 2006 NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament on March 17, 2006 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas. \u00a0(Photo by Ronald Martinez\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

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In the second installment of a two-part series on the Toronto Raptors’ trade acquisitions, LWOPB examines P.J. Tucker’s role on Toronto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1862,"featured_media":675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,2,14],"tags":[65,350,391,392,114,96,279,318],"class_list":["post-4963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","category-featured","category-raptors","tag-basketball","tag-demar-derozan","tag-demarre-carroll","tag-dwane-casey","tag-masai-ujiri","tag-nba","tag-p-j-tucker","tag-toronto-raptors"],"modified_by":"Lior Kozai (Managing Editor)","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1862"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}