Time for Raptors to bring plan to life
Coach O'Neill has his players focusing all the time

Bruce Arthur
National Post

Wednesday, October 29, 2003

TORONTO - In a Toronto Maple Leafs building, Alvin Williams stood
defiant, a Philadelphia Flyers hat perched on his head. The Toronto
Raptors had just concluded a 24-58 wreck of a season, and the scrappy
point guard was feeling combative. Despite being a man who would
criticize himself before blasting a teammate, Williams sounded a
challenge.

"After all that's said, we're going to see how serious people really
are," he said. "No matter what's said right now, we won't really see.
Because everything has been said before. Work harder, stick together,
dedicate yourself, sacrifice yourself. It's all been said before ...
We'll see how serious guys are right now. I think we are."

Six months later, the proving time has arrived for the 2003-04
edition of the Toronto Raptors, and most excuses -- along with the
players -- should be exhausted. The Raptors, who set an NBA record
for man-games lost to injury last season, are healthy. The comfort of
former coach Lenny Wilkens has been replaced with the intensity of
rookie bench boss Kevin O'Neill. To fill the veteran void left by
former Toronto forward Charles Oakley -- the team has been dismal
since his demise as a Raptor in 2001 -- Michael Curry has been
brought in as a veteran presence, and prized rookie Chris Bosh, the
No. 4 pick in the draft, will provide a youthful boost.

In all, the significant off-season additions were few -- Bosh, Curry,
O'Neill, veteran scorer Lamond Murray (back from injury) and assorted
depth players -- so it will be those elements, fused to the familiar
core of the Raptors, that must combine to restore the franchise's
reputation.

"You're either selling hope or selling wins, when it comes right down
to it," says O'Neill, whose disciplined tone must infect his team
this season. "If you're young, you talk about what you're going to
be. Otherwise, you've gotta win."

For the Raptors, Bosh is the sole young talent, 26-year-old Vince
Carter aside, so the Raptors must be peddling victories. For two men
in particular, this season is critical. O'Neill is honest about the
fact that he has a two-year contract, and, therefore, is short on
time.

The man who hired him, meanwhile -- Raptors general manager Glen
Grunwald -- has one year remaining on his deal, and a proposed
extension seemed to vanish after last year's disappointment.

Grunwald has said all along that this bunch -- particularly the core
of Vince Carter, Antonio Davis, Alvin and Jerome Williams, who make
up three-quarters of the salary cap -- can and will win, if healthy.

But what sort of team will this be? One thing is for sure. It will be
different.

"I think the biggest expectation for all of us is to come out and
play hard and compete every night," says Carter. "We've had enough
chances to practise and prepare ourselves for the way we want to
play. We expect to be aggressive. We expect to challenge teams."

Indeed, the transformation already wrought by O'Neill has been
significant. His defensive tenets involve toughness; his offence will
be deliberate. The Raptors will run almost every play through either
Carter, Murray or Davis, likely often in that order. They will manage
possessions; almost everything will be mapped.

"I think what happened [last year] is too much was kind of left to
think about on your own," says Davis. "We had too many decisions --
A, B, C and D. Now there's one thing you're going to do in this
situation. And then it's just going to be a reaction.That way there's
less margin of error.

"I think the good thing about this year is we have a fresh start, a
new guy coming in with a lot of energy and a lot of focus, and I
think he wants us to be the same way. [O'Neill's] personality is just
rubbing off on everybody. Come in here, get your work in while it's
time to get work in, afterwards, you get treatment or you lift
weights, and then you go home, get rest for the next day. I think
that's going to allow us to really get after it, and be all about
business while we're out here on the floor."

There, as everywhere, O'Neill will demand precision. This team will
be patterned on the Detroit Pistons squads for which O'Neill was an
assistant the past two seasons, with Carter as the offensive star,
Murray as the bench scorer, Davis as the rock in the middle, and the
rest as role players. It will not always be pretty -- see Jeff Van
Gundy's New York squads of the late 1990s, for example, where O'Neill
was also an assistant -- but perhaps some fight will grace the floor
of the Air Canada Centre.

So far, the Raptors have competed and worked in their pre-season
games, and at the close of each practice, grey T-shirts are soaked
with sweat. Still, O'Neill suggested recently that his charges are
not working hard enough and they had not yet come close to mastering
the new system.

"We're a long ways away from even resembling a really good team," he
said. "I'm not convinced that we play hard."

In that vein, O'Neill will push and prod his players all year.
Players have spoken with respect about his ability to define roles,
to demand results, to change the team's culture. From the purple
plastic signs in the locker room -- such as "The Toronto Raptors
Think: Defence before Offence. Rebound before Running. Pass before
Shooting" -- to the system on the floor, this is a changed team.

"Practice has been very competitive, and the last few practices have
really been very high level," says Curry. "That's good. And that's
how you change the culture around here, and that's the way you give
yourself a chance to win every night.

"We have what I call useful time in practice. Where we don't just
stay out here two, three hours and not get a lot done. We work the
whole time we're here."

O'Neill is driving this, of course, with the threat of benching those
who do not work hard enough, or comply with the system. Some Raptors,
though, say last year is just as much of a spur.

"I think what has happened is last year hurts," says Davis. "It still
hurts to this day, and the only way that you're going to erase what
you have in your memory is to come out and to succeed. Bringing in a
new coach, and knowing that every guy is a good guy, and he's going
to dedicate himself anyway, I think will erase a lot of what we felt
last year."

The Raptors, goes one refrain, inhabit the netherworld of neither
contending nor rebuilding. Occasionally, some contend they can
contend, but Toronto would do well to aim for a playoff berth, for
respectability, whatever the talk from the team.

"I think that we are now a head coach, a few players and dedication
away from being back in the playoffs and being contenders," said
Davis at the end of last year. The first two have been added -- now,
with an 82-game grind coming, we will see if that dedication being
sold in the "Renew" ad campaign is spin or reality. Alvin Williams
says what he asked for has, so far, been delivered.

"We're going to play hard," he says. "I know that. We're always going
to execute, and we'll always have a plan. Everyone is understanding
their role, and everyone is understanding the system.

"I didn't really know what to expect ... new coach, new system.
Things that I said -- be ready for next year, and rededicate
yourself -- I can be the first one to say, 'I am that.' And I think
we're there."

So the time for talk is done. Renewal, rebirth -- it's the same
thing. This team will show what it is on the court, in practice,
every day. One of Oakley's finer chestnuts sums it all up.

"You just can't talk about it, you gotta be about it," said Oakley,
inimitable as always. "Talk don't get you nothing but more
conversation."