SIMMONS: Can coach Darko Rajakovic lead the Raptors to the NBA’s promised land?

This is the season we find out just how great a coach Darko Rajakovic is and how great he can be with the Toronto Raptors.

This is his fourth season as head coach, the first season that he’s expected to be great.

Not just him, but his basketball team.

In his rather forgettable time in Toronto, Coach Darko and the Raptors have gone from long shot to some shot and now this year — with him coaching the big shot, Kawhi Leonard.

The Raptors numbers should change even if the gambling sophisticates don’t happen to see it that way. Last year, the Raptors won 46 games and had a playoff series of some prominence against the Cleveland Cavaliers. This year, the professional bookmakers don’t view the Raptors as being a whole lot better — which won’t play well as this season opens with gigantic expectations and a city of blind hope looking to turn the clock backwards and forwards all at the same time.

The bookies have the Raptors at an over-under of 46.5 wins on the season, which is basically the same as they won a year ago. But a year ago, they didn’t have Leonard, they didn’t have Scottie Barnes coming off a dominant playoff series and being disrespected in year-end voting, they didn’t have the belief from ownership that this could be their year.

Whatever their year happens to mean.

Eastern Conference is loaded with talent

In an Eastern Conference full of monster teams with monster talent, with LeBron James and Jaylen Brown joining Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey in Philadelphia, with the New York Knicks as defending champions, with Giannis Antetokounmpo in Miami, with Boston being Boston and Detroit being Detroit, there is little room or place for failure here and almost as little room to succeed.

“For me, nothing really changes,” said Rajakovic, who looks like a coach and sounds like a coach and in this case, lies a little bit like a coach. Of course, everything changes when a difference maker arrives in the NBA. The Raptors are paying Kawhi Leonard $50-plus million a year to turn back the clock to 2019. They don’t know if that’s possible or how healthy Kawhi will be at any given moment, but they do know Leonard is coming off a great personal season before he needed to be pushed out of Los Angeles, out of the country essentially.

Darko has a piece of the puzzle he’s never had before. You don’t get many opportunities to a coach a Kawhi Leonard in your career. He’s a game changer, a potential series changer, maybe a season changer.

Kawhi Leonard did that first time around in Toronto. We saw basketball for the first time through a different lens. This supporting cast, while different from 2019, is certainly capable. The team has to change and grow. The coach, though, says he’s not changing for anyone.

“My preparation is not going to change. The way I approach every single game is to try to win and we have, I believe, a better team,” said Rajakovic.
He welcomes the pressure, he said. He welcomes the scrutiny. He even welcomes the daily dialogue from his pain-in-the-ass neighbour named Stuart — his words, not mine — who essentially acts like the beat reporter for his block.

Darko is a man of the people

How does the team look? Stuart asks regularly. How are practices going. What does Kawhi look like? Stuart needs to know everything on pretty much a daily basis.

“He’s a really good barometer for me,” said Darko. You find out “what going on in the city?’

“I love the pressure,” said the coach. “I mean, nobody puts more pressure on myself than me, and I love it. That’s the whole point of being in professional sports. You want to compete. You want to be able to go out there and give your best to and test yourself against the best in the world. Is there a better job in the world? I absolutely adore the pressure.”

As the new season begins, the Raptors are in need of an identity that will push them to a place beyond the irrelevancy of previous seasons. The NBA is the sporting league that is most like high school — where there’s cool kids and the not-so-cool kids. There are always the teams that matter and the teams we never talk about.

Historically, the Raptors have been the team that wasn’t able to hang out too often with he cool kids. This year it’s possible they join that elusive gathering.

Last season, the New York Knicks were almost no one’s pick to win the NBA championship and they did it. When 15 prognosticators from ESPN selected their NBA champions and runners up, the other day, the Raptors were one person’s choice to lose in the Finals.

Now that’s a place they haven’t been in years.

Rajakovic isn’t looking to follow the Knicks in any way, he wants to set his own path.

“We have our own story,” he said. “We have our own identity … I don’t know what worked for (Knicks) or didn’t work for them.

“What makes this team so special?” He talks about chemistry, about Kawhi, about another year of Scottie Barnes, about the young depth, about work ethic.

“Everyone is looking forward to seeing what this team will do,” said the coach. It begins Wednesday night. The chance for the Raptors to be cool again.

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