Jonas Valanciunas is one of the more interesting big men in the NBA. He’s a big boy that has been the Raptors king of the paint for some time now, but have you noticed that he’s rarely a factor when it comes to crunch time? If you watched this year’s EuroBasket tournament this summer, you may have noticed that he was on the bench when crunch time came around He recently received a contract extension from the Raptors and it looks like it could be a steal of a deal, but he got to get stuck in when it comes to late game situations. Raptors head coach plans to get Jonas in there when it counts the most.
Following from James Herbert of CBS Sports.
Jonas Valanciunas appeared in 80 games for the Toronto Raptors last season, and in 23 of them, he sat out for the entire fourth quarter. In the other 57, he averaged 5.1 minutes in the final frame, compared to 7.8 for Kyle Lowry and 7.0 for DeMar DeRozan — the team’s other two returning starters.
“There’s been a lot made about JV finishing games,” Casey said at media day. “Well, he’s getting to the point of his career, with the experience, that he should be able to do that. I noticed they didn’t use him as much in Europe at the end of games, but we plan to use him, especially offensively, down the stretch.
“Father time is a great teacher and developer of those kind of situations,” Casey added.
That disparity between Jonas and the Lowry-DeRozan connection is way too big. Everybody knows that it’s a small man game now, but ask any coach who they want in the paint and they’ll all say “a big man”. Jonas, go eat!
