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Siakam vows to get better after a rough season

Forward’s troubles included clash with coach, difficulty closing games

DOUG SMITH

It is a constant learning process for Pascal Siakam. He continues to learn about himself, about those closest to him and about his place with the Raptors. There will be blips and detours and things that come up, and dealing with them is never easy.

“I think I’ve evolved a lot as a person and as a basketball player and I just think it’s going to continue,” the 27-year-old Raptors forward said this week. “I just want to continue to build on that. I know that there is a lot more on the way for me and I’m just excited about the future and just continuing to get better.”

Siakam’s season may be over. He is dealing with a shoulder strain and, with only three meaningless games left in a disappointing Raptors season, there seems little to be gained by getting him back on the court. He will end his fifth NBA season having time to reflect on who and what he is. And who and what the people around him are, which has been a journey of discovery all season.

“I have a solid group around me, from my agent to my family, some of the players, too, that I talk to,” he said. “Some of those things, you can get all the advice that you can get but sometimes … you have to go through it and figure it out, and I think I’m getting better.”

Siakam’s status,within the organization took a series of hits this season and, while they were likely the common moments of friction and frustration that pop up in disappointing times, they were unusual in many regards.

He was given a de facto onegame suspension on New Year’s Eve after storming to the locker room with seconds left in a Dec. 29 loss to Philadelphia, when he

shot 8-for-23 in a game the Raptors lost by seven. He wasn’t officially suspended — that would have cost him salary and would have been an even more public step by the organization — but being held out of a marquee early-season game was a bold message.

And then he clashed privately with coach Nick Nurse after being benched for the entire fourth quarter of a game in Cleveland in late March. Original reports of a $50,000 (U.S.) fine were quickly and publicly denied by the Raptors but it was another incident the organization had to deal with.

What can’t be lost or forgotten is that Siakam is still an exceptional basketball player still very much in the infancy of his career. His numbers are about the same this season as last and the one before that — some are up marginally, some are down marginally — and his game continues to evolve.

There is no denying he has had difficulty closing games and that’s sometimes has to do with poor shooting luck, sometimes it has to do with poor decision making. He is not alone in that regard and the Raptors aren’t about to cast him aside from such a significant role.

“I think we probably fall on the lean-to-Pascal (side of the closer ledger),” Nurse said recently. “And if they’re going to send multiple bodies, then he makes the plays out, and goes from there.”

In many ways, Siakam is a victim of his success and the oftenunfair expectations placed on players simply because of their salaries. He is now through the first year of a four-year, maximum value contract that pays him more than $30 million a season.

Siakam is learning that, often the hard way, and trying to block it out.

“It’s crazy,” he said. “You get so much more attention and it’s something that I’m not used to … so I think that it’s just been interesting to manage that and figure out who you want to be as a person, either on the court or off the court.

“How do you want to be remembered or how do you want people to look at you? That’s something that I’ve been working on,” he said.

“It’s been a lot of things but I’m getting better, and obviously this is a position that you’re blessed to be in and I’m super blessed to be in this position and I just want to do everything that I can to be the best that I can be.”

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2021-05-13T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-05-13T07:00:00.0000000Z

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