TORONTO – Pascal Siakam’s NBA story is one mostly made up of improbable triumph in the face of adversity.
By now, you likely know it very well.
Born in Douala, Cameroon and the youngest of four brothers who all wanted to fulfill their late father’s dream of playing the NBA, Siakam didn’t start playing organized basketball until he was 16 years old and there began his implausible path towards NBA stardom.
First starting in high school where he played at the prep school God’s Academy in Lewisville, Texas, where he earned a scholarship with New Mexico State University, despite being a relatively unknown. Then getting selected 27th overall by the Toronto Raptors in the 2016 NBA Draft where all he did was get better season after season culminating in a Most Improved Player award in 2019. Which then led to this season where he was named an all-star for the first time in his career (as a starter no less) and was looking to be worth every bit of the four-year, $130-million extension he signed before the season started, slated to kick in for the 2020-21 season.
This kind of meteoric ascent is pretty much unprecedented for an unheralded player like Siakam was and for a time it felt like he could only go up in his progression over time.
But here’s the funny thing about progression; it doesn’t always conveniently work out to be just a nice upwards ascent. There’s bound to be dips here and there.
And so, like any good story, if Siakam is the Raptors’ main protagonist as his big contract suggests he is, he had to eventually fail in order to rise up once again.
“It was tough and I think we hung in there trying to find ways and, at the end of the day, obviously, I have to be better,” said Siakam after his Raptors fell to the Boston Celtics, 92-87, in Game 7 of their Eastern Conference semifinal. “It was definitely a learning moment for me just learning from this experience and just learning that you’ve gotta be ready and that I wasn’t able to really help my teammates, so, yeah, I take a lot of the blame, man.”
Yes, the Raptors’ seemingly never-ending title reign came to an end Friday night and Siakam has rightfully identified himself as the main culprit for why his team’s season ended in relative disappointment.
After an all-star regular-season campaign that saw Siakam lead the Raptors with a 22.9 points-per-game scoring average on 45.3 per cent shooting from the field, he severely underperformed in the post-season, averaging just 17 points per game on 39.6 per cent shooting and an outright putrid 18.9 per cent mark from three-point range, a disastrous line exemplified by his Game 7 performance Friday night where he only scored 13 points on 5-of-12 shooting and turned the ball over five times.
That simply wasn’t good enough for the Raptors. It severely handicapped their ability to reach their goals this post-season and Siakam knows it.
“At the end of the day there’s no excuses, we’re all pros and we have to be ready and I don’t think it was anything pressure-wise,” said Siakam. “I just felt like I wasn’t at my best and when I’m at my best this team is unbelievable and you’ve gotta be at your best at this time and I felt like I wasn’t.”
Perhaps hearing Siakam admit this is cold comfort for Raptors fans, but if there is a silver lining to glean from a season cut short, his honesty would certainly be it.
We admire our sporting heroes because they don’t run from challenges. They embrace them whole-heartedly, and this is exactly what Siakam is planning on doing now with more time on his hands than he probably first anticipated.
“At the end of the day, it’s part of being in this league and being at the level that I’m supposed to be at. Obviously, it’s a learning experience and, like I said, a lot of people go through these moments,” said Siakam. “What response are you gonna get from it? How are you gonna take it? Are you gonna take it as a man as an experience or are you just gonna feel sorry for yourself? Because at the end of the day nobody’s gonna feel sorry for you. I come from a background of just always working hard and fighting my way through everything that was thrown at me and I feel like this was just another step for me….
“But it’s an experience and all the greats go through it and you have to learn from it. If you want to be considered one of the best players you have to be able to rise from these moments and that’s something that I plan to do.”
Strong, encouraging words from Siakam, and given his track record of improvement not any that should be doubted.
And, at the very least, he can look to his teammates for support as he navigates what has been the first true bump in the road of his NBA career.
“When we got swept by the Wizards I read every single article, I read every single thing that was said about me: good, bad, evil, terrible, awesome, and I used it as motivation, and that’s what he’s going to do,” said Kyle Lowry of his teammate after the game. “And that’s the advice that I’m going to give him, which is that you look at everything, you look at all these moments, and you see who’s saying what, because you’re going to use it as fuel. Fuel yourself. And that’s what he’s going to do.
“And for a guy like me, who has gone through the type of things that he’s going through at this moment, he’ll be able to call me whenever, and I won’t be able to tell him nothing wrong. I don’t think he did anything wrong. I think this is a learning experience. It’s only going to make him a better basketball player, a better man, a better everything. And I would not be surprised to see him come back even more hungry and destroying people.”
Lowry notoriously averaged just 12.3 points per game and shot 31.6 per cent from the field in that dreadful 2015 first-round series with Washington he was referring to, but managed to bounce back in a big way to the point where he’s widely considered the best player in franchise history and a notable big-time playoff performer.
This wasn’t Siakam’s first time in the post-season, but it was his first time as the team’s No. 1 offensive option and it appeared to show. That doesn’t mean he can’t learn and grow from this experience as he said he will, though.
If anything, as Lowry alluded to, Siakam now fully understands what his limitations are and will have a clear off-season game plan to work on the holes in his game.
“What do I say to him is we gotta watch this,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse. “We kind of put it away for a little while but then I think we watch this little post-season in totality and then even watch the season and get to work.”
From this writer’s layman’s perspective, what Siakam probably needs to add are things he simply didn’t have enough time to figure out during the playoffs.
For example, much has been made about him having only a spin move. This is false, but he would benefit to add a more definitive, decisive counter to his signature move so he knows precisely how he’ll attack when he goes to the spin.
Additionally, and most importantly, Siakam will need to better recognize where double teams are coming from and make a quick decision on how to handle it by either splitting it, passing out or maybe even just shooting over the top. This mainly comes down to experience and Siakam hadn’t had a lot of it prior to this season, so he should only get better next year.
Lastly, and though it might sound blasphemous to the more analytically-inclined, Siakam would benefit greatly from a mid-range game. Knowing he was either just looking to pop a three-pointer or try to get to the basket made him easier for the Celtics to defend. Had he a more refined in-between game he’d be a much tougher cover. With his length, quickness and athleticism, Siakam could reasonably operate from the free-throw line extended — a la Dirk Nowitzki — and be nigh unguardable from there, but it just isn’t in his bag yet.
So go ahead and ridicule and mock Siakam all you like because, yeah, it’s completely justified right now after he failed to achieve his goal.
But so did Hercules, Superman, Goku, the Avengers and any other hero you might think of.
It’s just part of the story, and Siakam’s isn’t finished yet — not by a long shot.
“I wasn’t supposed to be here. I didn’t play the way that I expected to play, but I always have those high expectations for myself. Like, it doesn’t really matter what other people think. To me, I have these expectations for myself because I always saw myself as somebody that could be a really good player in this league, and I worked hard. I worked hard every single day and I put myself in this situation.
“You have to continue to learn, and like I said, that’s something I take with my chin up, move forward, continue to work hard, go back, watch it, find ways to be better, and learn from it. That’s all I can do. Obviously, there’s a lot more years in this league and I feel like I can only go up from here.”
TORONTO – Singles star Leylah Fernandez and doubles specialist Gabriela Dabrowski will anchor Canada’s five-player lineup when the team tries to defend its Billie Jean King Cup title in mid-November.
The 26th-ranked Fernandez, the 2021 U.S. Open finalist from Laval, Que., is the lone Canadian in the top 100 of the WTA Tour’s singles rankings.
Dabrowski, from Ottawa, is ranked fourth on the doubles list. The 2023 U.S. Open women’s doubles champion won mixed doubles bronze with Felix Auger-Aliassime at the recent Paris Olympics.
Marina Stakusic of Mississauga, Ont., returns after a breakout performance last year, capped by her singles win in Canada’s 2-0 victory over Italy in the final. Vancouver’s Rebecca Marino is also back and Bianca Andreescu, the 2019 U.S. Open champion from Mississauga, Ont., returns to the squad for the first time since 2022.
“Winning the Billie Jean King Cup in 2023 was a dream come true for us, and not only that, but I feel like we made a statement to the world about the strength of this nation when it comes to tennis,” Canada captain Heidi El Tabakh said Monday in a release. “Once again, we have a very strong team this year with Bianca joining Leylah, Gaby, Rebecca and Marina, making it an extremely powerful team that is more than capable of going all the way.
“At the end of the day, our goal is to make Canada proud, and we’ll do our best to bring the same level of effort and excitement that we had in last year’s finals.”
Fernandez, who beat Jasmine Paolini to clinch Canada’s first-ever title at the competition, is ranked No. 42 in doubles.
Canada, which received an automatic berth as defending champion, will play the winner of the first-round tie between Great Britain and Germany on Nov. 17 at Malaga’s Martin Carpena Arena.
Australia, Italy and wild-card entry Czechia also received first-round byes. The tournament, which continues through Nov. 20, also includes host Spain, Slovakia, the United States, Poland, Japan and Romania.
Stakusic is up 27 spots to No. 128 in the latest world singles rankings. Marino is at No. 134 and Andreescu, the 2019 U.S. Open champion, is ranked 167th.
Canada will look to become the first team since Czechia in 2016 to successfully defend its Billie Jean King Cup title.
Malaga will also host the Nov. 19-24 Davis Cup Final 8. The Canadian men qualified over the weekend with a 2-1 victory over Great Britain in Manchester.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
PITTSBURGH – Sidney Crosby plans to remain a Pittsburgh Penguin for at least three more years.
The Penguins announced on Monday that they re-signed the 37-year-old from Cole Harbour, N.S., to a two-year contract extension that has an average annual value of US$8.7 million. The deal runs through the 2026-27 season.
Crosby was eligible to sign an extension on July 1 with him entering the final season of a 12-year, $104.4-million deal that carries an $8.7-million salary cap hit.
At the NHL/NHLPA player media tour in Las Vegas last Monday, he said things were positive and he was optimistic about a deal getting done.
The three-time Stanley Cup champion is coming off a 42-goal, 94-point campaign that saw him finish tied for 12th in the league scoring race.
Crosby has spent all 19 of his NHL seasons in Pittsburgh, amassing 592 goals and 1,004 assists in 1,272 career games.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Tadej Pogacar was so dominant on Sunday, Canada’s Michael Woods called it a race for second.
Pogacar, a three-time Tour de France champion from Slovenia, pedalled to a resounding victory at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montreal.
The UAE Team Emirates leader crossed the finish line 24 seconds ahead of Spain’s Pello Bilbao of Bahrain — Victorious to win the demanding 209.1-kilometre race on a sunny, 28 C day in Montreal. France’s Julian Alaphilippe of Soudal Quick-Step was third.
“He’s the greatest rider of all time, he’s a formidable opponent,” said Woods, who finished 45 seconds behind the leader in eighth. “If you’re not at your very, very best, then you can forget racing with him, and today was kind of representative of that.
“He’s at such a different level that if you follow him, it can be lights out.”
Pogacar slowed down before the last turn to celebrate with the crowd, high-five fans on Avenue du Parc and cruise past the finish line with his arms in the air after more than five hours on the bike.
The 25-year-old joined Belgium’s Greg Van Avermaet as the only multi-time winners in Montreal after claiming the race in 2022. He also redeemed a seventh-place finish at the Quebec City Grand Prix on Friday.
“I was disappointed, because I had such good legs that I didn’t do better than seventh,” Pogacar said. “To bounce back after seventh to victory here, it’s just an incredible feeling.”
It’s Pogacar’s latest win in a dominant year that includes victories at the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia.
Ottawa’s Woods (Israel Premier-Tech) tied a career-best in front of the home crowd in Montreal, but hoped for more after claiming a stage at the Spanish Vuelta two weeks ago.
“I wanted a better result,” the 37-year-old rider said. “My goal was a podium, but at the same time I’m happy with the performance. In bike racing, you can’t always get the result you want and I felt like I raced really well, I animated the race, I felt like I was up there.”
Pogacar completed the 17 climbs up and down Mount Royal near downtown in five hours 28 minutes 15 seconds.
He made his move with 23.3 kilometres to go, leaving the peloton in his dust as he pedalled into the lead — one he never relinquished.
Bilbao, Alaphilippe, Alex Aranburu (Movistar Team) and Bart Lemmen (Visma–Lease) chased in a group behind him, with Bilbao ultimately separating himself from the pack. But he never came close to catching Pogacar, who built a 35-second lead with one lap left to go.
“It was still a really hard race today, but the team was on point,” Pogacar said. “We did really how we planned, and the race situation was good for us. We make it hard in the last final laps, and they set me up for a (takeover) two laps to go, and it was all perfect.”
Ottawa’s Derek Gee, who placed ninth in this year’s Tour de France, finished 48th in Montreal, and called it a “hard day” in the heat.
“I think everyone knows when you see Tadej on the start line that it’s just going to be full gas,” Gee said.
Israel Premier-Tech teammate Hugo Houle of Sainte-Perpétue, Que., was 51st.
Houle said he heard Pogacar inform his teammates on the radio that he was ready to attack with two laps left in the race.
“I said then, well, clearly it’s over for me,” Houle said. “You see, cycling isn’t that complicated.”
Australia’s Michael Matthews won the Quebec City GP for a record third time on Friday, but did not finish in Montreal. The two races are the only North American events on the UCI World Tour.
Michael Leonard of Oakville, Ont., and Gil Gelders and Dries De Bondt of Belgium broke away from the peloton during the second lap. Leonard led the majority of the race before losing pace with 45 kilometres to go.
Only 89 of 169 riders from 24 teams — including the Canadian national team — completed the gruelling race that features 4,573 metres in total altitude.
Next up, the riders will head to the world championships in Zurich, Switzerland from Sept. 21 to 29.
Pogacar will try to join Eddy Merckx (1974) and Stephen Roche (1987) as the only men to win three major titles in a season — known as the Triple Crown.
“Today gave me a lot of confidence, motivation,” Pogacar said. “I think we are ready for world championships.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 15, 2024.
