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.”
EDMONTON – The Edmonton Oilers signed defenceman Travis Dermott to a professional tryout on Friday.
Dermott, a 27-year-old from Newmarket, Ont., produced two goals, five assists and 26 penalty minutes in 50 games with the Arizona Coyotes last season.
The six-foot, 202-pound blueliner has also played for the Vancouver Canucks and Toronto Maple Leafs.
Toronto drafted him in the second round, 34th overall, of the 2015 NHL draft.
Over seven NHL seasons, Dermott has 16 goals and 46 assists in 329 games while averaging 16:03 in ice time.
Before the NHL, Dermott played two seasons with Oilers captain Connor McDavid for the Ontario Hockey League’s Erie Otters. The team was coached by current Edmonton head coach Kris Knoblauch.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) — Maria Sharapova, a five-time Grand Slam singles champion, led the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s fan vote her first year on the ballot — an important part to possible selection to the hall’s next class.
The organization released the voting results on Friday. American doubles team Bob and Mike Bryan finished second with Canada’s Daniel Nestor third.
The Hall of Fame said tens of thousands of fans from 120 countries cast ballots. Fan voting is one of two steps in the hall’s selection process. The second is an official group of journalists, historians, and Hall of Famers from the sport who vote on the ballot for the hall’s class of 2025.
“I am incredibly grateful to the fans all around the world who supported me during the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s fan votes,” Sharapova said in a statement. “It is a tremendous honor to be considered for the Hall of Fame, and having the fans’ support makes it all the more special.”
Sharapova became the first Russian woman to reach No. 1 in the world. She won Wimbledon in 2004, the U.S. Open in 2006 and the Australian Open in 2008. She also won the French Open twice, in 2012 and 2014.
Sharapova was also part of Russia’s championship Fed Cup team in 2008 and won a silver medal at the London Olympics in 2012.
To make the hall, candidates must receive 75% or higher on combined results of the official voting group and additional percentage from the fan vote. Sharapova will have an additional three percentage points from winning the fan vote.
The Bryans, who won 16 Grand Slam doubles titles, will have two additional percentage points and Nestor, who won eight Grand Slam doubles titles, will get one extra percentage point.
The hall’s next class will be announced late next month.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The driver charged with killing NHL hockey player Johnny Gaudreau and his brother Matthew as they bicycled on a rural road had a blood-alcohol level of .087, above the .08 legal limit in New Jersey, a prosecutor said Friday.
Gaudreau, 31, and brother Matthew, 29, were killed in Carneys Point, New Jersey, on Aug. 29, the evening before they were set to serve as groomsmen at their sister Katie’s wedding.
The driver, 43-year-old Sean M. Higgins of nearby Woodstown, New Jersey, is charged with two counts of death by auto, along with reckless driving, possession of an open container and consuming alcohol in a motor vehicle. At a virtual court hearing Friday, a judge ordered that he be held for trial after prosecutors described a history of alleged road rage and aggressive driving.
“’You were probably driving like a nut like I always tell you you do. And you don’t listen to me, instead you just yell at me,’” his wife told Higgins when he called her from jail after his arrest, according to First Assistant Prosecutor Jonathan Flynn of Salem County.
The defense described Higgins as a married father and law-abiding citizen before the crash.
“He’s an empathetic individual and he’s a loving father of two daughters,” said defense lawyer Matthew Portella. “He’s a good person and he made a horrible decision that night.”
Higgins told police he had five or six beers that day and admitted to consuming alcohol while driving, according to the criminal complaint. He also failed a field sobriety test, the complaint said. A prosecutor on Friday said he had been drinking at home after finishing a work call at about 3 p.m., and having an upsetting conversation with his mother about a family matter.
He then had a two-hour phone call with a friend while he drove around in his Jeep with an open container, Flynn said. He had been driving aggressively behind a sedan going just above the 50 mph speed limit, sometimes tailgating, the female driver told police.
When she and the vehicle ahead of her slowed down and veered left to go around the cyclists, Higgins sped up and veered right, striking the Gaudreas, the two other drivers told police.
“He indicated he didn’t even see them,” said Superior Court Judge Michael J. Silvanio, who said Higgins’ admitted “impatience” caused two deaths.
Higgins faces up to 20 years, a sentence that the judge said made him a flight risk.
Higgins has a master’s degree, works in finance for an addiction treatment company, and served in combat in Iraq, his lawyers said. However, his wife said he had been drinking regularly since working from home, Flynn said.
Johnny Gaudreau, known as “Johnny Hockey,” played 10 full seasons in the league and was set to enter his third with the Columbus Blue Jackets after signing a seven-year, $68 million deal in 2022. He played his first eight seasons with the Calgary Flames, a tenure that included becoming one of the sport’s top players and a fan favorite across North America.
Widows Meredith and Madeline Gaudreau described their husbands as attached at the hip throughout their lives. Both women are expecting, and both gave moving eulogies at the double funeral on Monday.
