ploto
04-16-2008, 09:13 AM
I did not want this article lost in the Raptors thread.
It was the situation, perhaps. It was the role, possibly. It was the baby, maybe.
Whatever the reason, Toronto Raptors centre Rasho Nesterovic has been playing good basketball. Very good, even. Heck, the best of his NBA career, a mere 10 seasons in. Ask anybody.
"I don't even know who this guy is," says Raptors coach Sam Mitchell. "I'm not even sure it's Rasho. What has he got, three 20-point games this year? I can't even remember a 20-point game Rasho had when we played together. And that's when he was a young man."
That was back when Rasho was between 22 and 26, before he had his first child, before he started this season on the bench behind some 22-year-old kid. But once Andrea Bargnani was finally sent back to the bench, Nesterovic flourished even as his team lagged around him. At 31, he has scored in double figures in 17 consecutive games, during which he has averaged 16.2 points, 7.0 rebounds, 1.1 blocked shots and 58.5% shooting.
To put that in perspective, Rasho has averaged double figures in scoring just once in his 10-year career. Oh, and it's four 20-point games this month, Sam.
"I've never seen him producing like this at any level," says Raptors assistant general manager Maurizio Gherardini, who first saw Nesterovic play about 15 years ago. "Even when he was at Bologna or Ljubljana, he never had these kind of numbers, never."
How many athletes find new life this late in the game? This isn't a Barry Bonds-like surge -- stand Nesterovic next to Dwight Howard, the guy he's going to be guarding in the first round of the playoffs against Orlando, and he will look like a 7-foot accountant next to a 7-foot bodybuilder. Howard's nickname is Superman. Rasho's could be Everyman.
"Rasho doesn't appear to be physically strong, but he's dense, so you're not going to move him," says Darrick Martin, who was named a basketball development consultant this season. You mean old-man strength, Martin is asked? He nods enthusiastically.
"Yes, exactly. He grabs you and you're like, 'Hey! Come on, man.' "
How Rasho uses his old-man strength and his cerebral game against Howard's young man strength will be a major key in any chance of a Toronto upset in this first-round series. The Magic have a suspect backcourt but a devastating frontcourt, led by the 22-year-old man-child who led the league in dunks, and who averaged 24.3 points, 12.7 rebounds and 71.1% shooting against Toronto. Howard will become the league's youngest rebounding champion this season. He is a muscle-bound, explosive, agile, slam dunk contest-winning handful.
"I don't think I'm the key guy," says Nesterovic, a funny guy who goes bland for the cameras. "I think the key is going to be how the team is going to play. I mean, he's so good ... To stop him completely is impossible. He's learned a lot in three years. He's one of the best players in the league right now."
Nesterovic's strategy is simple: Push Howard as far from the basket as possible, get him to face the basket if he can, contest every shot while avoiding fouls. And if necessary, flop.
"Sometimes," Nesterovic concedes, "but you can't flop 10 times."
But besides his defensive work, Nesterovic could tip this series at the offensive end. If he can pull Howard away from the basket with this new-found floor game -- "I wanted to be a point guard, too, but I grew up too much," Nesterovic half-joked yesterday -- then Toronto will be in much better shape. But that leads to the question: Where in the world did this late-season burst come from?
Two words: The kid. Nesterovic's first child was a son, Nikola, born in November. But instead of being exhausted, Nesterovic says he has been galvanized.
"It gives you extra energy," says Nesterovic, whose wife is 5-foot-10. "He is a good sleeper, better than his father. He slept well from the start. [Now], You can't carry him around for a long time -- he's too big. He's a pretty big kid, yeah. Genetics work out good ... Maybe that calmness [helped]. Probably."
"There's something about having a kid," Martin says. "As a father myself, I know I started playing much better once I had my child. I don't know what it is. I guess you know you've got that extra mouth to feed."
"The kid gave him a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of extra energies," Gherardini says. "Plus I think there are stages in your life, sometimes you click. Now he's settled in, he likes the town, he enjoys this environment, he feels at home. These are all positive factors ... The report that I gave on the Eurobasket [tournament last summer] was that the biggest surprise for me, even though it was our player, was to discover how Rasho played in terms of numbers, minutes, impact as a leader on the team -- things that to that degree, he has never done before."
In this series, he will have to do things he has never done before. He will have to grab Superman's cape, and hold on. But be warned, it won't be easy. Howard had his first kid this year, too.
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=7d1518d0-8c0e-40ab-b7c0-fbae0dc213e8&k=23009&p=2
It was the situation, perhaps. It was the role, possibly. It was the baby, maybe.
Whatever the reason, Toronto Raptors centre Rasho Nesterovic has been playing good basketball. Very good, even. Heck, the best of his NBA career, a mere 10 seasons in. Ask anybody.
"I don't even know who this guy is," says Raptors coach Sam Mitchell. "I'm not even sure it's Rasho. What has he got, three 20-point games this year? I can't even remember a 20-point game Rasho had when we played together. And that's when he was a young man."
That was back when Rasho was between 22 and 26, before he had his first child, before he started this season on the bench behind some 22-year-old kid. But once Andrea Bargnani was finally sent back to the bench, Nesterovic flourished even as his team lagged around him. At 31, he has scored in double figures in 17 consecutive games, during which he has averaged 16.2 points, 7.0 rebounds, 1.1 blocked shots and 58.5% shooting.
To put that in perspective, Rasho has averaged double figures in scoring just once in his 10-year career. Oh, and it's four 20-point games this month, Sam.
"I've never seen him producing like this at any level," says Raptors assistant general manager Maurizio Gherardini, who first saw Nesterovic play about 15 years ago. "Even when he was at Bologna or Ljubljana, he never had these kind of numbers, never."
How many athletes find new life this late in the game? This isn't a Barry Bonds-like surge -- stand Nesterovic next to Dwight Howard, the guy he's going to be guarding in the first round of the playoffs against Orlando, and he will look like a 7-foot accountant next to a 7-foot bodybuilder. Howard's nickname is Superman. Rasho's could be Everyman.
"Rasho doesn't appear to be physically strong, but he's dense, so you're not going to move him," says Darrick Martin, who was named a basketball development consultant this season. You mean old-man strength, Martin is asked? He nods enthusiastically.
"Yes, exactly. He grabs you and you're like, 'Hey! Come on, man.' "
How Rasho uses his old-man strength and his cerebral game against Howard's young man strength will be a major key in any chance of a Toronto upset in this first-round series. The Magic have a suspect backcourt but a devastating frontcourt, led by the 22-year-old man-child who led the league in dunks, and who averaged 24.3 points, 12.7 rebounds and 71.1% shooting against Toronto. Howard will become the league's youngest rebounding champion this season. He is a muscle-bound, explosive, agile, slam dunk contest-winning handful.
"I don't think I'm the key guy," says Nesterovic, a funny guy who goes bland for the cameras. "I think the key is going to be how the team is going to play. I mean, he's so good ... To stop him completely is impossible. He's learned a lot in three years. He's one of the best players in the league right now."
Nesterovic's strategy is simple: Push Howard as far from the basket as possible, get him to face the basket if he can, contest every shot while avoiding fouls. And if necessary, flop.
"Sometimes," Nesterovic concedes, "but you can't flop 10 times."
But besides his defensive work, Nesterovic could tip this series at the offensive end. If he can pull Howard away from the basket with this new-found floor game -- "I wanted to be a point guard, too, but I grew up too much," Nesterovic half-joked yesterday -- then Toronto will be in much better shape. But that leads to the question: Where in the world did this late-season burst come from?
Two words: The kid. Nesterovic's first child was a son, Nikola, born in November. But instead of being exhausted, Nesterovic says he has been galvanized.
"It gives you extra energy," says Nesterovic, whose wife is 5-foot-10. "He is a good sleeper, better than his father. He slept well from the start. [Now], You can't carry him around for a long time -- he's too big. He's a pretty big kid, yeah. Genetics work out good ... Maybe that calmness [helped]. Probably."
"There's something about having a kid," Martin says. "As a father myself, I know I started playing much better once I had my child. I don't know what it is. I guess you know you've got that extra mouth to feed."
"The kid gave him a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of extra energies," Gherardini says. "Plus I think there are stages in your life, sometimes you click. Now he's settled in, he likes the town, he enjoys this environment, he feels at home. These are all positive factors ... The report that I gave on the Eurobasket [tournament last summer] was that the biggest surprise for me, even though it was our player, was to discover how Rasho played in terms of numbers, minutes, impact as a leader on the team -- things that to that degree, he has never done before."
In this series, he will have to do things he has never done before. He will have to grab Superman's cape, and hold on. But be warned, it won't be easy. Howard had his first kid this year, too.
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=7d1518d0-8c0e-40ab-b7c0-fbae0dc213e8&k=23009&p=2