Opinion | Is Nick Nurse mulling periodic change with the Raptors lineup? Sounds like he might be

The Raptors took the day off to travel from New Orleans up here to Minneapolis where it’s a relatively balmy minus-4 C as I type this so I did this item on Thad Young and his frantic few days.

And maybe we’ll see more of him.

Nick was asked the other night about playing “big” bigs like JV and, tonight, Karl Anthony-Towns and for the first time, he didn’t steadfastly say the Raptors were going to keep doing what the Raptors do.

“I think that it’s something we’re gonna have to evaluate just a little bit,” was how he put it. “When we do come up against a big, really big big like that, are we gonna stay the way we are or are we going to try to match one of our centers with them a little bit more. I think we have to evaluate.”

It’s worked pretty well and, actually, Toronto held its own on the boards in New Orleans the other night even if JV got off to a really good start. And maybe it’s not wise to over-react to that game but, after it, it sounded like Nick’s mind was working hard.

“Some games we do well and we front and we scramble and we trap and we’re really active and we couldn’t get any of that stuff done tonight,” he pointed out. “It was just one of those games where we in and we couldn’t get back out tonight just again with not enough energy and communication. And sometimes we were out and they’d drive it right down the middle we weren’t in. So it was a bad combination there.”

I don’t know what he’d do – take Barnes out for either Birch or Achiuwa or Young – but he seems to be mulling something over.

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There’s a serious dearth of mail for the weekend and the only folks who can solve that problem is you.

And since I’m going to probably be a tad busy Saturday, I’d love to get started early on it. You can do your part by clicking on [email protected] and sending something in today.

Thanks.

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I have to admit I’ve watched very, very little of the Olympics, in part because of work commitments and in part because the winter version of them does little for me.

I prefer the track and the hoops and the swimming and cycling far more than I like the half pipe and big air and what other sports I don’t understand or appreciate that seem to have taken over the Winter Olympics.

But in the past few days, I have had the Games on as background noise while typing late night and early morning in various hotel rooms and one thing seems abundantly clear.

The Canadian Olympic viewing experience is exponentially better than the America one.

We’ve known this for years but, man, has it ever been apparent this week.

More choice, a far more global view of athletes instead a rah-rah focus on the home kids, what seems like far more knowledgeable analysts who are able to explain new sports to new fans far better. There’s not much technical jargon and what is used is more quickly and succinctly explained to neophytes.

It’s just better.  By a large margin. And while I presume there are folks back home who have complaints about how the broadcasters are handling something as grandiose as the Olympics, trust me.

The grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

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I am totally jinxing myself and there are plenty of legs left on this journey for it to go awry but American Airlines from New Orleans to Dallas to Minneapolis went seamlessly.

One thing though.

I presume every airline on the planet has cut back the number of its flights over the past two disastrous years which skews demand but every single plane I’ve been on this season – and that includes a west coast trip last fall, the one-off to Miami and now this one – has been at least 95 per cent full and both flights yesterday were jam-packed. I had no idea that a couple of hundred people would need to get from Dallas to Minneapolis in a completely full plane in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon.

Even for accounting for connections here – Minny is NOT an American hub – that really caught me off guard.

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If bailing on vaccines now and the need to be fully vaxxed to get into places – when the numbers are still high and things seem to have been working – isn’t the most feckless piece of governing I’ve ever seen, I cannot imagine what’s worse.

Yeah, we’re all tired of this crap, we’ve been tired of it for months and months but to give up now is dangerous and wrong and, well, sadly typical.

And tell me again how in a country where the overwhelming majority of citizens are vaccinated and have been fully willing to work for the common good that this is some kind of “divisive” issue?

It’s not.

It’s a tiny minority being catered by horrible leaders at the provincial level and I cannot – absolutely cannot – wait for the next election.

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