On Episode 28 of Canada’s Court, writer Blake Murphy (The Athletic, Vice Sports, Raptors Republic) broke down the Toronto Raptors and the team’s first half of the season, and looked ahead.
But later on in the episode, Blake Murphy answered some of the real (kinda) hard hitting questions that have come up this season.
Philip Drost: Which Raptor do you want to see next in a GoDaddy commercial?
Blake Murphy: Oh boy. I don’t want to see any of them in a GoDaddy commercial. This is like a curse that’s brewing. Last year Jonas Valanciunas kind of had a drop off after he was in one, and Norman Powell is in it this year, and he kind of drops off.
I definitely don’t want them touching OG. I know they probably think OG Anunoby’s style of humour and response would fit well, but hands off!
OG is going to have some sort of endorsement at some point, and the commercial is definitely going to play up his stoic nature like the, I don’t know if you’ve seen the Raptors twitter account? Every game tweets out the analytics dive with OG Anunoby, it's going to be something like that and it will be funny and it will be cute, and if it’s someone other than GoDaddy I won’t have a problem with that.
Philip Drost: If there was an All-Star game that involved coaches, how many points do you think Dwayne Casey could put up?
Blake Murphy: Oh. I would have to look at the entire list of coaches. I don’t know what to expect. I think Dwayne would probably be a good floor general like I think he would run the offence well. I think you would see a little bit of Fred Vanvleet style running the offence in him.
I think he would defer. He would be looking to get Steve Kerr those three point looks, he would be looking to get Luke Walton going in the high post. I don’t think he would be looking for his own shot, so you might see one of those six point, eight assist kind of games from Dwayne Casey.
Philip Drost: Do you think the Raptors would win in a Malice in the Palace situation… if there was a brawl, how do you think the Raptors would fare?
Blake Murphy: I think they would fare pretty well. I’m not in favour of players fighting. I think they would be pretty well suited though. They have some guys who have a history of toughness.
Serge Ibaka has gotten into it with almost literally every power forward in the NBA. Pascal Siakam already has had a couple moments where he seems ready to go when push comes to shove. Jonas Valanciunas is seven feet tall and 265 pounds. Kyle Lowry made no bones about it the other day that if Ben Simmons had wanted to look for him he would’ve known where to find him.
So I think the Raptors would hold up pretty well. I think the funniest part about it would be to see Lucas Nogueira trying to make peace, and then Bruno just wandering around, what Bruno would do with that scenario.