Raptors’ Jamal Shead developing as player, leader as injuries pile up

TORONTO — The Toronto Raptors’ recent run of injuries has created plenty of opportunities for players on the roster who have been desperate for more. 

Too many overlapping parts — especially among the group of youngsters on the bench — has been a mini-drama all season. 

The hope was that someone among the regular rostered crew of Gradey Dick, Ochai Agbaji, Ja’Kobe Walter and Jamison Battle would separate themselves and force Darko Rajakovic’s hand when it came to carving out bigger swaths of minutes for them. But through half the season, none of them really have. That created even more of a logjam further down the lineup as the pair of wings the Raptors have on two-way contracts — A.J. Lawson and Alijah Martin — were stuck, rarely getting NBA minutes in reward for a slew of dominant showings with the Raptors 905, the club’s powerhouse G-League team. 

Separate from the fray all season has been Jamal Shead. 

Working in his favour has been the Raptors’ relative lack of depth at point guard after starter Immanuel Quickley. From the outset of training camp, it’s been understood that Shead — a nice development story last season as the 45^th pick in the 2024 draft — would play the minutes Quickley couldn’t. 

Whether he was fully ready for 15 or 20 minutes a night of point guard duty on a team with playoff aspirations was an unknown. 

A half season later, and those questions have long ago been answered. Shead has established himself as one of the better backup point guards in the NBA. Heading into Friday night’s game against the Los Angeles Clippers, Shead led the NBA in assists by players coming off the bench with 203 and — impressively for a second-year point guard — had done so while maintaining a tidy 4.21:1 assist to turnover ratio, fifth among qualified players. He’s a staunch defender too, with a knack for drawing fouls and forcing turnovers. 

He didn’t add to his league-leading bench totals against the Clippers because, for the fourth-straight game, he was starting at point guard — for the second consecutive game in place of Quickley, who has missed two games with back spasms. 

Missing RJ Barrett (ankle), Ja’Kobe Walter (hip), Jamison Battle (ankle) and Jakob Poeltl (back), along with Quickley the last two games opened up plenty of minutes for those hungry for them. 

But it’s been Shead who has arguably done the most with the opportunity.

He couldn’t do enough to help the Raptors get over the hump against the Clippers, who were missing Kawhi Leonard but won 121-117 in overtime anyway. It was an especially unfortunate stumble because the Raptors — with big thanks to Shead’s all-around effort — were leading by eight with 3:35 to play. 

It was another point guard — one with considerably more pedigree than Shead or Quickley — who changed the tide of the game as James Harden scored 16 of his game-high 31 points in the final 8 minutes and 35 seconds of the game. He also had 10 assists. 

It was a vintage performance from the 36-year-old in his 17^th season. Rarely can a point guard look good shooting 2-of-15 from three, but Harden pulled it off.  

Meanwhile, the Raptors’ offence, which had hummed along pretty nicely for the first 44 minutes or so of the game, hit the ditch like a pick-up truck without snow tires on a winter highway. 

The Raptors didn’t score in the last 3:35 of regulation and didn’t come all that close, really. And in the overtime period, they managed just three field goals on nine attempts — all by Scottie Barnes (24 points, seven rebounds, six assists) — and couldn’t convert any of their five looks from three. 

“We just missed shots,” said Shead. “We were still sharing the ball really well. Even at the rim, we missed some bunnies here and there. I think our focus just shifted from how we were playing the first three quarters, and we got a little lackadaisical when we needed to amp it up a little bit.” 

You could argue that they missed Quickley, who is probably the Raptors’ most proven three-point threat even though he’s struggled at times lately. Without him on the floor, the ball found shooters whom the Clippers were comfortable having it. The Raptors missed their last seven three-point looks of the game, with Shead going 0-for-2. 

But until that moment, Shead seemed like the answer. And if the question is: ‘Should he play more?’ The answer is only getting clearer by the day. 

The Raptors have been playing Shead and Quickley together more and more this season, particularly at the end of the games, but with the string of injuries the Raptors have been dealing with, they’ve started games together, too. 

Shead’s performance on Friday was a strong argument that he needs to be on the floor as much as possible, as he finished with 15 points and a career-best 13 assists, creating one opportunity after another with his full-speed attacks to the paint, spray pattern passing and determined, opportunistic defence. 

Shead led the Raptors to a 32-24 lead in the first quarter and a 61-52 lead at half by putting himself on triple-double watch as he logged 13 points, eight assists and four rebounds in his first 17 minutes. 

But it was a sequence in the third quarter that underscored the value he can provide beyond the box score. 

Third-year wing Gradey Dick has been having a difficult year, with his season-long three-point shooting slump (even while putting up 21 points and 11 rebounds for his first double-double in the Raptors’ win over Indiana on Wednesday, though he was 1-of-5 from three, dropping him to 29.7 per cent for the season) threatening to overwhelm any of the positive progress he had made in other areas of his game. 

Dick had missed his first two threes against the Clippers when Shead pushed the ball against a scrambled defence and looked like he was about to lay it in as the four Clippers crowded him in the paint. Instead, Shead whipped the ball across his body to a wide-open Dick outside the three-point line, teeing up a batting practice fast ball that Dick stepped into confidently and knocked down. As Shead was running back up the floor, he pumped his fist in celebration like he had knocked the shot down, rather than making the key pass. 

On the next play, Dick was wide-open in the corner and knocked that one down, too. And on the play after that, Shead poked the ball away from Jordan Miller, and Dick dove full out to recover it before underhanding a perfectly placed three-quarter court pass that would have led to an arena-rocking dunk by Agbaji had Kobe Sanders not fouled the athletic Raptors wing. 

Dick ended up finishing the third quarter with eight points on five shots on his way to 15 points and seven rebounds for the game, giving him consecutive positive outings in a season where they have been few and far between. 

Shead’s pass for his first three was a big part of getting him going.

“He’s amazing, he wants everyone to succeed,” said Dick. “And he has our backs. He has my back and I have his. And I feel like when you have a point guard like that, it’s super motivational … and I feel like what people don’t talk about enough is just the selflessness. He wants everyone to win. I had just missed a shot right there and he’s one of the first guys to come up and say, ‘Stay right there. The way they’re playing their defence, you’re going to be open for another one’, and that was one of the next plays.” 

To Shead, it’s business as usual. It’s simply the way he plays basketball. It’s why it’s not uncommon for him to have games where he has more assists that field goal attempts — he had two more assists than shots Friday. It’s why on the same play where he hit Collin Murray-Boyles for a dunk and his 12^th assist, which tied his career high, Shead sprinted back and knocked away a Harden pass to force a turnover. 

All part of the job, like getting a struggling teammate going. 

“I love the fact that Gradey is playing a little better,” said Shead about Dick. “He’s been confident, he’s been trusting his work and he’s getting after it on the defensive end. He’s finding new ways [to contribute]; he’s screening, he’s rolling, he’s finding new ways to impact winning. That’s gone a long way for him and I’m really excited for him.” 

The Raptors’ loss dropped them to 25-18 for the season, but the progress of Shead as a catalyst who can play as a starter, back-up or alongside Quickley is something to be excited about, too.