Shout Out Spicy P

 The Pacers just shocked the world blowing out OKC in game 6 to force a game 7 in the NBA finals. A series that every talking head I could find called OKC in 4 or 5 is now going to a game 7. With that in mind, it's about time I do a whole post on Pascal Siakam. Whether they win game 7 or not, Siakam should be incredibly proud of the season and post-season that he's put together. I am thrilled to see a Raptors legend doing it on the biggest stage, and today we give him all the flowers. 

In the 2015-2016 NBA season, the Toronto Raptors had their best season as a franchise to date. They made the conference finals and took LeBron and Kyrie's Cavs to 6 games. Still there was a glaring hole on the roster at power forward. That season the PF rotation was a 36 year old Luis Scola and Patrick Patterson, neither were long term solutions. In the 2016 offseason the Raptors signed Jarred Sullinger to fill that hole. They also spent the 27th pick in the draft on Pascal Siakam, a guy who at the time was on nobody's radar. Before the season started, Sullinger got injured forcing him to miss the first half of the season. With limited options to fill that slot, Pascal Siakam ended up being the opening day starter that season. I remember distinctly thinking "Who??" at the time, and he didn't do much to make a name for himself. In his rookie season, Siakam's only real basketball skill was being able to run the floor. This worked with the GROAT Kyle Lowry because he could find him for 1-2 hit ahead passes a game in transition. His finishing at the rim was mediocre and his 3 point shooting was totally non-existent. He was just a long and athletic guy learning how to play basketball, and he was thrusted into a starting role on his first NBA team. Midway through the season, the Raptors swung a trade for Serge Ibaka to play power forward. From that point on, Siakam rarely saw the floor with the NBA team. Instead he was sent down to the G-League to work on his game with fellow Raptors legend Fred VanVleet. That season in the G-League the Raptors 905 took home the championship and Spicy P and Fred started forming a chemistry. By the end of the 2016/2017 season, Raptors fans had heard of Siakam, but he wasn't on anyone's radar as a potential star. He finished the year averaging 4.2 points per game in 15.6 minutes per game. 

2017/2018 came and the Raptors implemented a brand new ball movement oriented offense. The big question coming into the year was how the bench was going to shake out after losing key bench pieces in Patrick Patterson and Corey Joseph as well as a starter in DeMarre Carroll. Raptors fans know this ended up working out beautifully with the emergence of what's now known as the bench mob. Fred VanVleet, Delon Wright, Norman Powell, CJ Miles and Pascal Siakam formed a bench group that would come in and play high energy tenacious defense and out run teams who weren't ready for the sudden shift in energy. Siakam still was mostly just an energy guy who used his length and athleticism to impact the game more than his skill. I remember at this point I would wince every time he attempted a 3, it felt like it was a guaranteed miss. One game I remember to this day from this season was when the Raptors played the Clippers with Montrezl Harrell. I remember Jack Armstrong spending the whole broadcast comparing Siakam and Harrell saying "it's like looking in a mirror!" Harrell was an energy big who finished lobs and ran the floor. He would come in like an energizer bunny and pick the pace of the game up, just like Siakam at the time. It's funny because if you said that now it'd seem like a diss, but at the time it was a real comparison. Siakam finished his second season averaging 7.3 points per game in 20.7 minutes. 

2018/2019 as Raptors fans know, became the undisputed greatest season in franchise history. The Raptors shook things up big time, first firing coach of the year Dwayne Casey, then trading franchise legend DeMar DeRozan for Kawhi Leonard. In the rumors leading up to the Kawhi trade, all the pundits had the Raptors trading either OG Anunoby or Pascal Siakam in a package for Kawhi. They ended up making it happen without either, sending Jakob Poeltl as the young player instead. New coach Nick Nurse shook things up even further, declaring Serge Ibaka would no longer play beside Jonas Valanciunas as a power forward, but would instead alternate between starting and coming off the bench as a center. With the power forward slot up for grabs again, Siakam slid back into the starting lineup in his 3rd season. He was awesome. Siakam's game hit crazy new heights that not a single person outside of himself could have expected. He was still a long and athletic energizer bunny, but he now had improved finishing, improved shooting, and a new go to move in the spin. Using Kawhi's gravity as an elite #1 option, and not being on other team's scouting reports, Siakam leveraged his new skill set to become a legit #2 scoring option on the Raptors that season. His athleticism allowed him to fit like a glove in the Raptors defense which was in my opinion the best in basketball that season. By the end of the regular season, Siakam had easily taken home the most improved player award. The playoffs were even better. Kahwi and Siakam combined to score the most points as a duo in the playoffs since Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Kawhi was the head of the snake, and Kyle Lowry was the main playmaker, but Siakam was legitimately the #2 scoring option on that team, something nobody could've dreamt of just a year prior. In game 6 of the NBA finals Siakam hit a floater and-1 over Draymond Green to seal the NBA championship, a moment I will never ever forget as a basketball fan. Siakam finished the season averaging 16.9 points per game in 31.9 minutes. 

The summer of 2019 the entire city of Toronto was on Kawhi watch. Our collective hearts were broken when Kawhi announced he would be heading home to Los Angeles, leaving the team he had just won a championship with. The media spent the offseason projecting the Raptors to miss the playoffs or be the 8 seed. To a casual, this made sense, they just lost a superstar and finals MVP, how could they be good the next year. Despite how it ended, the 2019-2020 season ended up being one of my favorites as a Raptors fan. Siakam was thrusted into the #1 option role, and there were growing pains, but ultimately he was really good. This was a guy who came into the league without any basketball skills besides athleticism, and now he's the #1 option on a team with playoff aspirations. Though spicy P was the leading scorer, the team was a collective with all the remaining championship pieces contributing on any given night. Siakam made his first all star game, as people were questioning whether he could be a number 1 option, he was proving it every night. When the season shut down due to COVID, the Raptors were the 2 seed. The NBA season resumed in the bubble, and we got our first taste of disappointment with the Siakam lead Raptors. Because of the shut down, Pascal had been holed up in a condo without access to a basketball court. When they came back he was rusty. The mid range jumper he had worked on and gotten good at in the regular season abandoned him. The Raptors still managed to take a Celtics team to 7 games, despite awful offensive performances from spicy P. It was a disappointing end to the season and even more disappointing to see the fans and media begin to turn on a guy who had improved so much. Siakam in his first year as a number 1 option averaged 22.9 points per game in 35.2 minutes. 

The next few years were kind of a blur. The Raptors lost both Serge Ibaka and Marc Gasol in free agency that summer and tried to replace the minutes at center with Aaron Baynes. As a result, the defense and offense fell off a cliff. There were a handful of games where Siakam had the chance to win it for the Raps on a buzzer beater but missed the shot, frustrating for him and for fans. They finished the 2020/2021 season below .500 for the first time since 2014 but landed the 4th pick in the draft and the opportunity to select Scottie Barnes. The first season with Scottie and Siakam was a lot of fun. The team bounced back to win 48 games despite shaky center play and Siakam was the leading scorer on a playoff team once again. By this point, Siakam's skillset had been fully flushed out. He was a good defender due to his length and speed, but he was an awesome jack of all trades on offense. He had his best season yet as a passer jumping above 5 assists per game and became a legitimate threat from all 3 levels. The next season was maybe the most frustrating one as a Raptors fan. The championship pieces dwindled and the front office missed on the few draft picks they had left after emptying the cupbard for the championship. Scottie Barnes still looked promising, but at this point the entire NBA had written off Siakam as incapable of being a #1 option on a championship team. The depth behind the starting lineup was awful in 2023 and the team ended up finishing at .500 and losing in the playin tournament after missing a bunch of free throws when DeMar DeRozan's daughter screamed during each attmept. At this point it was clear the current core probably wasn't going to get it done and they would likely need to trade Siakam to open up more time for Scottie Barnes to have the ball in his hands. The next season, the first domino in tearing down the core was trading OG Anunoby for RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley. There was a 2 week stretch there where I thought they should stop. They added depth at the guard position and it looked like the fit with those guys, Siakam and Scottie was something to look forward to. We were blindsided later when the Raptors traded Siakam to the Indiana Pacers for essentially Bruce Brown and 3 mid first round picks. When this trade went down I was saddened. Siakam had given so much to the Raptors and built himself into an all-star and do it all forward that could fit on any team. I remember pitching at the time that they should just keep him thinking in 5 years Siakam will still be better than any pick they could've gotten. My wish wasn't heard and a Raptors legend was now on a new team. 

The most frustrating thing about trading Pascal was the other teams in the league didn't value him at all. The Raptors got declined in a trade with the Kings that included Keegan Murray, a guy who is not better than Pascal today. They couldn't convince the Warriors to part with Jonathan Kuminga, a guy who their coach doesn't even trust to play playoff minutes today. They weren't able to convince the Hawks to give up Kobe Bufkin, a guy who you have to be a real NBA hardo to know. They were treating the Raptors like they were trying to serve a platter of crap. The Pacers saw the value and the opportunity to buy low and ended up adding an all star without giving up a single piece of their core. This season, that has paid of tremendously. Shocking everyone, the Pacers made the finals knocking off a multiple time MVP in Giannis with the Bucks, a 64 win team in Cleveland and a couple of stars in Brunson and KAT with the Knicks. In the conference finals, the ECF MVP award went to Pascal Siakam. The NBA world as a whole had no choice but to recognize P as one of the best players in the game, he had the hardware to prove it. Coming into the finals, as I've said many times, almost nobody gave the Pacers a shot. The Pacers and Siakam have once again proven everyone wrong forcing a game 7 with Siakam being in line to win finals MVP should they take the series. He's made countless plays on both sides of the ball, is the bucket getter when things break down and is overall happy to play a team game doing whatever it takes to win. Last night in what can only be described as the best play of his career Tyrese Haliburton threw a spinning no look pass to Siakam in transition who then went up and jammed all over Jalen Williams' face for a thunderous dunk to go up 20 points. He then followed it up a play later by posting up Alex Caruso and nailing a fadeaway jumper to get up 22 at the half. Siakam has taken the calm demeanor he learned from Kawhi, the growing pains he went through as a number 1 option in Toronto and the energy and hustle he always had and made himself into a first option on a championship caliber team, something everyone said he could never do. If you told me in 2016 that 9 years later the no-name dude who just ran the floor was going to be 1 game away from a finals MVP, I'd have called you a lunatic, but here we are and it warms my heart to see it. Pascal Siakam is forever going to be a Raptors legend. I own a Siakam Raptors jersey and I will proudly wear it to games for the rest of my life. Now without a question Siakam is a Pacers legend as well, and he deserves all the flowers he will get with it. Love you Spicy P!