INGLEWOOD, Calif. — The Toronto Raptors, like most organizations, pride themselves on prioritizing high-character players. In Ja’Kobe Walter’s case, they’re showing they did a good job of identifying one.
Walter is playing so well right now that, if he wanted to, he’d have grounds to tell his primary workout coach with the Raptors, Ivo Simović, where to stick his criticism.
“There was a play during the Denver game: I let Bruce Brown blow by me. He got a layup,” Walter, the second-year Raptors wing, told The Athletic on Wednesday morning. “(Simović) was like, ‘I haven’t seen a clip like this in forever.’ It made me realize that even with the little things, I’ve got to always be on point. Whenever he sees something, he’s going to keep it real at all times. That was one of those times where he was like, ‘You can’t have that happen. You can’t have slip-ups like that on defence.’”
An important lesson, sure, but one that isn’t going to staple Walter to the bench right now. With the Raptors desperate for shooting, Walter is shooting 34 for 70, or 48.6 percent from 3 over 17 games since the All-Star break. He shot a silly 16 for 22 from 3 on the five-game road trip the Raptors (40-32) ended on Wednesday with a 119-94 loss to the LA Clippers.
Even when his shooting inevitably cools off, he will stay on the floor because of his active defence. If the Raptors make the playoffs, Walter is the most likely player to earn a “Wait, who is this guy?” moment from a broader league audience that has only vaguely heard of the Raptors wing.
Among Raptors rotation players, only rookie Collin Murray-Boyles has posted more deflections per minute. Walter averages a steal per game, which comes out to a rotation-leading 1.8 on a per-36-minute basis. At just 21, he needs to put on more muscle to become a complete defensive player on the perimeter — to capably guard bigger wings such as Kawhi Leonard and not just slithery guards. He is working toward that. Head coach Darko Rajaković said Walter has added seven or eight pounds to his frame from where he started the year, and was even 12 above a while back. Gaining weight during the season isn’t easy.
As is, he is earning more and more trust. Even with the Raptors healthier now than they were to start the season, he is averaging more than 21 minutes since the All-Star break compared to 18 before it.
Even cooler: He’s doing it for a winning team that is playing for something.
“It feels good once you have consistency in the league,” said starter RJ Barrett, who has heard his name chanted by fans at Madison Square Garden during playoff games. He knows the difference that contributing to a contender can make. “This is what you dreamed of. It’s not an easy place to be. It’s not an easy place to play. It really boosts your confidence. And doing it on a winning team, that’s what really gets your name out there, gets your value up.”
While his offensive game is still limited off the dribble, Walter has stepped into shots with confidence in big games for the Raptors. He drilled four 3s in Denver in front of a particularly loud crowd last week, an encouraging sign for how he might perform in moments the Raptors hope will be coming in April.
“You can feel the complete difference,” Walter said of playing this March compared to last March, when wins were largely besides the point for the lottery-bound Raptors. “Being in a situation like this, not everybody is able to be in it, where we know we’ve got to continue to win games to get that playoff experience. We know we’re a team that should be in the playoffs. … It’s fun to me, what people call pressure. I think it’s just something to embrace. My old coach (Bill Armstrong, who coached Walter at Link Academy in Branson, Missouri) used to say, ‘Embrace hard.’ This is hard. Winning these games is hard. But it’s fun.”
Walter is right: It’s going to be difficult. And it’s going to be stressful. Following wins by the Hawks, 76ers and Heat on Wednesday, there are just 2½ games separating fifth-place Atlanta and 10th-place Orlando. The Raptors have just three tanking teams among their final 10 opponents. This could be chaos down the stretch.
For all his defensive skills, Walter is handsy, and can get in foul trouble on the wrong night. He picked up three in just seven minutes against the Clippers, and the Raptors’ shooting cratered without him: They shot 42 percent from 2 and 27 percent from 3, making just 1-of-7 from deep in the first half. That was basically that.
The Raptors are so shooting-deficient that they have trouble surviving the absence of any of their passable shooters. They were missing Immanuel Quickley for the second consecutive game because of plantar fasciitis, and it sounds like Wednesday wasn’t the last game he’ll miss. Quickley is by far the Raptors’ most dynamic shooter off of movement. Combine that with Gradey Dick’s lost season, and the Raptors’ spacing can be beyond problematic.
Walter, then, needs to be ready. If the Raptors get to the playoffs, any opponent they see will have excellent guards. With Jamal Shead in a massive shooting slump, Walter might be the best option on the roster to guard them while making things easier for Brandon Ingram, Scottie Barnes and Barrett on the other end.
“He’s shooting at an insane rate. He’s not gonna shoot like that forever,” Barrett said. “But defensively, the things he’s doing every single night with steals and deflections (are important). And then on offence, he’s making the shots, but he’s just making the right plays. He’s taking the right shots. He plays like a player way above his years already.”
The Raptors hope Walter will have a grander stage on which to prove Barrett right.