Even relative to the standards of Toronto’s embarrassing showing in its Game 5 loss to Cleveland on Wednesday night, the statlines of Raptors DeMarre Carroll and Cory Joseph stood out. The starting small forward and reserve hybrid guard combined to shoot 3-12 from the floor with four turnovers between them in the Cavaliers’ 116-78 win.
“On the morning of the latest, biggest game in Raptors history — just before 2 in the morning to be precise — two prominent Toronto players were spotted walking through a downtown Cleveland casino with a large group, clearly not in game-preparation mode.
[…]
“I didn’t know that,” said Casey, when told his starting small forward and backup point guard were spotted at the Jack Casino, a short walk from the Quicken Loans Arena early Wednesday morning. “This has nothing to do with curfew.
“This isn’t why we lost ... This is the NBA, they’re grown men. These are grown men. These things happen.”
Neither Casey nor the team indicated whether there would be any kind of fine for Carroll and Joseph being outed.
“It was an 8:30 game. That’s the good thing I guess,” said Casey.
Deadline pressure meant neither Carroll or Joseph were available post-game to be asked about their indiscretion.
There are two immediate reactions to stories like these. One is to hand-wring about the players tripping the light fantastic in the wee hours, and the other is to chide a reporter like Steve Simmons for creating a column around a reported late night venture.
We’ll get to the former in a bit, but as for the latter one thing is certain: Simmons had to relay it, because that’s his job. He would be doing a disservice to his readership if he did not pass along the report that two prominent members of the Raptor rotation – any Raptors, really – were seen out well after midnight on the actual day of a game.
The game didn’t start at 9 AM, though. It tipped at 8:30 PM, and Carroll and Joseph had to be at work two hours before that. That’s over 16 hours after the sighting.
Let’s say the two strung it out. Let’s say they took things until last call at 3 AM, ventured back to their hotel rooms and stared at their phone for an hour while picking through what’s left to order on the room service menu at that time of night. Let’s say that heads didn’t hit pillows until 5 AM. So what?
Carroll and Joseph don’t have the built-in excuse of having worked a basketball game just a few hours before, but that’s in no way relevant. Just because players aren’t coming down from having performed an athletic competition in past-primetime hours, followed by a lengthy meeting with co-workers and then media, it doesn’t mean they immediately switch to a 9-to-5 schedule on an “off” day. Or night.
Your body clock doesn’t flip like that. You can’t switch to bank teller hours on a Wednesday just because you didn’t have to guard LeBron James on a Tuesday night. When two-thirds of your year is spent working late while napping midday, your brain doesn’t account for the potential to be tucked in by 10 at night. Hell, you don’t want these athletes tucked in at 10 at night – not when they have a short meeting in sweats some 14 or 15 hours later, prior to having to shave for work at 5 PM.
These are people that sleep in short shifts, so that we’re afforded the entertainment option of getting to watch them hours after most of us get off from work. Playoff games on top of that are pushed around so as to include as many national viewers as possible; this is why Wednesday’s Game 5 started an hour later after either team is used to, and the Western Conference’s version of Game 5 will start 90 minutes prior to when the West Coast is used to.
Players are going to be up at that hour. It’s a fair guess that just about every other Raptor had their eyes wide open at 2 AM, and we’ll leave guessing as to their individual Netflix choices up to you.
Is standing amongst a large crowd in a casino the best use of those early morning hours that these athletes need to kill? That’s debatable, and fair to wonder. Cory Joseph did look a little heavy-legged, to these eyes at least, in Game 5 – but in ways that didn’t stand out from the sometimes-leaden play he’s showcased during the postseason. And there is some merit to the idea that these players get to mostly take the summer off, and that this particular itch could have been better scratched in July and August.
(And, worst case scenario, if you’re still hungover from drinking too much the night and morning before at 9 PM, you not only have a bit of a problem to work out, but you also need to be introduced to the idea that plenty of fluids, various types of vitamins, and a hearty breakfasts are your friends.)
Not everyone can swat 714 homers while subsisting on a diet of hot dogs, cigars, beer and whiskey; and not everyone can play 45 minutes and drop a 29-point, 14-assist, 10-rebound line on the league’s best defense hours after thumbing through the blackjack tables.
With that in place, Joseph and Carroll weren’t asking their bodies to pull some Ruthian or Jordan-like return. They were just asked to be ready to play some 18 hours after that 2 AM sighting; and for every 3-12 shooting turn we can peg on a night spent too late at a casino, there are dozens upon dozens of 30 point games that came just hours after the nocturnal habits took a bit of a turn.
Jack Casino ain’t the problem. The Toronto Raptors have far bigger goals to work through at this point in the Eastern Conference finals.
Like introducing LeBron James to baccarat, for one.
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