Christian Koloko is already altering how the Raptors look, if ever so slightly

TORONTO — All around him, signs of the NBA were surrounding Christian Koloko.

To his far left in the Toronto Raptors locker room, a reporter had asked Koloko’s teammate Precious Achiuwa to describe his ensemble. (Of his coat, Achiuwa said he found it off the rack; he merely makes everything he wears look as if it is one of a kind, such is his gift for fashion.) Achiuwa gladly went into detail for the cameras, from his coat to his shoes to his necklace, while spiritual old head Fred VanVleet and actual old head (by NBA standards) Thaddeus Young snickered at the enthusiasm.

Speaking of VanVleet, his locker room stall at Scotiabank Arena has not moved since the pandemic, as Pascal Siakam’s did. Siakam took a spot next to the entrance to the showers and tubs to give himself a little extra room, but VanVleet remains in the middle of everything — and notably, to the immediate right of Koloko’s stall. Not many second-round picks are going to attract media attention in October of their rookie years, but VanVleet had the misfortune to be sitting next to one of them, jokingly grumbling about his temporarily restricted space to get changed with media members allowed back in the locker rooms for the first time since the pandemic began.

On Wednesday night after his regular-season debut in a win over Cleveland, Koloko took it all in, but didn’t seem overwhelmed. It was more like he was taking notes. If Wednesday night was overwhelming, he had snapped back into reality by the second quarter. Cavaliers big man Jarrett Allen made sure of that.

“When I got blocked, I didn’t think it was gonna happen because I didn’t think (Allen) was going to jump because he was kind of far,” Koloko said. “But it happened. Maybe that’s my welcome to the NBA moment.

“It was really nice. He’s one of the best shot blockers out there. He showed it (Wednesday). He showed it. He played his role. He doesn’t try to do too much. Sometimes I watch video of him playing. He does what big men should do. It was really nice going against him, and also Evan Mobley.”

Allen’s production is a good aspirational target for the Raptors rookie. Fortunately, Koloko had already had some positive moments by the time Allen snuffed out his dunk attempt, so he did not have much reason to be shell-shocked. Pressed into duty at least partially because of the injuries to Khem Birch and Chris Boucher, and partly because the Cavaliers are one of the rare teams that have two 7-footers who have to be accounted for offensively, Koloko played 15 minutes in his debut. The Raptors won those minutes by three points.

That, combined with his three points, six rebounds and a block, might not sound like much. After a season in which the Raptors pushed their starters to minutes thresholds far beyond their peers, any sign of competence from a reserve is important, especially up front, where the Raptors have no other true shot-blocking, rim-running threat. Heading into the season, Koloko is probably no higher than fourth among the Raptors’ players who you could call centres if you squint hard enough.

The Cavaliers scored at a rate of just 83.3 points per 100 possessions when Koloko was on the floor, the lowest for any Raptor. Now, individual-game samples like that are not very sticky, and three of those minutes were when neither Donovan Mitchell nor the injured Darius Garland was on the floor, situations in which the Cavaliers had trouble scoring no matter when he was on the floor. Even though the more paint-bound Koloko seems anathema to the Raptors’ aggressive tactics, his shot-blocking ability could serve to allow the Raptors’ perimeter defenders to put more pressure on the ball, knowing that the paint defence is a little more secure with a 7-footer back there, and won’t necessarily require massive amounts of help from elsewhere.

“It means everything,” said Gary Trent Jr., who is often asked to be especially aggressive when defending a player with the ball. “Obviously, they put him on the team for a reason. “

“Having him be really the only big we’ve got, it makes it stand out more when he’s out there,” VanVleet added. “We’re definitely gonna lean on him when he’s out there.”

Koloko mostly patrolled the paint in his debut, and that is the way it will usually be when he is on the floor. However, the one time he was switched on to a dangerous perimeter player — Caris LeVert — he acquitted himself just fine.

“As far as the switching, he’s gonna be in coverage a lot and playing our (centre) coverages. He will in emergencies get into some switching, and he will … not in emergencies get in some switching situations,” Nurse said earlier in the week. “And I feel pretty good about it.”

The other end will be trickier, mainly because the Raptors don’t have a lot of perimeter shooting, especially coming off the bench. Without the injured Otto Porter Jr., the Raptors’ best shooting reserve is probably Achiuwa, and his jumper is still very much a lottery ticket until the sample on his success increases.

Conversely, Koloko is a vertical spacer (i.e. he can jump high enough to catch lobs), giving the Raptors another wrinkle. Again, the lack of shooting on the team makes the Raptors unlikely candidates to run much spread pick-and-roll. They ranked 29th in screen assists per game. However, if enough perimeter players make mild progress, Koloko’s ability to set a pick and serve as a viable threat around the rim would give the Raptors some much-needed offensive versatility. His processing speed on the catch will have to quicken, too.

“(He just needs) more reps,” VanVleet said. “Those might have been our first pick-and-rolls since (the team had informal workouts at) UCLA this summer. We don’t get many pick-and-rolls these days. So when we get ‘em, we’ve got to find the rhythm and the flow. Just having a traditional, screen-and-roll five is refreshing.”

This is stuff that Koloko will grow accustomed to, via playing time and film work. In the present, though, he was allowing himself to get caught up in the moment: the neatness of his first basket coming as a follow-up dunk off a miss from Pascal Siakam, a fellow native of Douala, Cameroon. After the game, he had a long string of texts from friends and family who were watching, all the way from back home in Douala (five hours ahead of Toronto, meaning he checked in for his first NBA game around 1 a.m. local time) to Los Angeles, where his former roommate/sister lives.

With an auspicious start, expectations will grow. That’s OK.

“It felt amazing. When coach called my name I was just like, ‘Oh wow. It’s actually happening. First official game,’” Koloko said. “I was kind of excited and anxious at the same time. When I stepped on the court, it’s just basketball. For sure, it was like I’m living a dream, playing the game you want to. That’s the most important thing.”

(Photo: Kevin Sousa / USA Today)