When Darko Rajaković began assembling his coaching staff for the Toronto Raptors this season, he was looking for something different. He was essentially given a blank slate by the Raptors, who decided to part ways with all but one of the coaches from the previous regime.
Where do you look when you have nearly a dozen positions to fill?
Everywhere.
“Different coaches bring different perspectives to our match preparation meetings,” Rajaković said of coaching diversity. “Obviously they have different experiences, so it’s always fresh and good for me to hear something different or new. »
Perhaps the most unusual experience of the bunch is that of Toronto’s man in charge of analytics, James Wade, the 48-year-old former head coach and general manager of the WNBA’s Chicago Sky.
For Wade, the Raptors job basically fell into his hands, he joked Friday after practice. He hadn’t considered leaving the WNBA, but a brief phone call with Raptors president and vice president Masai Ujiri when Wade was initially hired as Sky’s general manager sparked a relationship between the two men. At the time, Wade was looking for advice on becoming a successful general manager in the basketball world. What he didn’t realize was that the man on the other end of the line would one day become his boss.
