{"id":414849,"date":"2026-01-17T07:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T07:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/414849\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T07:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T07:31:09","slug":"raptors-jamal-shead-developing-as-player-leader-as-injuries-pile-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/414849\/","title":{"rendered":"Raptors’ Jamal Shead developing as player, leader as injuries pile up"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014\u00a0The Toronto Raptors<\/a>‘ recent run of injuries has created plenty of opportunities for players on the roster who have been desperate for more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Too many overlapping parts \u2014 especially among the group of youngsters on the bench \u2014 has been a mini-drama all season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The hope was that someone among the regular rostered crew of Gradey Dick<\/a>, Ochai Agbaji, Ja’Kobe Walter and Jamison Battle would separate themselves and force Darko Rajakovic\u2019s hand when it came to carving out bigger swaths of minutes for them. But through half the season, none of them really have. That created even more of a logjam further down the lineup as the pair of wings the Raptors have on two-way contracts \u2014 A.J. Lawson and Alijah Martin \u2014 were stuck, rarely getting NBA minutes in reward for a slew of dominant showings with the Raptors 905, the club\u2019s powerhouse G-League team.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Separate from the fray all season has been Jamal Shead<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Working in his favour has been the Raptors’ relative lack of depth at point guard after starter Immanuel Quickley<\/a>. From the outset of training camp, it\u2019s been understood that Shead \u2014 a nice development story last season as the 45th\u00a0pick in the 2024 draft \u2014 would play the minutes Quickley couldn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whether he was fully ready for 15 or 20 minutes a night of point guard duty on a team with playoff aspirations was an unknown.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"NBANBA on Sportsnet<\/p>\n

Livestream 40-plus regular season Toronto Raptors games, marquee matchups from around the association, select NBA Playoffs games, the NBA Draft and summer league action on Sportsnet+.<\/p>\n

Broadcast schedule<\/a><\/p>\n

A half season later, and those questions have long ago been answered. Shead has established himself as one of the better backup point guards in the NBA. Heading into Friday night\u2019s game against the Los Angeles Clippers, Shead led the NBA in assists by players coming off the bench with 203 and \u2014 impressively for a second-year point guard \u2014 had done so while maintaining a tidy 4.21:1 assist to turnover ratio, fifth among qualified players. He\u2019s a staunch defender too, with a knack for drawing fouls and forcing turnovers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t add to his league-leading bench totals against the Clippers because, for the fourth-straight game, he was starting at point guard \u2014 for the second consecutive game in place of Quickley, who has missed two games with back spasms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Missing RJ Barrett (ankle), Ja\u2019Kobe Walter (hip), Jamison Battle (ankle) and Jakob Poeltl (back), along with Quickley the last two games opened up plenty of minutes for those hungry for them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s been Shead who has arguably done the most with the opportunity.<\/p>\n

He couldn\u2019t do enough to help the Raptors get over the hump against the Clippers, who were missing Kawhi Leonard but won 121-117 in overtime anyway. It was an especially unfortunate stumble because the Raptors \u2014 with big thanks to Shead\u2019s all-around effort \u2014 were leading by eight with 3:35 to play.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was another point guard \u2014 one with considerably more pedigree than Shead or Quickley \u2014 who changed the tide of the game as James Harden scored 16 of his game-high 31 points in the final 8 minutes and 35 seconds of the game. He also had 10 assists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was a vintage performance from the 36-year-old in his 17th\u00a0season. Rarely can a point guard look good shooting 2-of-15 from three, but Harden pulled it off.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Raptors’ offence, which had hummed along pretty nicely for the first 44 minutes or so of the game, hit the ditch like a pick-up truck without snow tires on a winter highway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Raptors didn\u2019t score in the last 3:35 of regulation and didn\u2019t come all that close, really. And in the overtime period, they managed just three field goals on nine attempts \u2014 all by Scottie Barnes (24 points, seven rebounds, six assists)\u00a0\u2014\u00a0and couldn\u2019t convert any of their five looks from three.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just missed shots,\u201d said Shead. \u201cWe were still sharing the ball really well. Even at the rim, we missed some bunnies here and there. I think our focus just shifted from how we were playing the first three quarters, and we got a little lackadaisical when we needed to amp it up a little bit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

You could argue that they missed Quickley, who is probably the Raptors’ most proven three-point threat even though he\u2019s struggled at times lately. Without him on the floor, the ball found shooters whom the Clippers were comfortable having it. The Raptors missed their last seven three-point looks of the game, with Shead going 0-for-2.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But until that moment, Shead seemed like the answer. And if the question is: \u2018Should he play more?’ The answer is only getting clearer by the day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Raptors have been playing Shead and Quickley together more and more this season, particularly at the end of the games, but with the string of injuries the Raptors have been dealing with, they\u2019ve started games together, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shead\u2019s performance on Friday was a strong argument that he needs to be on the floor as much as possible, as he finished with 15 points and a career-best 13 assists, creating one opportunity after another with his full-speed attacks to the paint, spray pattern passing and determined, opportunistic defence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shead led the Raptors to a 32-24 lead in the first quarter and a 61-52 lead at half by putting himself on triple-double watch as he logged 13 points, eight assists and four rebounds in his first 17 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But it was a sequence in the third quarter that underscored the value he can provide beyond the box score.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Third-year wing Gradey Dick has been having a difficult year, with his season-long three-point shooting slump (even while putting up 21 points and 11 rebounds for his first double-double in the Raptors’ win over Indiana on Wednesday, though he was 1-of-5 from three, dropping him to 29.7 per cent for the season) threatening to overwhelm any of the positive progress he had made in other areas of his game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dick had missed his first two threes against the Clippers when Shead pushed the ball against a scrambled defence and looked like he was about to lay it in as the four Clippers crowded him in the paint. Instead, Shead whipped the ball across his body to a wide-open Dick outside the three-point line, teeing up a batting practice fast ball that Dick stepped into confidently and knocked down. As Shead was running back up the floor, he pumped his fist in celebration like he had knocked the shot down, rather than making the key pass.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the next play, Dick was wide-open in the corner and knocked that one down, too. And on the play after that, Shead poked the ball away from Jordan Miller, and Dick dove full out to recover it before underhanding a perfectly placed three-quarter court pass that would have led to an arena-rocking dunk by Agbaji had Kobe Sanders not fouled the athletic Raptors wing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dick ended up finishing the third quarter with eight points on five shots on his way to 15 points and seven rebounds for the game, giving him consecutive positive outings in a season where they have been few and far between.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shead\u2019s pass for his first three was a big part of getting him going.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s amazing, he wants everyone to succeed,\u201d said Dick. \u201cAnd he has our backs. He has my back and I have his. And I feel like when you have a point guard like that, it\u2019s super motivational … and I feel like what people don\u2019t talk about enough is just the selflessness. He wants everyone to win. I had just missed a shot right there and he\u2019s one of the first guys to come up and say, \u2018Stay right there. The way they\u2019re playing their defence, you\u2019re going to be open for another one\u2019, and that was one of the next plays.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

To Shead, it\u2019s business as usual. It\u2019s simply the way he plays basketball. It\u2019s why it\u2019s not uncommon for him to have games where he has more assists that field goal attempts \u2014 he had two more assists than shots Friday. It\u2019s why on the same play where he hit Collin Murray-Boyles for a dunk and his 12th\u00a0assist, which tied his career high, Shead sprinted back and knocked away a Harden pass to force a turnover.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All part of the job, like getting a struggling teammate going.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the fact that Gradey is playing a little better,\u201d said Shead about Dick.\u00a0“He\u2019s been confident, he\u2019s been trusting his work and he\u2019s getting after it on the defensive end. He\u2019s finding new ways [to contribute]; he\u2019s screening, he\u2019s rolling, he\u2019s finding new ways to impact winning. That\u2019s gone a long way for him and I\u2019m really excited for him.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Raptors’ loss dropped them to 25-18 for the season, but the progress of Shead as a catalyst who can play as a starter, back-up or alongside Quickley is something to be excited about, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014\u00a0The Toronto Raptors‘ recent run of injuries has created plenty of opportunities for players on the roster…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-414849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}