“Not everyone got their chance”

Watch the latest episode “Hustle Play with Chris Boucher,” the Montreal native talked about how he thought “everybody” on the Toronto Raptors bench should have received more minutes this season under Nick Nurse.

Boucher, when asked who he would like to have seen on the court this season more often, said that they should all have played more. This season, the Raptors were ranked second to last in terms of points scored by their bench and last in terms of total bench minutes. They only received 28 points per match from their reserves.

“To be honest with you, if you got the chance to watch practice and the training camp we had this year, everybody came in with a difference to the game, everybody had expectations this year, everybody went last summer and worked,” he said. “We went to L.A. and everybody was doing really well — it’s hard work that guys were putting in and I feel like not everybody got their chances.

“That takes different players to various places. You know me, back then, if I didn’t play it’d probably make me mad to want to work more, but some people are just different.”

Boucher’s belief in giving the bench more minutes stems from his trust in team president Masai Ujiri. Ujiri is a big proponent of developing players internally but when the prospects don’t get enough run, tensions build between a general manager and coach.

“Masai is all about inside growth,” Boucher said. “Obviously, he’s always been like that. That’s how you got guys like Fred [VanVleet]Norman [Powell]Guys like Pascal, me and other guys [Siakam] — that’s all Masai. He believes in the guys he finds who he knows are motivated to improve and win.

“He believed me every time, and I got better each time.” He has those same beliefs in some of those guys off the bench and usually, when he believes in something, he’s right. It’s hard when he gets a first-rounder here, a second-rounder here, and he feels like those guys are going to help us but they don’t get to play — that will definitely start some issues between a coach and a GM if that’s the case.”

The 30-year-old pointed out former Raptors Yuta Watanabe and Oshae Britsett, as two examples of guys that showed their true talent when given more opportunities elsewhere.

“There are some guys in the league that I would say I don’t even respect their game but I feel like you see them play with somebody else and say, ‘he’s really good with what he’s doing right now,’” Boucher explained. “Guys like Yuta, I really love his game, I loved his game when he was here but I never saw the level of shooting that he had here until he went to Brooklyn. Like he had it here but when he went over there I was like, ‘damn.’

“Oshae was really good when he played here, but he never seemed to be able to put it together.” When he went to the Pacers, he was just out there.”

Watanabe’s first season in Brooklyn saw him average 16 minutes per game, compared to the Raptors’ 11.7, and he had a career-year for points (5.6), 3-point percentage (44.4%) and true shooting (63.7%). Brisset increased his game time from 7.1 minutes per game to 24.7 minutes per game with Indiana in the following season.

Boucher is one of Nurse’s few regular bench players this season. He averaged more than 20 minutes per game, for the third consecutive season.