Toronto Raptors center Jonas Valanciunas will not be attending the FIBA qualifiers this year. Instead, he will be returning to Toronto to get a head start in training camp, along with other Raptors.
Lithuanian basketball journalist Donatas Urbonas broke the news via Twitter.
Valanciunas is heading back to Toronto on Sep 15. Raptors asked him to come earlier & skip FIBA qualifiers in order to be fit for preseason camp. Valanciunas told Nurse wanted to have the players earlier than official training camp, so that they could save some time & work more.
— Donatas Urbonas (@Urbodo) August 28, 2018
Valanciunas has played for the Lithuanian men's basketball team since the age of 19 and has been a key piece for the national team. He led the team to a respectable fourth place finish in the 2014 FIBA World Cup, only surpassed by the U.S., Serbia, and France.
This is a bold but necessary move from new head coach Nick Nurse. The Raptors have two big new pieces they need to integrate into the system in Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green, while also adjusting to the loss of DeMar DeRozan.
While Jonas Valanciunas might not be the first or even second scoring option on this Raptors team, he will still maintain a very important role on the court. The 7'0 Lithuanian is far and away the best center on the team at this point, and if he goes down with an injury the Raptors will either have to turn to newly acquired Greg Monroe or little used Lucas Nogueira if they want to employ a true center.
The Raptors posted the best record in the league last year and had good luck with injuries. Their core three players of the 2017-18 season (DeRozan, Lowry, Valanciunas) only missed a total of 10 games combined.
It makes sense that Nurse is calling in his team early, even if it's sad to see a Lithuanian mainstay miss some international games.
If the Raptors can avoid the injury bug, they might just give the reigning champion Golden State Warriors a run for their money.
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