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Originally Posted by bluejays
I do wonder what the Raps secret is though. I don't believe any of the sports allow players to train with teams trainers/coaches in the off-season.
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Teams are allowed to meet with players and train during the offseason, but teams cannot make any of these offseason activities mandatory for their players (except for summer-league for players in their first two years). That said, for rookie-contract guys who haven't established themselves as stars, you'd better treat these team 'suggestions and requests' as the law, even if they aren't mandatory.
The Raptors did hold a team get-together in Spain in the offseason, shortly after the Olympics, and had a very high participation turnout. Darko's offense is reliant on a high degree of player familiarity and allowing players to work out their actions and reactions for themselves as a group, and I expect this was probably the focus of that time.
As for Dick, in addition to that Spanish mini-camp the Raptors had, I know that he spent most of the offseason training with Agbaji, and early in the summer, the Raptors had Simovic and James Wade there with them prior to summer league. This plan came at the Raptors' suggestion, but it's a really good fit for the two, and they seem to have picked up at least some of one-another's strengths.
It's not uncommon for NBA players to also participate in summer runs, which are basically cross-team skill-development camps; again, there are no restrictions about team involvement... usually these are coordinated with the team, so that the team, the player, and the development camp are on the same page about what a player's priority is going to be. Former Raptors assistant Rico Hines has the most renowned of these, and Siakam is one of Hines' greatest development success stories... so in that case it was Siakam getting extra time with his in-season development coach, but in a different context. There are less famous, more skill-specific camps as well. A team might arrange for a center, for example, to spend a couple weeks with a basketball camp specifically for big men, where they might have the opportunity to learn from legendary players or specialist coaches outside of their team. Often, these camps have a mix of prospects and college level guys, g-leaguers, vets and even a couple stars. Sometimes, a team will even send an assistant to participate, so they can share their own expertise with other players and coaches, pick up skills from other developmental coaches, and make sure that they can help carry skills picked up in these summer camps into the regular season. Hakeem Olijuwan has a summer camp where he basically teaches his post footwork skills. Valanciunas went to that camp at one point, before the Raptors decided they needed to transform him into a heavyweight center.