It was just last summer that Nick Nurse broke the news to Gary Trent Jr.
As a 2021 trade-deadline acquisition of the Raptors in the deal that sent Norman Powell to Portland, Trent’s experience in Toronto was limited to 17 games in a lottery-bound season, after which the Raptors signed him to a three-year deal worth $54 million (U.S.).
If the deal told the world Toronto’s front office believed in the then-22-year-old’s untapped potential, and deeply, Nurse told Trent that he believed in something perhaps even more strongly: If Trent was going to live up to his contract as Toronto’s starting shooting guard, he was going to have to start playing a more tenacious brand of defence.