It’s one of the hardest jobs in the NBA, an apprenticeship that sees more applicants fail than succeed. The pay’s not all that good (at least by NBA standards) and the security is next to zero. Succeed and your reward is getting to do it again, though who knows when you’re next chance will come.
Fail and you might be out of a job entirely.
Welcome to Jeff Dowtin Jr.’s professional basketball life.
The slender 6-foot-3 point guard has hopes and dreams like any other professional basketball player. After starring at the University of Rhode Island, finding a reliable NBA gig has proven a challenge, which doesn’t make him an exception. The NBA is a star-driven league, but it’s mainly populated by great players trying to prove their good enough.
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Dowtin Jr. is one of them. He’d love steady minutes, maybe a starting role and certainly the contract security that comes with either.
But for now, he’s a soon-to-be 26-year-old on with 25 NBA games to his name spread across two seasons on a two-way contract with his fourth organization.
He only gets paid a pro-rated amount of the league minimum when he’s with the Raptors, and the much smaller G-League rate when he’s with Raptors 905.
He can go weeks without playing in an NBA game – he’s appeared in just 16 of the 60 the Raptors have played so far – but then be given an opportunity and be expected to run with it.
Thursday night was one of those nights. With Fred VanVleet out of the lineup for personal reasons Raptors head coach Nick Nurse decided to use Dowtin Jr. as his primary point guard off the bench, passing Malachi Flynn and Dalano Banton.
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It’s the kind of chance that can at the very least earn you another opportunity. Fumble it and the next one might not come for weeks, if at all.
Dowtin Jr. came through.
The numbers don’t shout – five points and three steals aren’t headline-grabbing stuff in what was a 115-110 win. But the 19 minutes he played, spread between a long 13-minute stint bridging the first and second quarters and then a six-minute run bridging the third and fourth signalled Nurse’s confidence in him, which is more important than any box score line.
He defended the ball aggressively, working hard to get his body between his man and the screener, trying to break up any actions before they got started. He stuck his nose in against crafty Pelicans’ veteran CJ McCollum and didn’t sag his shoulders even as he had a bucket or two scored over him. He didn’t make any highlight plays, but more importantly, didn’t commit any egregious mistakes. In his situation, the latter is more important than the former.
Despite playing just 11 minutes in the past month, Dowtin was ready when he was needed, which in a sport where even the most established players crave routine minutes and predictable roles, is a triumph in itself.
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“You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable,” said Dowtin Jr. of his role as the Raptors practiced in advance of a set of back-to-back road games this weekend in Detroit Saturday and Cleveland Sunday. “That’s the biggest thing for me. Of course, everybody wants to play steady minutes, but that’s not the case [for all players]. You have to find your niche, find ways to be effective in the practice facility, put in that extra time and be prepared for the unexpected. Every time I step on the court at shoot around or whatever, I’m thinking I’m going to play no matter what. That’s just my mindset.”
Nurse told Dowtin Jr. he’d be playing against the Pelicans before the game, with a specific assignment to match the energy and intensity that New Orleans sparkplug Jose Alvarado brings off the bench for them. The Raptors have plenty of mouths to feed offensively for the moment, so Nurse is looking for someone who can match up defensively.
He likes what Dowtin Jr. has shown he can bring in his brief stints so far this season and in longer stretches with Raptors 905. He’s willing to give him a chance to earn minutes ahead of Flynn and Banton, who might arguably have more upside to offer offensively, but who haven’t quite earned Nurse’s trust without the ball.
“I think he’s just pretty good defensively,” said Nurse of his decision to go with Dowtin Jr. “He understands, he’s not afraid. Like I told him before the game, I said listen, ‘I’m going with you tonight and you gotta match up here with Alvarado, you gotta go after this dude. Like, he’s coming after he us; that’s the way he plays and you gotta go out there and meet him with that’. And I thought Jeff checked in you could just kind of see he was ready to get in the fight … he just does it on the ball, he does it with his hands, he does it with his feet and he does it off the ball.”
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For Dowtin Jr., the window could have opened at a better time. It’s not expected that VanVleet – who missed practice Friday with an excused absence due to personal reasons – will be out for an extended period of time, but there is a possibility he’s out of the line-up for Saturday’s noon start against Detroit.
One of the other highlights of Dowtin Jr.’s season came against the Pistons in a road win on Nov. 14th where he played 15 crucial minutes – include four down the stretch of a close game – with VanVleet out of the lineup.
As the Raptors zero in on a playoff run, the possibility of Dowtin Jr. finding his way into the fringe of Nurse’s rotation could pay important dividends. Players on two-way contracts aren’t eligible for post-season play, so proving himself as a steady contributor – even in uneven minutes – could help Dowtin Jr. earn a little bit more job security.
“I mean that’s certainly on the table,” said Nurse. “But I just kind of break it all down and simplify it: I’m just trying to get a little bit of an upgrade [at back-up point guard] and [we’ll see if Dowtin Jr.] is a little bit of an upgrade or not … We got to find out and now’s the time.”
Dowtin Jr. will be ready. His job could depend on it.
“I’m coming to every game thinking that I’m going to play, regardless,” said Dowtin Jr. “You never know what might happen.”
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