Nick Nurse could not remember the last time he had to put a healthy player on his inactive list.
He had to do that on Wednesday night in Oklahoma City.
The days of scrambling just to keep enough scoring on the floor while ensuring he didn’t overwork any of his players are over, for the time being.
Pascal Siakam and Norm Powell are two games into their returns. Marc Gasol was back from a 12-game injured stint on Wednesday.
This weekend — either Friday at home against Washington or Saturday in Minnesota — Fred VanVleet will make his return.
Not to jinx it, but the Raps have not been this healthy since the start of that game Nov. 8 in New Orleans when Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka were lost for most of a month.
Nurse now has all of them with the exception of Dewan Hernandez back at his disposal and that brings with it another issue.
How do you keep guys such as Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Chris Boucher, and Terence Davis II engaged and into it, playing the reduced minutes they are likely to get with all those starters and front-of-the-rotation players back healthy?
It’s no secret that all three of those players, who logged significant minutes over the past two months-plus, are no longer going to be seeing the same run. It can’t happen.
But all of them, along with Matt Thomas who had his own health issues during that injured period of the Raptors season, are almost definitely going to be seeing less playing time now that they have a healthy team.
Marc Gasol, as only Marc Gasol can, was almost apologetic coming back on Wednesday, knowing the very guys who kept the Raptors afloat in his and some of his teammates absences are now asked to step aside or, in this case, sit aside while the regulars resume their previous workload.
“It’s tough because some of the guys that have been contributing and being a big part of this for the past few weeks, they are not going to get as many minutes and, as a teammate, that is hard to see,” Gasol said.
“But they are great players and they showed their worth and they showed they are ready at any time, so big props to them.
“Still, it’s also a testament to how deep we are as a team.”
Lost in their efforts just to put a winning team on the floor every night during this injury spell was the opportunity to build some flexibility into the lineup.
Nurse does not want to get to April and suddenly start throwing out lineups — aimed at giving him the best shot against a particular opponent — that he has not at least tried out in advance.
He started that on Wednesday night deploying Kyle Lowry alongside four of his bigs in OG Anunoby, Siakam, Gasol and Ibaka.
Ibaka, who began his NBA career in Oklahoma City and has fond memories of his time there, got the nod as much for his size as a returning former player according to Nurse.
But that big lineup is one that could see some huge minutes if the Raptors match up with Philadelphia in the post-season. In about 12 minutes together to start the game and the second half, that group was a collective plus-2.
Nurse, though, has other lineups he wants to get to and he’ll be using the next 10 games or so to roll them out and see how they perform.
He also sees some slippage from a conditioning perspective in some of his players that requires more attention.
Nurse wasn’t naming names but it would not be a stretch to assume he was talking about some of his returning players who have been unable to work out because of the injuries they incurred.
So, yes, Nurse won’t have the concerns he has had with limited options on his bench for the past couple of months, but he’ll have more than enough going on to stay busy.
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