Raptors rewind: The happy, sad accident of Landry Fields

This is a story of how the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

What happened, exactly?

Technically, all that happened was that the Raptors signed Landry Fields to a three-year, $18-million offer sheet in 2012. It didn’t work out, but so what? A lot of free agents don’t work out.

But it was so much more than that.

It started with the Raptors being terrible, an eternal truth up until three seasons ago. The team was coming off a 23-win campaign in 2011–12 and they badly needed to rebuild. Their only prospects at the time were DeMar DeRozan (who turned out great) and Ed Davis (who turned out fine). They needed to hand the keys over to the young players and deal away their veterans, but there was one problem.

Raptors general manager Bryan Colangelo was on the hot seat, and general managers on the hot seat don’t tend to make the best decisions on behalf of their teams — they make the best decisions on behalf of themselves.

So instead of rebuilding, Colangelo set out (as always) to chase short-term upgrades in an effort to save his job. He was (supposedly) set at shooting guard (DeRozan), power forward (Davis), and center (Andrea Bargnani, oh god), so he scoured the market for a small forward and a point guard.

Technically, Fields was that small forward, but in the grander scheme of Colangelo’s ingenious plan, Fields was a pawn.

Captain Canada

Colangelo’s real target that summer was Canadian icon Steve Nash. He was hoping for a repeat of 2004 when he concocted the Seven Seconds or Less Suns by bringing Nash back to Phoenix.

If you really squint, you could make out Colangelo’s flawed plan. Nash will be Nash (just eight years older and in his late-thirties, but that’s fine since it’s not like Nash has a degenerative back condition), DeRozan would be Shawn Marion (which is fine since they’re both athletic, although nevermind DeRozan’s a bad defender and Marion was elite), Davis would be Amar’e Stoudemire (which is … it’s not fine; they’re nothing alike), newly-hired head coach Dwane Casey would be literally the exact opposite of Mike D’Antoni, and Andrea Bargnani is … premium Jake Voskuhl?

Whatever man it’s all there if you squint hard enough, but hey, why squint at all? You’re missing the most important part: NASH IS A CANADIAN ICON.

Look man, Nash used to be my favorite player and watching this floppy-haired Canadian dude toss lobs to Marion on theScore’s Court Cuts in 2004 was the reason I became a fan of basketball in the first place. Now you’re telling me he’s gonna come home to play for the Raptors? Fuck yeah, go Colangelo go!

It’s also worth mentioning that Nash was still playing at an All-Star level. The man was 37, but he had just led the Suns to the Western Conference Finals. In 2011–12, Nash averaged 12.5 points and 10.7 assists with shooting splits of .532/.390/.894, and the plan was for the greatest Canadian of all-time to replace Jose Calderon?

Sign me up, BryCo.

Now this is going to be fun

The Raptors should have had Nash on lock. Colangelo is tight with him from the Phoenix days. Nash is from Canada. The Raptors could offer him the most money. How could they not get him?

Here’s the problem: Toronto was up against two of the league’s biggest markets in the New York Knicks and the Los Angeles Lakers.

And remember, this wasn’t 2016 when the Raptors are awesome and DeRozan re-signs with the team without even taking a meeting from the Lakers franchise he idolized growing up.

Nah man, this was 2012. The Raptors were facing serious competition. This kind of competition:

The Lakers didn’t have any money, but they were putting together a superteam. They already had Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol (in their twilight, but still) and they were about to add a legitimate MVP candidate in Dwight Howard. Nash would have never switched sides to pair up with Bryant in his earlier years, but Nash was getting old, and he didn’t have no ring on his finger.

Plus there’s the allure of Los Angeles, and the newly-divorced Nash wanted to be near his daughters who were situated in Phoenix. PHX to LAX is a 90-minute flight.

The Knicks had a pretty good case to make as well. They had Nash’s old friend Stoudemire, they had Carmelo Anthony, and they already ran an up-tempo run-and-gun offense left behind by Nash’s mentor Mike D’Antoni. It wasn’t a star-studded core like what Los Angeles was building, but New York could offer Nash more money than the Lakers, and while it was on the East coast, Nash adores the city. He was already living in New York during the summer — why not stay the whole year?

The point here is that the Raptors had competition, and if they were going to land Nash, they needed a game-changer.

Colangelo’s pitch

When free agency opened on July 1, the Raptors went at Nash with everything they had. They met the man in Manhattan for a two-hour pitch.

They brought Nash’s former Team Canada head coach Jay Triano, who the team had just fired. The franchise mended bridges faster than a Chinese construction crew on that one. (If only Canada Basketball did the same a decade earlier — maybe Nash would have spent more time tossing alley-oops to Joel Anthony with a maple leaf on his chest. Who knows?)

They showed Nash a video presentation featuring Wayne fucking Gretzky, the Brantford-bred god of stick puck. This is how I imagine that video went:

“Hey Steve, it’s Wayne. There’s an empty seat beside me right here. Why don’t you join me and Ronny Mac in the hall of Canadian icons? Please? Pretty please? Nevermind that nobody in the world cares about the Raptors and that they haven’t made the playoffs in four years. You can be a Canadian legend … wait you’ve already been christened by Nelly Furtado … well, you could be even MORE of a legend. Join me! Don Cherry will bring you Timmies every morning, I promise!”

Most importantly, they offered Nash a huge contract: three years, $36 million. You know how much that is in Canadian dollars? Like, probably $40ish million. That’s a lot of money! It’s more than what anyone else offered.

Of course, openly recruiting Nash alienated the fuck out of the team’s existing point guard in Jose Calderon, but the ham farmer wasn’t worried about none of that. Calderon beat Colangelo’s new point guard for the starting spot every year (get fucked: T.J. Ford, Marcus Banks, Jarrett Jack) and he sure as shit could take on Nash, who was pretty much the only point guard who played worse defense than Calderon.

But whatever. This is Steve freaking Nash we’re talking about.

Landry Fields forever

This is where poor Landry Fields got caught in this mess.

Fields used to be a feel-good story. He was a second-round pick out of Stanford who found himself in the perfect situation. He was playing in an up-tempo offense where all he needed to do was hit standstill threes and play defense. He did that beautifully during his rookie year with the Knicks in 2010–11, and he became a fan-favorite.

A year later, Fields’ play dropped off significantly. But he befriended Jeremy Lin at the exact right time and let him crash on his magical couch. Then a bunch of injuries happened and Lin became their only option at point guard. That led to the drunken (slightly racist) madness of Linsanity, and since Lin’s star skyrocketed, Fields tagged along for the ride. They’re still friends to this day. It’s a great story of how two Ivy Leaguers went on to have success in life (there aren’t enough of those).

They also created this handshake which is super corny and super adorable at the same time. Fields used to be a fan-favorite.

But there were signs of decline. Fields was great as a 3-and-D player in his rookie year, but he couldn’t hit threes as a sophomore (25.6 percent), and he allowed the 341st-most points per possession in 2011–12. And it’s not like he could do much else — Fields’ only other credible skill was rebounding.

So why did Colangelo randomly sign Fields to a three-year deal?

The poison pill that Colangelo ingested

Signing Fields wasn’t really about Fields, it was about Steve Nash. Get on Colangelo’s wavelength, buddy.

It goes like this: the Knicks could only offer Nash $3.1 million in a straight-up signing, but if they worked out a sign-and-trade with Phoenix involving Fields (who the Suns wanted), then the Knicks could pay a competitive salary to Nash.

But since the Raptors signed Fields to an offer sheet, the Knicks could no longer use him as a trade chip. If they matched, Fields wouldn’t be allowed to be moved in a sign-and-trade, and if they let him walk, then they still wouldn’t have a sign-and-trade.

Plus, even if New York wanted to keep Fields, he would have been subject to the poison-pill provision, which meant that Fields would get a weird bump in salary during the third season of his deal. The Knicks really couldn’t afford that when they committed over $60 million to Anthony, Stoudemire, and Tyson Chandler while also dealing with Lin’s free agency.

What a fucking brilliant plan. Colangelo effectively neutered New York with some crazy salary cap machinations using subtle intricacies of the newly-signed collective bargaining agreement.

Deadspin’s Barry Petchesky called it “Underhanded, and completely within the rules,” while also saying “Bryan Colangelo is an evil genius.”

Deadspin’s Barry Petchesky was wrong. (Sorry, Barry).

Whoops! Colangelo is not a genius.

There’s an old Chinese parable about the lucky fisherman.

One day a stork flew beside a riverbed and pecked a yawning oyster. The stork got his beak inside, but the oyster clamped down before he could be eaten, and this led to a quagmire. They would not let go. The two stood in a heated standstill for hours before a farmer caught them distracted and took both home for a delicious stork-oyster soup.

Seriously this is a real story told to billions of kids, and the moral is that when neighbours fight, nobody wins.

The Raptors were the stork, the Knicks were the oyster, and I guess Nash represents the heartless Darwinian struggle that united the two. The Lakers were the fisherman and they made themselves some goddamn stork-oyster soup. Yummy!

Nash ended up heading to Los Angeles, which made all of Colangelo’s efforts moot.

The extra money didn’t matter (Nash took a $9 million discount), Triano’s awkward presence didn’t matter, Wayne Gretzky’s video message didn’t matter, and sure as shit, signing Landry Fields to cockblock the Knicks definitely didn’t matter.

(Aside: I’ve always wondered why Colangelo didn’t do the simple thing and given Nash the money he dished out to Fields. Seriously, why do all this CBA shit with Fields? Why not just say to Nash: “Steve, I’m about to lose my job. Help me help you, and take this two-year, $36-million deal. If it doesn’t work out then you can still chase a ring.” Wouldn’t that have been so much fucking simpler? Would the perennially underpaid Nash have turned that much money down?)

Since Nash was off the table, and since they had a better player in Iman Shumpert waiting in the wings, the Knicks declined to match and that’s how Fields landed on the Raptors.

Landry Fields not forever

Whatever. So the Raptors got Fields. No big deal he fits a need anyway, right?

Nah. Fields suffered a nerve injury in his shooting elbow and never recovered. Forget not being able to shoot — Fields hardly saw the floor. He played all of 1,575 minutes in three seasons with the Raptors. Compare that to the 2,541 minutes he played in his rookie year. Fields could still cut to the basket and moved the ball nicely, but that’s not enough to stay in the league.

Fields had exactly two notable moments with the Raptors.

The first was when he randomly played effective defense for five minutes against seven-time All-Star Joe Johnson in the 2014 playoffs. Johnson was killing everyone else, and Fields was the least dead out of the three players who guarded him. My guy Blake Murphy wrote like 20,000 words on that.

The second was the time Lowry channeled Allen Iverson and turned Victor Oladipo into the second coming of Antonio Daniels before setting up this three.

Why was this play notable? Look at how Fields is shooting that thing — it hurts me just to watch. That‘s how mangled his elbow was by the end. He was signed to be a 3-point specialist, and by the end, that shot ended up being his only make of the 2014–15 season.

Fields has been out of the league ever since. His elbow refuses to heal, and it’s gotten to the point where he’s tried learning to shoot with his left arm. In retrospect, I’m actually happy Colangelo gave him that deal. Fields had a promising NBA career stolen from him. Consider it worker’s compensation.

Oddly enough it all worked out

The universe has a strange way of working itself out, and it’s a bit more complex than I let on, but perhaps it was karma that led the Raptors to where they are today.

Having whiffed badly on Nash, Colangelo pivoted to Plan B. He dealt a future first-rounder to Houston in exchange for Kyle Lowry. But before you start calling the present Raptors “Colangelo’s creation”, keep in mind that this was No. 3 Kyle Lowry, chubby and moody Kyle Lowry, the one who couldn’t start over Jose Calderon Kyle Lowry.

The Raptors won 34 games in 2012–13, and Colangelo was mercifully let go.

Lowry grew into a franchise player in the long run. But at the time, he was just another short-term solution that didn’t pay off soon enough to save Colangelo. The best laid plans of mice and men go awry, or they go completely perfectly — that’s really in shammgod’s hands.

As for the Knicks, well, they went on to enjoy a 54-win season before their house of cards came crashing down. Still, neither one of Field nor Nash would have fixed that.

Ironically, what could have saved them from their demise was trading for Lowry when Colangelo’s successor Masai Ujiri wanted to rebuild in 2013, but they didn’t because the Knicks are dumb. Again, the best laid plans and all of that.

Finally, the Lakers got the superteam they wanted, but it was a disaster right from the start. Who would have thought that a team heavily-reliant on some old dudes would get so injured? Nash got hurt. Kobe got hurt. Pau was disenchanted. Even Dwight got hurt. The Lakers have been in the shitter ever since, and they would have been in even more trouble had some lottery balls not bounced their way, because they dealt two future first-rounders in the sign-and-trade for Nash. That deal looks awful.

In the end, the Raptors didn’t get the hometown kid, Colangelo couldn’t save his job, and the team randomly ended up signing Landry Fields to a lavish contract that paid literally no dividends.

And yet it all worked out for the best. The world is weird like that.