SPORTS SCENE
FROM CATHOLIC PRIEST TO NBA CHAMPION THE PASCAL SIAKAM STORY BY CARTER BROOKS
T
he Toronto Raptors are National Basketball Association world champions. For the first time since the league’s founding in 1946, ‘O Canada’ was played before the start of every game in the NBA Finals. Even more importantly, the Larry O’Brien Trophy found its way north of the 49th parallel for the summer of 2019, following the Raptors’ four-games-to-two NBA championship victory over the highly-favoured Golden State Warriors. Led by one of the league’s very best in Kawhi Leonard, the Raptors found success across the board in the 2019 postseason, relying on the sharp-shooting of Fred VanVleet and Danny Green, the persistence and leadership of Kyle Lowry, and the incredible emergence of third-year power forward Pascal Siakam. Siakam — a 25-year-old product of Douala, Cameroon — had himself a 201819 season to remember, and a postseason for the ages. The 6-foot-9, 230-pound forward not only earned an NBA championship trophy and ring this past June, but was also presented with the league’s Most Improved Player Award at the annual awards show just weeks after the The Finals.
28 SEVEN SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2019
