on the defensive end than the color of his skin. Opposing vets are just about always going to make first-year players prove they can handle the grown man's game rather than simply take it on faith, after all. As Eric Koreen of The National Post noted, Stauskas "frequently got caught up in a web of Raptors screens" and was lit up by third-year swingman Terrence Ross "for eight quick points in the second quarter, including a dunk that was a result of a poor pass from Stauskas."

It's also worth remembering that while he showed good size, ball-handling ability and athleticism to go with his dead-eye stroke at Michigan, Stauskas didn't exactly burnish his defensive reputation at the NCAA level. After reviewing his college tape, many scouting breakdowns peggedStauskas as a prospective defensive liability in the pros for a number of reasons — subpar foot speed, unremarkable wingspan, poor awareness when navigating screens and tracking his man off the ball, tendency toward poor closeouts, struggles at stalling penetration at the perimeter, etc.

It's a sound bet that all those notes have made their way into advance reports across the league, and Raptors head coach Dwane Casey knows full well how to find and exploit weak links in the opposition, even in comparatively meaningless preseason affairs. Besides, it's not like white players are the only ones who suffer from any of those shortcomings.

And yet, there's an element of Stauskas' assessment of the way he's looked at that's almost certainly right. It's a size-you-up evaluation seen on courts in