As we continue to revisit Kawhi Leonard's transcendent four-bounce shot, we probably forget that the first official bounce of a Toronto Raptors basketball was in Hamilton.

The expansion team's inaugural NBA training camp, over the first two weeks of October 1995, was at Copps Coliseum. For the new, or forgetful, that was what FirstOntario Centre was once called. The new collection of "maybe" and "was" players stayed right next door at the Sheraton and walked to their new jobs. The settlement of a long and bitter labour dispute shortly before had allowed camp to open on time.

The Raptors even played two regular-season " home" games in Hamilton during that season, the first on Boxing Day against — how delicious is this? — the Milwaukee Bucks. Beat 'em, too, 93-87 for their first win against a divisional opponent on the way to a 61-loss season.

"I remember we had two basketball floors right beside each other, running across the rink instead of lengthwise, because of the Olympic-sized surface," says Glen Grunwald who was then the team's assistant general manager. He went on to become the GM who brought Vince Carter to Toronto, before later careers as athletic director at McMaster and, now, CEO of Canada Basketball.

"That was a big part of the evolution of the Toronto Raptors. Hamilton was already part of it by hosting a lot of games in the 1994 world championship that helped John Bitove launch the Raptors."

The Raptors would play all but nine games — three in Hamilton and six at Maple Leaf Gardens — of their first three-and-a-half seasons in cavernous SkyDome before the ownership group that succeeded Bitove's sold out to what is now MLSE and moved into the Scotiabank Arena, nee Air Canada Centre. The SkyDome facility was like a Mechano set awkwardly floating inside a giant air hangar, so 1995's training camp, a couple of exhibition games and two regular-season matches in a traditional arena was a return to architectural reality for the players.

The Spectator put a full-court press on the Raptors, double-teaming training camp and many ensuing games, with now-retired John Kernaghan and his liquid prose doing the heavy lifting for several years.

"Obviously, the team revolved around (first draft choice) Damon Stoudamire ," Kernaghan recalls. "But the player who stands out in my memory is Oliver Miller, 'the Big O'. He wasn't the original round mound of rebound, but he fit the bill. The team had a retired cop as their security person and he spent most of his time trying to keep the Big O out of trouble.

"There was Alvin Robertson, who was charged with domestic assault the day before the first game, when the team had moved back to Toronto. And of course, the general manager was Isaiah Thomas, who's had about 25 jobs since then."

Other notables on that colourful first crew included Carlos Rogers, Acie Earl, Zan Tabak, Doug Christie and the fabulously outspoken John Salley.

John Lashway, now president of the Hamilton Honey Badgers, was a top executive with the Raptors and later MLSE.

"When we went into (FirstOntario Centre) last summer to refurbish the court for the Honey Badgers, I was aware it was the court we played on with the Raptors way back then," Lashway says. "I think the two defining landmarks of basketball in Canada were the NBA arriving and the CEBL starting up this year. So in the context of my own career, that floor kind of ties it all together."

Kernaghan and Lashway both recall original Raptors coach Brendan Malone using hockey analogies to address his new media audience.

"He talked about growing up in New York City, poor and wanting to play hockey," Kernaghan says. "So his dad made him shin pads out of magazines and transformed old work gloves into hockey gloves with Popsicle sticks on the fingers for protection."

Malone often spoke down to Canadian reporters, as the Blue Jays GM Peter Bavasi had done in the baseball team's early years, prompting the odd gentle reminder of where James Naismith grew up.

"The NBA almost underestimated the basketball knowledge of the people of Canada," Grunwald agrees.

Grunwald says the Bitove group "was the right ownership at the right time for the team. They focused on kids and family and newcomers to Canada, and that culture and that brand still exists for the Raptors today."

The Raptors were at Copps and not at U of T, where they held an earlier optional workout, or any other location because of Gabe Macaluso, then the CEO of HECFI, which ran the coliseum. Grunwald called him "an excellent host to the Raptors."

"It was exciting to have them here, because it showcased our facility not just as a concert venue but as a sports venue," Macaluso says. "We had media from all over the U.S. here and the publicity was huge.

"When we pitched Glen, we were thinking outside the box and tried to make it attractive to them. So we came up with the two-courts idea, which hadn't really been done. John Bitove had his court from the world championships. And we had our own floor, which was among the many amenities we could buy when the arena came in at $6 million less to build than originally required."

Let that last sentence sink in for a moment. Just like Leonard's shot.

smilton@thespec.com

905-526-3268 | @miltonatthespec

smilton@thespec.com

905-526-3268 | @miltonatthespec

Steve Milton | May 15, 2019 | The Hamilton Spectator