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TSN Raptors Reporter

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VANCOUVER - When the Toronto Raptors opened training camp on Tuesday morning DeMarre Carroll was on the court with his teammates, a full participant in their first practice session and one of the last players out of the gym.

It's a small victory to be sure and only the first step in getting his career back on track, but it's something he's spent the last eight months working for.

Carroll is getting set to begin his second season with the Raptors but, following a lost 2015-16 campaign, it doesn't quite feel like it.

"I look at it basically like my first season," said the 30-year-old forward. "It's a new season, a new beginning, so I've just got to come in and get back to playing DeMarre Carroll basketball when I'm healthy."

When will he be fully healthy again? Nobody, himself included, can be sure. Admittedly, he's not 100 per cent, although he has been cleared to play after going through a strenuous summer of rehabilitation on his surgically repaired right knee.

After missing 56 of 82 regular season games last year - the bulk of them after his January procedure - Carroll played in all 20 playoff contests, but never looked like himself. Once the team was eliminated in late May, he took a month off to rest before spending the remainder of the offseason working to get his knee right once and for all.

"We took a hard approach about it and we did it the right way," Carroll said. "Last season was more of a rush, trying to get me back and we didn't go through the whole thing that we needed to go through to get the knee where it needed to be. I feel like we're on the right track (now)."

He just started playing basketball again last week and the results have been encouraging. Carroll says he hasn't had any setbacks and the swelling that delayed his return last season is now gone. The next step in his recovery will depend on how his knee reacts to practices and, ultimately, game action while the medical staff and coaches continue to monitor him closely.

"I thought he did a good job," Dwane Casey said following Monday's practice. "We went pretty hard, pretty long, but he did a good job. He competed. His conditioning, just like everybody else, is not in midseason form right now, but health-wise he looked good. He was moving his feet and I saw no ill effects of his injury."

Casey plans to keep Carroll's minutes down during the preseason, which begins Saturday against the Warriors in Vancouver, but expects him to be ready to go without limitations for opening night on October 26.

Simply put, they need him.

After a quiet offseason that saw Masai Ujiri bring most of his core back, Raptors fans are wondering how this can be a better team in 2016-17. A healthy Carroll would help a great deal. One of the league's most sought-after free agents in the summer of 2015, Ujiri signed Carroll to a four-year, $58 million deal, but after getting hurt five games in, he never looked like the player Toronto paid for, the one coming off a career year with the Hawks.

In Carroll, the Raptors hope to add an elite perimeter defender and proficient outside shooter to a club that won 56 games without him at full strength.

"(He makes) a big difference," DeMar DeRozan said. "It was tough for us last year to figure out ways to play without him. Even when he was playing early on, he was hurt and when he came back, he wasn't his full self and we still managed to make history. To have him back at the start of camp and be able to implement him fully is going to give us everything that we've been searching for."

"The most important thing with DeMarre is just his spacing the floor," Casey added. "He's a great three-point shooter and really gives us the spacing we need with Kyle (Lowry) and DeMar handling the ball, attacking off the dribble. So that's what we need from him, his defensive presence and his spacing. He did a great job of accepting that role last season, it's the role he had in Atlanta and that's what we need from him. He takes us from a pretty good team to a (very) good team when he does that."

Given his skill set and Toronto's lack of depth at the small forward position, Carroll just might be the Raptors' most important player outside of Lowry and DeRozan. For now, his value is mostly speculative as the team brings him along slowly and hopes for the best. He's their wild card.

"It's a work in progress," said the eight-year NBA veteran. "I can't put a timeline on it. We're just working everyday and I feel like it's getting better everyday. So I'm just happy that I'm able to get back on the court to play. I'll be 100 per cent for sure, sometime, but I don't know when."