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Former Raptor Yuta Watanabe is healthy and playing well — for the Brooklyn Nets

You could call it one of the more unexpected developments of the opening month of the NBA season.

Heading into Tuesday’s slate of games, the league leader in three-point shooting percentage was a player beloved by Raptor fans, albeit no longer playing for the Raptors. That’d be Yuta Watanabe, the 28-year-old from Japan who spent the previous two seasons as a hard-hustling fan favourite in Toronto. Heading into Tuesday, Watanabe, now a member of the Brooklyn Nets, was connecting on a league-topping 57.1 per cent of his attempts from behind the three-point line.

Which raised the question: Why, exactly, couldn’t he be doing that for the Raptors?