TORONTO — In a year when improvement up and down the Raptors lineup has been undeniable, picking one player as most improved is not an easy task.

We gave that tough job to Nick Nurse, the only returning assistant coach from last year’s staff and, outside of the coach and general manager, the man most able to judge just how far they have come.

Nurse is in his third year with the Raptors, all three which have seen the progression of all the potential MIP’s in the lineup — Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan, Patrick Patterson, Terrence Ross, and Jonas Valanciunas.

Nurse struggled to put one above the other, as all five have shown significant improvement from last year to this, but in the end he opted for Patterson, one of only two non-starters in the group.

“I’d probably say Pat,” Nurse said courtside before a recent game. “I think they have all made significant progress, and maybe Kyle has to be in the conversation because when I first got here three years ago, they were still trying to figure out whether he was a starter or an almost. Now he has elevated himself into a major player so that has to be a talking point, too.

“But Pat has obviously solidified himself as a really good defender who plays in pretty much all the crunch time minutes for us,” Nurse said. “He makes big shots, he’s developing his offensive game a little bit. He’s a good ball-mover. He’s a lot of things that slot in really nicely for what we need.”

Now, there was a time back in training camp when it seemed as if Patterson would be the starting power forward alongside Lowry, DeRozan, Valanciunas and a healthy DeMarre Carroll.

But for whatever reason, Patterson is just not comfortable in that role. So the decision to have him come off the bench was made and the decision-makers never wavered.

“I just think it’s one of those quirky things that he just doesn’t like to start,” Nurse said. “It just doesn’t fit him. There’s no real way to explain it and I don’t think it’s a real big deal. He’s put big minutes up. It’s not like he’s playing against second-unit guys all the time. He plays mostly all the fourth quarter for us a lot of times, so he’s playing in the guts of the game when it’s most important.”

Patterson’s numbers don’t jump off the page, but if you look, he is uniformly valuable across the board. Playing just less than 251/2 minutes a night, Patterson averages seven points, 4.4 rebounds, and 1.1 assists.

But if you ask Nurse, he’s just a guy whose presence on the floor means good things for the Raptors because he brings you what you expect every night now, a trait in the NBA that doesn’t get talked about a lot, but one that is extremely valuable.

“I would say he has made more strides defensively, but I would also say he has made strides consistently producing the same thing night in and night out,” Nurse said. “I think there were a little more extreme peaks and valleys with him and I think now you get a lot of what get night in and night out. Again, that is the sign of becoming an experienced pro in this league in that you put out a consistent effort. They expect what they’re going to get and they get what they expect is the right way to say it.”

Really, the gap between the most improved player and the next four guys isn’t that big. The Raptors aren’t a 50-plus win team if they are not seeing this kind of improvement from various positions.

Here is Nurse’s rundown of the other four returnees who have made huge jumps.

KYLE LOWRY

“I think he is obviously having a much better shooting year,” Nurse said. “We put some work in really early last spring on his shooting and I think he digested that and took that forward with him in his summer work. It was some minor technique teaching things that we cleaned up, but there’s two parts to it. Change it and then put in the work so we did one and he did the rest of it. So that’s big.

But there was also a change on the defensive end for the Raptor that makes everyone go.

“I think he’s been a much better defender,” Nurse said. “He’s got into people a little bit more consistently. A lot of that probably relates to his overall conditioning. And I think he has matured as a vocal leader of our team and a lead-by-example guy. You know, play your heart out, and a lot of guys follow that lead by him.”

DEMAR DEROZAN

Nurse laughs when it’s pointed out the entire NBA went ga-ga over Lowry’s new physique but few if any noticed the change in DeRozan.

Not that DeRozan has ever been out of shape, but his overall strength improved dramatically over the course of a summer.

Playing through contact to finish at the rim is no longer problematic for one of the hardest working Raptors in the off-season.

“Obviously, he continues to mature physically and he’s just getter bigger as all of us do as we get older,” Nurse said.

“He’s much better. I would say he has come a long way but he still has a ways to go.

“There’s still room for improvement there and playing through (contact) because that’s just the way it’s going to be for him.”

TERRENCE ROSS

The improvement for Ross wasn’t so much in what he could do.

He’s always been a guy who can knock down shots, but now he’s getting the chance to do it in a part of the game where he’s most effective.

“I guess you could say we found a groove for him, similar to Pat,” Nurse said.

“We found a guy that is a little bit better not starting and being more of a focal point of the second unit rather than just feeding off of what’s left over after Kyle and DeMar. And I think that was the key.

“(Head coach Dwane Casey) decided that was what we needed to do and start running more things for him, some really good stuff for him.

“Sometimes, that’s what guys need. They need to know, ‘Oh wow, my head coach thinks I can do this and they are calling my number,” and I think that kind of snowballed for him and I think that’s a big key to it, I really do.”

JONAS VALANCIUNAS

“Two things with JV — I think the schemes defensively this year have helped him and he’s been much, much better there.” Nurse said.

“Just protecting and playing a good big man role, protecting the rim, helping his teammates and clogging up the paint.

“And then one of the things I wanted to do with him when I went over (to Lithuania) last spring after the season was to just get him comfortable with the ball — more comfortable with handling, drilbble-handoffs, passing and following with a screen, reversing the ball.

“Just getting the ball away from the basket a little bit because he’s skilled, man. I just thought he had all those skills to do those things and we kind of had him a little trapped in this box around the block. I just wanted to re-enforce to him how talented and skilled he was and I think it helped him.”

JUST SHOOT THE DAMN THING, JV

If there is one player Nick Nurse got a crash course on last summer it was Jonas Valanciunas. When Valanciunas went home to Lithuania, Nurse followed him over soon after.

When Valanciunas headed back to North America to work out with the staff at the Las Vegas Summer League, Nurse was there. When JV went back overseas to represent Lithuania at the EuroBasket in Serbia, Nurse followed again.

And from it all, Nurse came away with a ton of respect for the young Raptor’s ability to shoot the basketball.

“He is such a great shooter. I am still begging him every day: ‘When you come off your guy and you’re wide open, just shoot the damn thing,’” Nurse said. “(The pump fakes) drive us all crazy. But it’s like he shoots litterally 60% from 10-16 feet. I don’t know how many times a week I tell him he’s a great shooter. He shoots 80-85% in the drills we do. It’s amazing how great a touch he has. He’s come a long way and we have some progress ahead of us coming with him as well.”