Top Raptors Stories of 2024: RJ Barrett is passing all expectations

Welcome to Raptors Republic’s new New Year tradition. As decided by you, the readers, it’s time to dive into the 10 most-most read editorials of the year at Raptors Republic. You can find the full top-10 list of released articles for 2024 (as each one is released) here.

I limited the list to editorials because news items and other pieces can often have more reads than columns. But these pieces — and I’m including post-game pieces — are the ones that take the most work, and in my eyes have the most value. So they’re the ones included in this list.

The year of 2024 has been one defined maybe most by change for the Toronto Raptors. Toronto traded OG Anunoby and Precious Achiuwa for Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett only two days before the year began. Then less than three weeks later, the Raptors traded Pascal Siakam away. A few weeks after that, the Raptors traded for Ochai Agbaji and Kelly Olynyk at the trade deadline. So 2024 began with major player movement, and much of Raptors Republic’s coverage to end the 2023-24 season reflected that. You’ll see a number of pieces covering those deals, or the impacts of them, on this list.

Then 2024-25 has largely been defined by an inability for Toronto to put all its new pieces on the floor at the same time. The presumptive starting lineup of Quickley – Gradey Dick – RJ Barrett – Scottie Barnes – Jakob Poeltl has played zero minutes together. Despite that, optimism has infused virtually every minute on the floor. Far more than would be expected for a team that is so far below .500. Stories of success and development abound — which also is reflected in our coverage, as well as on this list. It turns out, readers like the positive stories.

Without further ado, the No. 6 most-read story at Raptors Republic of 2024: “RJ Barrett is passing all expectations” by Samson Folk.

The NBA is a highwire act. What you see on TV is super close to capturing it, and it looks extremely difficult, and then you see it at court level; where the players seem way faster, way bigger. The passes are thrown with much more speed, players cover more ground, and any margin for error seems like it evaporates. That’s why asking a player to change their approach is really difficult, and we see change happen slowly over years.

What RJ Barrett has done in Toronto has been impressive for a multitude of reasons, but most importantly because the numbers would indicate that he’s changed his approach and done so quite rapidly. When I asked Barrett about this, he scoffed at me, shook his head saying: “I didn’t change a thing.” then continued to shake his head and repeated: “I didn’t change a thing. That’s just who I am. That’s just how I play.”

Without change, RJ Barrett has converted 18.2ppg/2.4apg/4.3rpg on 53% TS into 20.5ppg/3.5apg/6.9rpg on 61% TS. Big change. Not everything is in the baseline stats — and we’ll get into the massive change in the underlying stuff later — but RJ’s offensive numbers have gone from, fundamentally, a very low efficiency volume scorer to a high efficiency, second-side creator. That change is extremely meaningful.

You can read the rest of the piece here. And tune in tomorrow for number five!

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