Scottie Barnes’ and Toronto’s seasons have been an enormous gamble
The French were tired of having their lands sacked by the Vikings. The speed of the raiders on the coast and in the rivers made them a near unbeatable foe for the French. But after different French leaders won a few skirmishes, King Charles III (known as The Simple) saw an opportunity. He converted Viking leader Rollo to Christianity and gave him the fiefdom of Normandy. Those Viking descendants thus colonized Normandy, and later England.
It was a big swing from King Charles. But it paid off.
The Toronto Raptors are in the midst of a big swing of their own. There are questions that need answering — and if they go unanswered, that would stove huge risks into Toronto’s rebuilding process. What will this team look like as a championship roster? Who will still be on it that is currently on the roster? How will it play offence? Defence? Who fits together, and who doesn’t? These are big, identity-based questions.
This season is largely about finding answers to those questions, as well as making sure a huge amount of talent is injected into the team via internal improvement, trades, free agency, and, most of all, the draft. So, losing helps.
Thus as long as the Raptors are benefited from losing, it would behoove them to try to cheat the test in answering those questions. Force the correct answers to be whatever you write. See if you can game the system, as it were.
In other words: What if Scottie Barnes is so good, so fast, at so many different components of the game, that it shifts what is required in terms of winning? Then who fits alongside him? Rather than trying to answer the test, the Raptors figured they might just be able to rip up the paper, instead. Tie the league in its own Gordian Knot, then rip through it.
So Toronto funneled as much responsibility as possible to Barnes this season. He’s touching the ball almost 10 extra times a game as compared to last year, and each touch averages approximately 0.5 extra seconds and 0.5 extra dribbles. Add it all together, and he’s holding the ball for more than a full minute per game as compared to last year. He’s up to 12th in touches per game, sandwiched in between Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jayson Tatum.
If all that doesn’t go great, that’s fine, the Raptors already know what works for him, and it’s important to find out what else can. Losing is the process of answering those questions isn’t such a big deal anyway. And if it goes great, even better.
Our own Samson Folk called it a metamorphosis:
However, Barnes is without question working on things. It’s different and it’s more difficult now, but this is just a step in his career towards a better version of himself. With Barnes’ talents he’s made a lot of difficult things look easy and he rode that to an early All-Star selection. Now, he’s doing the difficult things that look difficult for him. We’ll see how much of it becomes easy with time.
But instead of a man turning into a beetle, this time it’s a man turning into a star.
Things have changed slightly since Samson wrote that wonderful piece. Not everything looks difficult. In fact, he has largely been masterful since a down stretch that had both Samson (and myself, here) opining about the changes to Barnes’ role this season.
First let’s get the easy stuff out of the way: The defence is flat-out working.
Toronto had the number-one defence in the league for two weeks straight — and by an enormous margin, with the gap between Toronto and second-place larger than the gap between second-place and 12th-place. Barnes has been the alpha and omega on that end, eating the sun and belching the moon. His event creation (read: steals and blocks) have been up to the level they were to start the 2023-24 season, and he’s been defending in isolation, helping in gaps to steer drives, protecting the rim, and cleaning the glass. (He’s actually eating glass like few other non-centers in the league — he’s fourth among non-centers in defensive rebounds per game over the last few weeks). Plus his deny defence on some matchups has taken players like Paolo Banchero or Kyle Kuzma out of games for long stretches at a time. It’s been marvelous. The team is only up to, well, 25th on the season. But Barnes’ individual on/offs defensively are in the 96th percentile; his individual defensive impact is near the top of the league. But we already knew he was great defensively. His offensive role has seen the major change so far this season.
Perhaps most significantly, the wing stuff is starting to hit. Exhibit One: Barnes, starting to win awards like Eastern Conference Player of the Week. Not everything is perfect — he’s not 2020 Paul George or 2024 Giannis Antetokounmpo or anything like that. Perhaps most relevant, right off the bat, for not being perfect: Barnes’ 3-point accuracy is down to 26.9 percent on the season. That craters his overall efficiency. But outside of that, his improvement virtually everywhere is real and meaningful.
Barnes’ inside-the-arc scoring has started to click. Darko Rajakovic has repeatedly insisted ever since joining the organization that Barnes has to be a scorer first before the rest of his superpowers can impact the game the way they are meant to. And we’ve started to see the concept of that manifest on the court.
Barnes’ role is increasingly required to create his own offence — 56.4 percent of his 2-pointers are unassisted, which is the 10th-highest rate in the league among wings and forwards to have appeared in 30 or more games and averaged 20 or more minutes. Of the nine players above him, seven were All Stars this year or last, and the others were DeMar DeRozan and Deni Avdija. In other words, Barnes has been asked to create for himself like few others at his size.
Some parts have gone… fine. Better than they used to be, at least. As an isolation scorer, Barnes is up to shooting 42.9 percent from the field on the season. That’s nothing to write home about, but in the past he’s been well below league average in isolation situations. His turnovers remain sky-high in such static situations, but he’s doing more to actually create for himself from a standstill. Turnovers come with the game of ‘trying stuff.’ And he’s making more shots than before.
Isolation is far from the determinant of his offence, but it’s a canary in the coal mine indicating improvement as a scorer, as well as the type of looks upon which he is relying when asked to create for himself.
The real meat of his improvement shows up with more punch in other areas. Over the years, the quality of his driving and post games has been steadily improving. He is far from the league leader in either area, but he has been creeping up that leaderboard. Among players to have appeared in 30 or more games this season, he’s up to 36th in drives per game (and 11th among forwards) and 16th in post-ups per game (and eighth among forwards). He’s starting to have go-to actions.
His post-game is becoming significantly more refined. It’s rare for players to see jumps across the board in frequency of action as well as its efficiency. But that’s exactly what’s happening here. Barnes is posting up more, making more shots out of posts, and drawing more free throws.
He’s comfortable in the post. Moving slow, in a good way. Making 48 percent his shots from the short mid-range, a career high. Most of his post touches used to end in jump hooks. But these days, he has a much deeper bag. The fadeaway jumper is the foundation of his post game, and he is comfortable fading over both his left and right shoulders. It’s turning into a solid look, no matter the context — great players need a tool like that. He can get that shot up over anyone, even if he’s more accurate when he’s facing a switch.
His former go-to moves, including hooks and step-throughs, are now excellent counters when defenders try to overplay the jumper. Using the jumper as the primary pitch and the hook as the curve ball is a more natural approach to scoring, and it’s working better.
His playmaking from the post is obviously excellent. It always has been. But with more scoring punch from the post, he has more playmaking opportunities this year than in the past. Barnes has been drawing double-teams in the post more frequently, including in games against the Chicago Bulls and New Orleans Pelicans. At times he has simply spun away from the double to shoot, but he’s also found immediate gold in passing to cutting bigs for layups when the doubles come from areas that empty the paint. That’s the real payoff for Barnes; his superpower is passing, so scoring is really only significant insofar as it unlocks more high-value passing opportunities. That’s been happening more this year.
Barnes’ post-ups have been great, and his driving game has improved by just as wide a margin. It, too, is built on the same foundation.
Barnes’ drives have largely been reaching the short mid-range, rather than smashing all the way to the rim. This is the platonic ideal of such driving for middies — on-balance, patient, and decisive.
The Giannis Antetokounmpo comps have always been a little bit hopeful, and perhaps the largest reason is this: Antetokounmpo dunks more drives than anyone else. That’s why he is able to shoot a ridiculous 60 percent on drives. Barnes is generally left pulling up from approximately six feet. That’s he’s scratching 50 percent is incredibly impressive, given the shot diet on which he’s subsisting when he puts the ball on the floor. He creates enough layups and hits enough of those jumpers that his driving is one of the most impactful results an offensive possession can create for Toronto.
And the passing — as with virtually every area of Barnes’ offensive game — is the real paydirt. The superpower. Barnes’ assist rate on drives is ninth in the league among those with at least 10 drives per game, and second among non-initiating guards. His ability to dime cutters, find shooters — and do it all on the move — is nearly unparalleled. He reads dynamic situations, which are created by his drives, better than virtually anyone, meaning he’s able to play with tempo advantage when he puts the ball on the floor. The key is entering the defensive shell and engaging the second line of defence. This doesn’t get unlocked to this extent without his improvement as a mid-range jump-shooter. The improvement all flows together, mutually reinforcing, like a healthy ecosystem.
Barnes has seemed to be driving slower than he ever has before. That means he’s not always driving past his defender when he’s initiating sets, but he’s doing a good job penetrating deeper as a secondary attacker, catching against closeouts, cutting, or screening and catching. When he gets a step, he’s bashing and bruising his way to his spots. His screens have been creating better contact in recent weeks, giving him extra space on the catch for his drives. (Again: Everything adds together.) And one advantage to his glacial pace is creating longer passing windows, especially as he gets to his spots with strength, not rapidity. Defenders don’t seem comfortable playing in the lento time signature in which Barnes is happiest. There’s money in them there hills.
This is all good, and all improvement. Barnes is taking more 2-pointers than ever, and he’s tying his career-high efficiency on them, all while taking more mid-rangers and drawing more free throws. But even all that’s not enough to lift Toronto’s offence into that required-for-a-championship category of elite. For all Barnes’ own improvements, Toronto’s half-court offence has been slightly worse on the season with him playing than him on the bench. That is largely due to Barnes’ start to the year, riddled with injury and defined by a dalliance with pull-up triples. Over the last few weeks, Toronto’s offence has been significantly better with Barnes on the court versus on the bench, though it’s still not the best mark on the team. (RJ Barrett, beneficiary of context, has enjoyed that distinction.) And even during the team’s best two weeks, mashing its way to the league’s best defence, the offence still ranked 22nd.
As it stands, even though Barnes is improving in virtually all areas of offence outside of distance accuracy, he’s not an upper-echelon isolation scorer, nor a hit-the-paint-every-time driver. Enormous wings who lead great offences generally fall into one of those two categories.
There’s no precedent for a player like Barnes leading an elite offence. What’s the closest comparison? Steve Nash but almost a foot taller? Nash may not have opted to score all that often, but he had an effective field goal percentage of 57.7 during his latter stint in Phoenix. Barnes is at 50.9 percent for his career. (Again, if he hit his triples, that would look much better.) Magic Johnson? That comparison may be closer, but Magic was an automatic paint touch with a much springier first step and tighter handle — Barnes doesn’t have those qualities, at least not yet.
“I think he is who he is,” said Darko Rajakovic. “I want Scottie Barnes to be the best version of himself. I don’t want him to be — and to compare himself with — anybody else… He has such a unique presence in [his] force, the way he’s passing the ball, the way he sees the court, the way he sees the game.
“I think he needs to be himself. I think that he’s going to continue to improve his finishing at the rim and touching the paint and playmaking from there, but also he’s developing his mid-range game and 3-point game. There is so much that he can offer. So I do think that he is unique, and I stand by my statement that he’s going to be the face of the league.”
Maybe Barnes finds his way to being an offensive monster, leading a top-five offence, all in his own way. It’s hard to know what it would look like, but that’s the point of being unprecedented. Development comes in sine waves, first looking like this type of player, then that, all moving forward in herky fits and jerky starts until he ends up at his magnificent destination.
Or maybe Barnes just becomes the traditional type of huge wing leader. The isolation monster, the constant driving force. He’s getting closer and closer every year. In many ways, that’s what this season is about. Identifying if he can mimic superstars of the past. If that doesn’t work, there’s always his uniqueness to fall back on.
Skill-wise, he does seem to be ready to be one of the best few players on a deep-playoff team. He just does so much, on both ends, to win possessions. But a perceived leadership vacuum in the darkest moments of the season can’t be ignored. There have been moments during hard stretches, both this year and last — the two seasons during which the franchise rests in the palm of Barnes’ hands — when he is not the one gathering the team together. He’s 23 years old, and all 23-year-olds need to mature. So it would be abnormal if he was a finished product as a leader already. Of course, the best players in the league generally are abnormal in such regards. We shouldn’t overreact to his not being the most mature leader yet, but neither can it be ignored. To be fair, that he has engineered a turnaround to Toronto’s season over the last few weeks might render such concerns moot. Another question mark: He’s still not an average-efficiency scorer, even though the 2-point stuff is starting to be drawn with pen rather than pencil. It’s better. But it’s not there yet.
Taken all together, this season has been one of small steps forward in a variety of areas. The Raptors have taken a big swing on both Barnes’ role and the team-building process this season. Big swings can end up in all sorts of results. Many of MLB’s home run leaders are near the top of the strikeout list, too. King Charles the Simple undertook a risky plan. So too are the Raptors. It seems clear, at this point, that the team is not striking out in the process. But work and time are still necessary in order for this season’s attempt to result in a dinger.
The post Scottie Barnes’ and Toronto’s seasons have been an enormous gamble first appeared on Raptors Republic.