Scottie Barnes is finally being weaponized perfectly on the offensive end

Álvaro Obregón was born a rural farmer, the youngest of 18 children. He was remarkably skilled with his hands, as a worker and inventor, but during the Mexican Revolution he joined an irregular militia after rebels rebelled against the last rebel who had won the presidency. (It was a complex revolution.) Obregón was a military genius, eventually rising to become one of the most popular and strongest leaders of the revolution. He even defeated the unbeatable Pancho Villa, who had risen in rebellion (for something like the seventh and not the last time). And Obregón used the lessons of those two careers, inventive worker and military genius, to propel himself to the presidency of Mexico for a time. He was (arguably) a good president, bringing solidity, meaningful labour relations, and some measure of much-needed land reform. 

Two careers, with vastly different skills, combined in the favour of Obregón and all Mexico. 

There have been a variety of lessons learned over the years in which Scottie Barnes first supported another core, and then led his own, with the Toronto Raptors. All of them have been bearing fruit so far this season. And like Obregón before him, Barnes has been using the lessons of his two different careers as a Raptor to build an idealized synthesis.

Of all the changes, perhaps the simplest and easiest to have predicted is that Barnes is best alongside floor spacing. That makes sense. Virtually every NBA player is. But Barnes especially. He is an outrageously brilliant passer yet a limited driver who has trouble getting his hips past his primary defender. So extra space, with digs having to travel a few extra feet in order to attack his dribble, allows him both to catalyze his passing and his driving, in different ways. 

Therefore, Barnes has been unlocked by playing alongside the unbelievably talented offensive big, Sandro Mamukelashvili. That has shown up in the numbers He has been scoring 45.9 points per 100 possessions with Mamukelashvili on the floor (net rating of plus-23.2) and 23.1 points per 100 possessions without him (net rating of negative-11.4). As a point of comparison, that scoring rate with Mamukelashvili is equivalent to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s overall rate so far this season, fourth in the league, while the rate without him is equivalent to Vince William jr.’s overall rate on the year, below the 100th ranked on the year. 

So Barnes has been best with a floor spacer. Part of that is the limitations of Jakob Poeltl on the year, due to injury, but Barnes’ net rating with Poeltl on the floor over his entire career is plus-1.7. Space has been kind to Barnes. 

That has only been a small component of the changes in Barnes’ game.

The sets in which Barnes is seeing touches have changed dramatically. He’s seeing far fewer static isolations and post-ups. He’s finishing about half as many possessions as the pick-and-roll ballhandler. Meanwhile, he’s finishing more than twice as many possessions as the pick-and-roll screener. (And, yes, he generally slips out of on-ball screens, which services himself as a scorer far more than it services his guards. That’s fine because he has been such a brilliant scorer on the catch in those scenarios. I discussed this at great length with Samson here.) He’s cutting more. He’s using more possessions in transition while also finishing much more efficiently in the open court. 

At one point midway through the third quarter against the Milwaukee Bucks, Barnes slipped a screen for Immanuel Quickley and darted into open space. Quickley missed the pass, but Barnes relocated to the corner and received the ball. He could have isolated (and likely would have last year), but instead he toggled into a handoff with Quickley, slipped again into the middle of the floor, caught the ball, shot-faked, and laid the ball down to Mamukelashvili, cutting from the weakside, for a layup. That’s tremendous basketball, and his impact, value, and usage are all coming in a different way from his flow last season. 

Barnes’ game has relied less on dribbling and more on strength, less on creation and more on finishing, less on stasis and more on movement. All of this is excellent. 

When Barnes has been shooting the ball from beyond the arc, the means by which he comes by those shots has changed, too. Last season, a third of his triples were pull-ups, while 14.6 percent of his triples came from the corners. This season, 29.7 percent of his triples have been pull-ups, while 29.7 percent of his triples have come from the corners. Translation: he’s taking easier triples, more within the flow of the offence and from shorter distances, too. 

His usage rate is down, assist rate is down, driving rate is down. And his efficiency is up. And so too is Toronto’s offence. The team currently sits as the seventh(!)-ranked offence in the league after limping to 25th last season. Of course Ingram deserves credit there. But Barnes’ changes have added a tremendous amount of value beyond his box-score output, which looks similar to last season at first glance. But he isn’t playing the same on that end at all. 

In many ways, Barnes has returned to a portion of the role that brought him into the league. He was asked to create his own chances as a rookie by attacking closeouts, grabbing offensive rebounds, and making himself available with cuts and timely motion. All of that is back with a vengeance (although he does seem to be prioritizing transition defence over too much crashing of the offensive glass to this point of the season). But it’s in conjunction with more initiation than he had back then, more shooting, more scripted involvement in sets. 

As a result, Barnes is combining the best elements of the two stages of his career thus far. 

This is of course due to Barnes’ own talents and abilities. But it’s also a monstrous credit to Darko Rajakovic. 

Almost a week ago I wrote the strongest criticism of Rajakovic I’ve mustered during his tenure as the head coach of the Raptors. Toronto’s defence was failing. And to his credit, the team has pulled a complete 180 and begun performing far better. (Which, to be fair, has also involved implementing a number of tactical changes on the defensive end, which was also what I called for in my criticism above.) 

But through the defensive roller coaster of Toronto’s season to this point, the offence has remained remarkably consistent. Rajakovic took three wings who ostensibly like the same areas of the court and has turned them into impressive complements. Most significant in the blending of their talents has been the usage of Barnes. Barnes has been optimized, maximized, perfected. And none of this even mentions his defence, which is near the top of the league and has been consistently sublime for years to this point. (Not that single-number metrics matter, especially this early in the season, but advanced stats have him in the top 15 most impactful players in the league so far.)

In many ways, the Mexican Revolution ended with Obregón. Like so many of his predecessors, he was assassinated. But because of his brief stint as president, relatively little war and chaos followed his reign. And while he was alive, he did the best he could, for as long as he could, with the means available to him. That too is similar to Barnes’ role right now. The Raptors aren’t perfect, and there will surely be more struggle in the future. But so far through this season, Barnes’ performance on offence is the least of the team’s worries. In many ways, it represents the ceiling of Toronto’s ability.

Barnes has finally become both a floor- and a ceiling-raiser. He and Rajakovic are using the lessons from the last four seasons to congeal Barnes’ abilities into the perfect role. If anything should give the 4-4 Raptors hope, it is this: Barnes has finally realized his perfect role. That, more than anything else, is the solid lodestone upon which Toronto’s future can be built.

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