So who should the Raptors pair Scottie Barnes with, anyway?
First he used platinum. It worked poorly. Later, fishing line. Hair, both human and coconut. Eventually, Thomas Edison settled on carbonized bamboo to use as the wire inside of his light bulb. He later said, (and I’m paraphrasing because I can’t find the exact quote, thanks AI): “I’ve not failed 1000 times in making a lightbulb. I’ve succeeded in proving 1000 ways not to make one.
The Toronto Raptors have something of a lightbulb situation on their hands. Teams don’t get 1000 chances to build rosters around one player. But they do get several. The Raptors have tried to pair Scottie Barnes with Pascal Siakam, with Immanuel Quickley, with Brandon Ingram. None has worked perfectly. Perhaps the Raptors have succeeded in proving several ways not to build around Barnes.
So how should they?
Let’s talk about preconditions. Barnes is a career 30.0-percent 3-point shooter on almost 1200 total attempts. At this point, it’s probably safe to say he’s a non-shooter. NBA defences treat him as such. So the best pattern on the court will likely be a shooter. It’s hard for teams to thrive offensively while having a non-shooter on the floor, let alone two.
And yet the Raptors have not been perfect with Quickley and Barnes together. In their total time together, the team has had a net rating of plus-2.4 together. Good. But not enough for a star duo partnership. To give a comparison, in Toronto’s championship season, the worst duo partnership within the starting lineup had a net rating of plus-9.2. (It was Kyle Lowry and Kawhi Leonard.)
Meanwhile, Ingram and Barnes this season have been more or less neutral, while the Raptors have boat raced opponents when Barnes plays without Ingram. That’s not the stuff of which star partnerships is made. And in almost 5000 minutes, the Raptors had a net rating with Siakam and Barnes of plus-1.7. Again: meh.
For a variety of reasons — including the other three players on the floor — the Raptors haven’t been able to build a winner around Barnes and Quickley. Putting shooting around Barnes may be a necessary condition for success, though it’s certainly not a sufficient condition.
Perhaps the most informative way of looking at the problem is not at who the Raptors have tried to pair with Barnes, but instead at alongside who Barnes has simply played the best. And that has a revealing answer: In his time as a Raptor, among two-man lineups that have played at least 500 minutes, Barnes’ best partner in terms of net rating has been Collin Murray-Boyles.
And that makes sense! Murray-Boyles is a defensive monster, much like Barnes himself. So arguably Toronto’s best approach to maximizing Barnes is not by ameliorating his weaknesses but instead by catalyzing his strengths. Their net rating together of plus-6.6 isn’t championship-level, but it’s the best Toronto has managed in Barnes’ five seasons as a Raptor.
Barnes and Murray-Boyles switch well, cover ground with exceptional rapidity when they’re off the ball, and allow Toronto to play aggressive with digs and help while remaining in the shell of its defence. Though such groups have fouled plenty on the defensive end, they have cleaned their own glass, forced heaps of turnovers, and basically disallowed easy shots of any kind. Opposing offences are forced late in the shot clock, can’t finish at the rim, and shoot sub-30 percent from the long mid-range. All told, Barnes-Murray-Boyles lineups rank in the 98th percentile leaguewide defensively.
So maybe Toronto’s best star partner with Barnes would be a defensive monster?
So we have shooting and defensive chops as two qualities the Raptors need to put alongside Barnes. A high-end combination of such skills actually hasn’t been possessed by a teammate of Barnes during his entire tenure. It might behoove the Raptors to try.
Here’s an incomplete list of players who fulfill those qualities:
Victor Wembanyama
Chet Holmgren
Derrick White
OG Anunoby
Okay, it’s actually really hard to find elite forms of those skills in combination. And none of those players are even remotely acquirable for the Raptors.
If you look instead for simply very good defenders, rather than the absolute best, the list adds:
Trey Murphy III
Brandon Miller
Anthony Edwards
Devin Booker
Franz Wagner
Mikal Bridges
Jaylen Brown
There’s really only one player there who seems to be available on that list: Murphy.
And I doubt a Murphy-Barnes-led team is a championship-level team. So maybe let’s add some preconditions. What Murphy lacks is self-creation ability and true driving talent. He’s driving 7.2 times per game this season and shooting a poorly 41.9 percent on such shots. While this has been a down year for him in that regard, he’s never in his career matched, for example, Barrett’s driving numbers from this season. Because Barnes is limited as a self creator and limited as an initiator, the Raptors probably want to pair him next to one of those. Quickly has been too limited from the guard spot, but perhaps another guard could fit the bill?
The Raptors could certainly use a star guard to replace or supplement Quickley. Such players are very rarely elite defensive players (White is sort of unique there)
Here’s a completely non-exhaustive list of guards who drive the ball a boatload, finish well on drives, and can create offence for themselves:
Jaylen Brown
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Cade Cunningham
Devin Booker
Jalen Brunson
Jalen Williams
James Harden
Donovan Mitchell
Luka Doncic
Darius Garland
Jamal Murray
Austin Reaves
Anthony Edwards
Now, most of those players remain of course off limits. (Anthony Edwards would be a nice pairing!) But there are some players who could theoretically be available. For example: Reaves has a player option after this season, which he will certainly decline. He will be an unrestricted free agent. The Raptors would have to move heaven and earth to free up cap space to actually offer him a contract, but there are ways of trying to acquire such players. Reaves would be worth a max contract for Toronto.
Similarly, will Phoenix balk at Booker’s $60-70 M contract from now until 2030? If so, the Raptors could pretty easily get to that number by combining some players such as Jakob Poeltl and Ingram. Throw in a pick or two to make the incentives work, and the Raptors could find a co-star for Barnes that, in my eyes, would fit far better than any other pairing the Raptors have yet tried.
If the Oklahoma City Thunder don’t win the championship this year, do they run from their upcoming tax bill and try to offload Williams before his upcoming max rookie contract? Does Mitchell eventually ask out of Cleveland?
Williams is the only listed player who is a defensive monster, a self creator, and a (at least, has been in the past) great shooter. Derrick White is maybe close enough as a creator, and he’s in many ways the best guard defender in the league. Reaves is no defensive plus, but he’s a huge offensive upgrade on Quickley — and, truly, any guard with whom Barnes has ever played.
At this point, the exercise has become one of circling the drain of fun names. But there are several lessons from this exercise that are worthwhile takeaways.
One, the Raptors haven’t done a fantastic job trying to find a co-star for Barnes. They have found players who can theoretically complement him, but none that are talented enough to create a true star pairing. Two, arguably the best way to build a winner around Barnes is by catalyzing strengths (defence) rather than ameliorating weaknesses (offensive creation). Three, if you are going to try to do both, you are looking at the best players in the league, who are completely inaccessible for Toronto.
So who should the Raptors pair Scottie Barnes with, anyway?
Someone better. Siakam, Quickley, and Ingram have been solid partners, and they have taught the Raptors valuable lessons. The Raptors haven’t failed to build a lightbulb as much as learned several ways how not to. And what have they learned? Perhaps the most obvious lesson but also most meaningful one: Toronto needs more talent. Barnes is very good, and defensively he’s exceptional. You can build a championship team around him. But he will need the right co-star. And the Raptors need to keep searching to find him.
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