Raptors: 3 fun lineups when Pascal Siakam and Yuta Watanabe return

3. The Shakeup

• Scottie Barnes
• Fred VanVleet
• OG Anunoby
• Pascal Siakam
• Khem Birch

Bench: Dalano Banton, Malachi Flynn, Gary Trent Jr., Svi Mykhailiuk, Precious Achiuwa

This lineup is a little quirky, but this is more an exercise than an expectation.

Addressing the elephant in the room, yes, I’ve moved Scottie to the point here and shifted VanVleet to the 2. Barnes has been showing some serious court vision so far in his rookie year, and the NBA is all about the athletic point-forward right now, so maybe Scottie gets some run at the helm.

It’s not a knock on VanVleet, who’s been showing people that he is a quality starting point guard and not just an undersized shooting guard.

Getting Barnes some consistent experience running the show can only help him develop, his handles or ability to initiate the offense. He’s got the confidence to learn it, and if it leads to a driving dunk from the top, I’m not going to complain.

Will the Toronto Raptors unveil an unconventional lineup?

Svi at the 4-spot isn’t something that works in theory, but the idea here is that the Raptors would be running a lot of partial subs and rotations to mask his deficiencies.

As far as the Siakam-Achiuwa-Birch trio is concerned, Nurse could keep two on at any time while resting one, allowing the Raptors to tap into what’s become a large guard and wing talent pool.

Flynn has touched the court in the last few games, with his play against the Cavs impressing. He’s too darn talented to keep rooted to the bench, so someone else has to get axed.

That someone is Chris Boucher, who has been struggling to find his game lately. Maybe some time out of the rotation will let him rediscover himself.

Nurse seems to have a longer leash for Achiuwa than Boucher, which likely comes down to youth. Precious staying over Boucher or not isn’t in any way impacted by Achiuwa’s absolute evisceration of Corey Kispert, but it does show where his ceiling is at.