Toronto Raptors rookie Scottie Barnes officially consigned his rookie season to the annals of NBA history by winning Rookie of the Year. While Evan Mobley and Cade Cunningham put up a very good fight, Barnes won out thanks to all of the traits that Masai Ujiri put such a premium on in the NBA Draft.
Barnes earned 48 of the 100 possible first-place votes. Mobley and Cunningham put up quite a fight thanks to their fantastic rookie seasons, but the voters seem to like what Barnes added to Toronto this season. They valued his season just a bit more when looking at the whole picture.
Barnes came to Toronto as a raw Florida State Seminole that was billed as an offensive liability and he’s left his rookie season as the best player from his individual class. Considering the shock and horror that gripped Toronto when Jalen Suggs was bypassed, Barnes has shut up all the haters.
Justice was served when Barnes became the third Raptors player in franchise history to take home this prestigious honor. Despite some terrific individual performances from Mobley and Cunningham, Barnes’ production stands atop both of them when pitted against one another.
Toronto Raptors: Scottie Barnes deserved Rookie of the Year
3. His two-way skill
Mobley, Cunningham, and Barnes are all excellent defenders. Mobley can protect the rim with the best of them and Cunningham’s frame has helped him become a dynamic perimeter pest. When combining his defensive responsibilities and his offensive duties, Barnes has more on his plate.
Barnes is defending all five positions with regularity and making a name for himself as both a small-ball center and a backup point guard when Fred VanVleet is out of commission. It’s rare for most starting forwards to have that much on their plate, let alone a 20-year-old.
Scottie Barnes does so much for the Toronto Raptors.
Barnes started the season off as just a rim-runner, but he’s quickly shown comfort with taking and making some big 3-pointers and setting up the offense as a primary ball-handler. Juggling those duties and playing some solid on-ball defense takes a ton of talent and feel for the game.
Barnes will need to make some major strides in his game before he can be considered an elite talent, but he can at least take solace in the fact that he has more in his toolbox than Mobley and Cunningham right now. The voters seem to agree that Barnes’ ability to dominate on both ends gave him the edge.
2. Scoring despite a reduced offensive role
Cunningham was afforded a luxury that Barnes was not privy to during his rookie season. While Cunningham was given the ball and complete command of the offense, Barnes needed to get his 15 points a night while watching his teammates take most of the shots.
Barens frequently went into games as the No. 5 scoring option, as the 1-2 punch of Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet was often supplemented by 3-point shooting from the likes of Gary Trent Jr. and OG Anunoby. Cunningham was allowed to take as many shots as he wanted in the name of gaining experience.
Toronto Raptors: Scottie Barnes scored with fewer shots.
While Mobley isn’t being given a ton of shots alongside Cleveland’s parade of quality starters, his 19.7% usage rate is slightly higher than what Barnes was working with. If given more shots, Barnes could have run away with this award by beefing up his scoring.
As Siakam and VanVleet start to get a bit older, Barnes might need to take over a later chunk of the scoring load. If the Raptors can cleanly make that transition, Barnes’ scoring ability could end up blowing his contemporaries out of the water in just a few seasons.
1. His contributions to winning
Barnes was a starter on a team that earned the No. 5 seed in the Eastern Conference, and that has to mean something. While team performance isn’t always a big factor in this award voting, Barnes’ numbers need to be viewed within the prism of Toronto’s success.
Cunningham has some of the best individual numbers in this class, but both he and Jalen Green were not going to unseat Barnes by putting up their numbers on subpar Pistons and Rockets teams that might earn the No. 1 pick. Mobley’s case disintegrated late in the season.
Scottie Barnes helped the Toronto Raptors win.
Mobley and the Cavs completely went down the drain after Jarrett Allen went down. With even more defensive responsibility on his shoulders, Mobley faltered while Barnes played a major role in Toronto’s ride back to the No. 5 seed in the Eastern Conference.
Barnes and the Raptors worked in tandem to turn last season’s Tampa failure into a building block that will be used to springboard off of next year. Without Barnes in the lineup, Toronto would have lacked an element of versatility and quality in their lineup that would have been extremely difficult to replicate.