Between the nagging injuries left and right, Pascal Siakam refusing to plateau as he enters his prime, Nick Nurse attempting to make chicken salad out of this supremely weird Toronto Raptors roster, and Scottie Barnes trying to find his way through it all, this has been a wild season.
After Barnes lit up the north last season, winning Rookie of the Year and capturing the hearts of Raptors fans in the process, expectations were high for the Florida native’s sophomore campaign. Now, making him “off limits” in trade talks is looking like a questionable move.
Scottie’s more complicated start to the 2022-23 season has sparked concern from fans and media alike. The leap many expected Scottie to take hasn’t been smooth or as linear, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened in some areas.
Complicated is certainly the operative word. There are many moving parts surrounding Barnes’ start to this season. There are still plenty of games left to be played, so this is far from a closed book, but it’s still worth breaking down why his rise hasn’t happened quite as we expected and why there is still plenty of reason for hope.
How is Scottie Barnes performing for the Toronto Raptors?
Scottie came right out of the gate this season and sprained his ankle twice. It’s often the small-scale, nagging bumps and bruises that get played through, and therefore appear on live TV for millions of fans to watch and wonder about.
Barnes’ explosiveness suffered that first month of the season. He was getting blown by on defense, he wasn’t running up and down on the break as much, and he wasn’t attacking the basket with any regularity, electing to shoot more from range and throw up his signature hook shot/floater combination.
While it didn’t appear on the injury report, fans who were paying attention knew that the ankle hadto be stille bothering Barnes. He typically plays the game with so much ferocity, so something had to be wrong.
The last thing to return when recovering from a nagging lower-body injury like that isn’t the range of motion or even the athleticism; it’s the confidence and attack mentality. You need to remember how to trust your body again, and only in the past few weeks are we starting to see Barnes return to his rate of at-rim finishing.
Masai Ujiri’s primary objective is to win games, so it doesn’t matter if you’re a 20-year-old elite prospect. If you’re not ready to lift the team to its maximum potential, then you’re not going to get a minute or a touch more than you deserve.
Barnes has proven his worth and earned max minutes, but that doesn’t mean Masai Ujiri or Nick Nurse are going to tailor the team’s system toward him yet. Barnes is still behind Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet, and OG Anunoby in the offensive pecking order. As of this moment, these three can help win more games than Barnes.
It’s rare to see a reigning rookie of the year have to “fit in” to this degree. Think about fellow draft classmates Cade Cunningham and Jalen Green, two stellar talents who have been given the keys to their team’s offense. In the case of Barnes, he doesn’t have first or even second dibs on any of that.
The Toronto Raptors’ system doesn’t feature Scottie Barnes.
The Raptors altered their usage of Barnes from last year to this. Previously, the ball was more evenly shared between Siakam and VanVleet, with Gary Trent Jr. and OG on the wings, and Barnes playing the dunker spot. This meant Scottie got a lot more of his points set up for him around the rim rather than having to create for himself.
This season the system was tweaked. With Pascal taking a leap as an iso-scorer, VanVleet deferred more of his on-ball responsibilities to Pascal and used his talents as a shooter to space the floor for the rest of the Raptors to attack the rim.
While it isn’t where it needs to be yet, Scottie has taken strides as a shooter this yea.r With this in mind, Barnes was placed more on the perimeter and spotting up from range rather than around the basket.
Then the Siakam injury happened, and Barnes was placed more on-ball. While his passing and skills finishing inside make on-ball creation the ultimate destination for Barnes’ game, he’s not yet at the stage where he can be a reliable primary for a good NBA team.
When he gets his turn to play primary as an on-ball creator, it’s often with the bench unit when Siakam and VanVleet are resting. Let’s remember that the Raptors’ bench can’t space the floor to save their life. Chris Boucher has been a brick from three thus far, and Otto Porter Jr. has been injured.
Thad Young’s game is pretty much inside the arc, and rookie Christian Koloko can’t make anything that isn’t an alley-oop or a free throw. That leaves trade bait Juancho Hernangomez as the best spacer for the Barnes minutes.
A player like Scottie, someone who’s best used as the engine of an offense, is trying to generate points for a clogged artery of a bench offense. Of course he hasn’t seen an upswing in points per game.
The easiest glimmer of light to find is that as we enter the holiday season is the fact Barnes has played some of the best ball of his career lately. Barnes has topped 20 points four times since November 19 and was one rebound away from piling up five double-doubles in that span.
We can point to the improvements as a jump-shooter, small but undeniable, but even more impressive has been his passing this season. Averaging close to five assists in fewer minutes and more or less the same usage rate as last season, he’s helped give some juice to a largely stagnant offense.
In that game against the Brooklyn Nets, when Siakam was having an off night and Barnes put the team on his back, he went right at Kevin Durant and put up 17 of his 26 points in the fourth quarter. This may have been the best game of Barnes’ young career. We’d never seen him take over and assert himself to that degree.
Scottie Barnes has shown flashes for the Toronto Raptors.
To the fans and members of the media who are quick to turn on Barnes, would you give him a second? He’s 21 years old, getting the short end of an exceptionally flawed basketball team, and still putting up the numbers he is.
Barnes is figuring himself out. He’s had a rocky start to this season, but even through the missteps, he’s had moments of real greatness. Besides, I’d rather him make mistakes as a sophomore and learn from them anyhow. It’s not like the Raptors are competing for a title anyway.
Barnes is about to catch his stride. His doubters will be singing a different tune by the time the season’s over, mark my words.