The Toronto Raptors played a truly bad game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Kawhi Leonard was sidelined with a knee issue, and Scottie Barnes and Jakob Poeltl both didn’t score a single point. The Raptors shot just 38% from the field and 26% from behind the arc.
The only players who could get much going offensively were Ja’Kobe Walter, who led the team with 22 points and five of the Raptors’ ten made 3-pointers, RJ Barrett, and Immanuel Quickley. Rookie Allen Graves led the bench unit with 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting from the field.
This is not the first time that Barrett emerged as a steady scoring threat when the rest of the team struggled. He was also the team’s second-leading scorer in a ten-point win against the Washington Wizards with 23 points on 9-for-16 shooting from the field, as the Raptors shot 44-of-101 as a team.
Barrett is showing the Raptors how much he can help them as a scorer when Leonard is out or not making his shots—and further complicating an already brutal contract dilemma for the Raptors.
Barrett might not be as expendable as it first seemed
RJ Barrett seemed like a likely trade candidate for the Raptors for several reasons. For one, his expiring salary might be the organization’s best trade chip now that they sent first-round picks to the LA Clippers for Leonard. Secondly, extending him would be a challenge with massive salaries for Leonard, Barnes, Poeltl, and Quickley taking up most of their cap room. Moreover, he is not a great perimeter defender and an inconsistent 3-point shooter.
However, after three games and some tough offensive showings as a team, we have to ask ourselves how much worse the Raptors’ scoring would have been without Barrett’s ability to get to the rim, create his own shot, and score pretty efficiently when many of his teammates are struggling to find the bottom of the net. It would not have been pretty, especially against Minnesota. Barrett was basically the team’s only source of offense to start that game. He scored. 11 of the Raptors’ 21 first-quarter points, and desperately needed some help—more than Walter could give him.
Barrett is currently the Raptors’ leading scorer, averaging 21 points per game on 51% shooting from the field.
He’s making a pretty good argument for why the Raptors should keep him around. Leonard will miss more games, and so far, it looks like the Raptors will need Barrett to keep the offense alive in those games.
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