It’s unattainable to take your eyes off Scottie Barnes right now.
In any given Toronto Raptors sport, he is irrepressible, a gale-force wind sweeping throughout each basketball motion on each ends. This is, after all, a welcome palate cleanser after hitting a second season plateau final 12 months that threw some doubt on the preliminary promise he displayed because the 2021-22 Rookie of the Year.
Through seven video games, Barnes is averaging career-highs in factors, rebounds, assists, blocks, threes made, area purpose share and three-point share. He’s beginning to make the 20-10-5-1-1 stat traces really feel acquainted. The first two weeks of the season are too small a pattern dimension to anoint a brand new star within the league, nevertheless it’s actually sufficient time to sage a room. Just within the final week, Barnes hit step-back threes over Giannis Antetokounmpo and in the clutch against the San Antonio Spurs. Yeah, I believe Scottie Barnes is again.
It appears one of many best vibe shifts on this 12 months’s locker room is the presence of first-year head coach Darko Rajakovic, who has espoused the tenets of ball motion and participant motion versus the staff’s mismatch-hunting, isolation-heavy system underneath Nick Nurse final season. (Nurse’s Philadelphia 76ers have been superior, however there have been indicators he was starting to lose the room by the point he was out in Toronto.) This new system hasn’t been an ideal answer to what ails the Raptors, who’re nonetheless simply 3-4 with a bottom-five offense within the NBA. Pascal Siakam, for instance, has been relegated to a much less focal and possibly much less optimum floor-spacing position. Off-ball movement feels like a pleasant and egalitarian precept to have in your offense, however that movement hasn’t constantly generated halfcourt benefits nor does it remedy for roster development points corresponding to a near-total lack of level guards and three-point shooters.
But and by far, probably the most vital choice that Rajakovic has made is to empower Barnes with the ball in his palms. That’s why some of these things, at the very least by way of pure quantity, seems sustainable. He has the very best utilization on the staff, which might even be the very best of his profession. If Barnes can proceed to play this effectively — if this is simply who he is now — that glosses over each different concern within the short-term. Going into the season, there was most likely some cheap doubt available about whether or not he may shoulder the burdens of major creation over, say, a middle-of-the-floor connector position. Was his deal with tight sufficient? Could he constantly create separation? Will he make sufficient photographs to maintain the protection sincere?
So far, Barnes is hitting jumpers from each space of the ground — 13 of 19 (68.4 p.c) on pull-up twos, 4 of 10 (40.0 p.c) on pull-up threes and 16 of 36 (42.1 p.c) of threes general — and attacking the paint with sufficient pressure to bully the league’s preeminent bully-baller. He’s been assertive with out turning into overaggressive within the move of Rajakovic’s drive-kick-swing offense, which requires ‘0.5 second’ choices with the ball. This system, in addition to a sizzling begin to the season from Dennis Schröder, eases a few of these questions on whether or not or not Barnes can operate as a real level guard, whereas nonetheless permitting him to faucet into his ebullient inventive energies as a passer. It’s most likely sensible to anticipate some regression to these numbers, and he nonetheless has to get these turnovers underneath management, but when he continues to make off-the-bounce threes with any kind of consistency — and he’s taking them confidently — then that redefines the chances for Barnes as a lead playmaker.
The relaxation is there. Maybe it simply feels good to see the shot getting in, nevertheless it simply appears like Barnes is enjoying with a lot power right now — and for a participant like him, that makes all of the distinction, as a result of the concept is that he is usually a participant that does a bit little bit of everything. Certainly, that’s what we’re seeing.
Even when he doesn’t have the ball in his palms, he’s giving full go in different features of the sport, crashing the glass and flying throughout the open court docket. At his greatest, it appears like he’s making it up as he goes. We’re seeing newfound promise from Barnes as a weak-side shot-blocker, and his size has all the time lent itself to defensive playmaking. His capability to protect in opposition to smaller and sooner gamers, who can make the most of his gradual lateral motion and stiff hips, is a priority. But he can switch one through five and appears higher outdoors of Nurse’s hyper-aggressive perimeter scheme. As issues stand, Rajakovic is already giving the promote on Barnes as a future Defensive Player of the Year.
Really, this goes again to the primary factor with Rajakovic: The temper simply feels lighter. The on-court product hasn’t been excellent, actually, nevertheless it feels just like the gamers are working onerous and attempting to play for one another. That feels like fluff, nevertheless it’s vital that Siakam hasn’t groused about having fewer shot makes an attempt or any notions of hierarchy, despite the fact that he’s an All-NBA season away from super-max eligibility. Hell, with that a lot cash on the road, I might discover it onerous to carry it in opposition to him even when he have been hijacking the offense to pressure his personal photographs up. The greatest model of the Raptors offense most likely entails Siakam taking a couple of extra photographs than this anyway, nevertheless it goes a great distance in direction of making this Barnes ascent attainable that Siakam is down for the trigger.
In the grand scheme, a Barnes ascent modifications everything. It validates the entrance workplace’s stance that he’s “untouchable” in trades for multi-time All-NBAers, and it offers you a viable team-building path ahead.
The Raptors have been maybe mismanaged since their 2019 championship, watching most of their staff depart for nothing. Kawhi Leonard left as a free agent that summer time, Kyle Lowry in a sign-and-trade two years later, and Fred VanVleet as a free agent this previous summer time, whereas the Raptors have as a substitute despatched belongings out for gamers corresponding to Jakob Poeltl and Thaddeus Young. There’s intensifying scrutiny on what occurs with Siakam, OG Anunoby and Gary Trent Jr., every of whom can develop into free brokers after this season.
Hitting on Barnes, the No. 4 choose in 2021, isn’t going to replenish the asset inventory by itself, however it will wash away a number of the aftertaste. It’s a worthwhile train to make everything about him this 12 months, to see if he may be this man for actual and The Guy of their future. To this level, the early returns have been blessed.
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