BOSTON — Scottie Barnes is feeling it.
Just beyond centre court at the gym at Emerson College in downtown Boston, the Toronto Raptors star is grooving. As music pumps, he sways side to side, his shoulders leading his hips in slow motion. After each 3-pointer he takes in a post-practice shooting group with teammates OG Anunoby and Precious Achiuwa, he repeats the action.
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He’s feeling good, and why shouldn’t he? In his third season, Barnes is playing the best basketball of his career, at a level that will at least put him in the conversation to make the All-Star Game. The Raptors, at 12-18, aren’t winning as much as anybody involved would like, but the last person you can pin that on is Barnes. Now, more than ever, it is clear this whole enterprise is about Barnes. With coach Darko Rajaković moving the only experienced point guard on the roster, Dennis Schröder, out of the starting lineup and replacing him with shooter Gary Trent Jr., Barnes is as close to a point guard as the Raptors will have to start games.
GIMME THAT 😤 pic.twitter.com/Yv5qXhA5Iu
— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) December 28, 2023
Both Barnes and his coach were quick to downplay the move Thursday. Barnes said nothing meaningfully changes for him, as he has already operated in bench-heavy lineups as the primary playmaker. Rajaković added that Barnes isn’t suddenly the full-time point guard, and this is just part of seeing how the roster looks when organized differently. Regardless, the move allows Barnes to be the version of the player he longs to be — or, to be the player he longs to be more often.
“I feel that’s most of what I look for,” Barnes told The Athletic on Thursday. “I’ve always been a team guy where I’m always looking for people. I feel like that’s my main skill set, being able to read the floor and (let) them make those baskets.”
“I think the main reason for doing this is to speed up his development,” Rajaković said. “When a player is really on the ball a lot, he is just forced to make all of those decisions: how to handle the pressure and how to handle different pick-and-roll coverages, how to set up his teammates. I believe that he has those talents in him.”
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Somewhat humourously, Barnes’ eight assists in Wednesday’s win in Washington were third most on the team, behind Pascal Siakam’s 11 and Schröder’s 10 off the bench. The Raptors have had a relatively egalitarian offence up until this point, and that isn’t going to change significantly with the lineup switch. Barnes isn’t suddenly going to be running spread pick-and-rolls 40 times a game.
Still, it is hard to see the move as anything but an inevitable step in an obvious direction: With a more traditional lineup failing to produce a satisfactory offence or record, and Siakam and Anunoby both heading for free agency in the summer and potential trades ahead of the Feb. 8 deadline, Barnes has to go from a focus to the focus of how the Raptors function.
“Still playing free,” Barnes said of his role in the new lineup. “I’m more of a playmaker out there, still making plays but still being in attack mode. Sometimes Pascal is bringing it (up). Multiple people are still bringing the ball down. So I’m not just limited to one thing.”
He is more of that one thing, though, and it is in line with Barnes’ preferences. Part of the reason former coach Nick Nurse spent so much of Barnes’ rookie season publicly pleading with the Floridian to shoot more often was because he knew Barnes was heading for this. In the modern NBA, it’s hard to fully leverage playmaking skills without the ability to get into the paint and threaten to score, so Nurse wanted him looking at the rim before anything else.
At times in his second year, Barnes was overly deferential, especially when operating as a point-centre before the trade for Jakob Poeltl. He would often dribble on the perimeter, waiting for a teammate to get open but not doing much to shift the defence on his own. He has been so much better this season at dictating the terms, even with a roster that lacks shooting, putting his developing ballhandling skills to the test. He is up to 3.6 turnovers per 100 possessions from 2.8 last year and 2.6 in his rookie year. That is partly due to a shift to an offence with more passing but also because of when and where Barnes is handling the ball.
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“I just feel like I’m in more actions than I was in,” Barnes said. “Being in a position to playmake more, setting me up in order to make those plays. That’s just the main difference.”
“For Scottie, playmaking ability for sure is very important because it’s going to put him in a lot of situations to make decisions,” Rajaković said. “Sometimes that means that he needs to take it all the way to the rim. I thought that (Wednesday) night, a couple of pick-and-rolls, he did a really good job of playing with force and going downhill. And a couple of times he was a little bit hesitant and trying to look what’s around him and not being really forceful, going downhill. First thing when you play any pick-and-roll or handoff action is to look for the opportunities to score, and after that, to read the defence to make the right decisions.”
There can be no doubt the changes Rajaković has made to the team’s style of play have meshed well with Barnes’ skill set. With his usage up to 24.4 percent this season from 20.3 last year, his per-game statistics — 20.7 points, 9.4 rebounds and 5.9 assists per game — have all shot up. His efficiency has exploded too, with his per-minute statistics all taking notable leaps, as well as his shooting.
His true shooting percentage, which factors in the added importance of 3-pointers as well as free throws, has gone from 52.4 percent last season to 58.7 percent this season. For comparison’s sake, Siakam went from 54.9 in his second season to 62.8 in his third season, in which he won the Most Improved Player award. To oversimplify, Siakam had his breakout season by mastering the shots he was already taking. Meanwhile, Barnes has gone from taking 22 percent of his field goal attempts from 3-point range to 34, with his accuracy going from 28.1 percent to 38.9. If that holds, it will go down as one of the largest jumps in shooting efficiency in recent history.
SCOTTIE THREE 👌
🌟 Vote to send him to #NBAllStar : https://t.co/6mzdxORgYc pic.twitter.com/jYXgmNDpad
— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) December 28, 2023
All of that and more makes Barnes a legitimate all-star candidate. Entering Thursday’s play, Barnes ranked ninth in the Eastern Conference in win shares, fourth in box plus-minus, seventh in player efficiency rating, third in value over replacement player, ninth in assists per game, 10th in rebounds per game and ninth in blocks per game.
BIG BLOCK from BARNES 🚫 pic.twitter.com/HwwOWd76Di
— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) December 28, 2023
The Raptors’ record could be the hitch. Assuming Barnes isn’t selected by the fans, players and media as one of the Eastern Conference’s five starters, he will have to get in as one of the seven reserves, selected by the coaches. Over the last five years, only 13 of the 70 All-Star reserves (18.7 percent) played on teams with records below .500 on the date they were announced. Coaches value winning. The Raptors are 12-18. The reserves are scheduled to be announced Feb. 1. Between Friday’s game in Boston and then, the Raptors will play 17 games, 11 of which are on the road.
“It means a lot. (It is) showing that hard work and dedication I’ve been putting in,” Barnes said of putting himself in the conversation. “I’m playing well right now. But I’m just trying to win basketball games and take that to the next level. Once you win basketball games, I feel like everything else … puts itself in the right place. Win basketball games, and you don’t have to worry about it.”
Indeed, he is reading things pretty well.
(Photo: Andrew Lahodynskyj / Getty Images)
Eric Koreen is the lead Raptors writer for The Athletic. Previously, he has covered the Raptors and the NBA for the National Post, VICE Sports and Sportsnet. Follow Eric on Twitter @ekoreen
