TORONTO — Scottie Barnes will miss multiple weeks because of a sprained ankle he suffered on Monday against the New York Knicks. Which means, it’s learning time again. Huzzah.
Think of all the learning opportunities that will come with Barnes’ absence! We get to see if RJ Barrett can continue to develop as a playmaker, if Jonathan Mogbo gets more comfortable as a grab-and-go forward, if Ja’Kobe Walter can …
OK, honestly, I cannot do this again, and you probably do not want to do this again. Sure, you can’t gather too much information when in the rebuilding phase, and Barnes’ injury will allow players to, once again, expand their games. At this point, the Raptors need a different kind of information.
By the time Barnes and Immanuel Quickley (still not practising because of the elbow injury he suffered a month ago) have the chance to be on the floor together, it will have been more than 10 months and 50 games since the pair and Barrett last played together.
“It would be awesome,” coach Darko Rajaković said of seeing the core together. “We have not had our core guys and main guys in their roles pretty much all season. And what it does at the same time, it’s not allowing us to look (at) what our bench would look like when we have those guys in their roles. … I’m staying hopeful that sooner than later we have this situation to look at our full roster, what it looks like. And I think it’s going to be great for guys to get the chemistry of playing together, (growing) together and give us a lot of answers.”
If Rajaković, who believes in the power of positivity, cannot manage full, unabashed optimism about this situation, what hope does anybody else have? What hope do I have? The season marches on, and here is what I am paying close attention to of late.
Plus-minus, Scottie Barnes division
Single-game plus-minus is not a very good stat. There are too many external variables at play to believe it gets to a deeper truth. Like all statistics, it becomes more useful only if it becomes a pattern.
With that said, Scottie Barnes’ performance against the Dallas Mavericks on Saturday jumped out, and is at least a nice note to go out on as he re-enters the rehab world.
It wasn’t his career-high 14 assists that did it, although that was obviously neat and cool. The Raptors beat the Mavericks by 10 points in Barnes’ 37 minutes and 37 seconds. They lost the remaining 10:23 by 17. It matched what looked like one of Barnes’ most impactful games in the NBA.
SCOTTIE CAREER-HIGH 13 DIMES AND WE’RE COOKING pic.twitter.com/VFDO6s43cK
— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) December 8, 2024
Plus-minus (or, by extension, individual net rating) hasn’t always been a great stat for the Raptors star. Last year, the Raptors had a minus-3.2 rating with Barnes on the floor up until March 1 and minus-4.2 when he was off. (March 1 is when Barnes broke his finger, and the Raptors roster disintegrated.) The gulf was bigger (positively) in 2022-23, but the four core starters shared similar differentials, as the Raptors’ bench was a disaster. This year, the Raptors have a minus-2.4 net rating in the 465 minutes he has played and minus-5.4 in the 750 he hasn’t. The volume of injuries the Raptors have dealt with makes that very noisy.
It is comforting to see Barnes have nights like Saturday. He is (and was, last year) asked to carry a bunch of reserve-heavy lineups, and it’s not a surprise when things don’t go great for those groups — especially when the Raptors are dealing with multiple injuries. However, a star’s job can be boiled down to making the players around him better. The assists showed he did, but so did the plus-minus. Even if Barnes was a bit pass-happy on occasion, that was the outline of what a dominant game from him looks like.
The more times Barnes looks like a capital-s Superstar, the better. In the new year, the hope is we get more of those games.
Plus-minus, Jakob Poeltl division
• The Raptors have been outscored by 21 points in the 786 minutes Poeltl has played this year.
• The Raptors have been outscored by 101 points in the 429 minutes Poeltl has been on the bench this year.
Two takeaways. 1) If the Raptors are in any position to focus on a player type in acquiring prospects at the deadline or the offseason, a succession plan at centre would be very useful; 2) If you are still worried the Raptors might be too good to tank, read those two stats again.
The future of the defence
Rajaković has been clear he wants to keep his defensive approach fairly simple as the Raptors grow. The team ranks 22nd in defensive efficiency, but was a bit better when Barnes was healthy. As mentioned above, they are probably a solid backup defensive centre away from being close to average, which is fine for such a young team.
The Raptors want to put tons of pressure on the ball but largely stay with a drop defence when Poeltl is on the floor. There is room for some deviation, but not much. Dogged defenders on the perimeter such as Davion Mitchell, Jamal Shead and Ochai Agbaji allow for the Raptors to get away with that more than most teams.
Yet, on the biggest defensive possession of the loss against the Knicks, the Raptors trapped Jalen Brunson, leaving a clear passing lane to Karl-Anthony Towns available. Towns’ layup was the game-winning bucket.
Assuming this was by design, you can point to terrible execution by the Raptors. Poeltl did not move his feet well enough to cut off Brunson, while Gradey Dick did not make his mind up whether to stick to Mikal Bridges on the perimeter or get in the passing lane, leaving both open. Agbaji’s choice — step in front of the passing lane and leave OG Anunoby open as he slipped for a cut — was impossible. Either way, Josh Hart was still wide open for a potential 3.
The Knicks have a ton of shooting, making these decisions very difficult. Brunson is an excellent isolation scorer. There are not many good defensive options. Saying that, this was not the only sloppy trap the Raptors had against the Knicks, and the idea of forcing the ball out of a player’s hands by devoting more bodies to covering the ball does not align with what Rajaković has said about what he wants to see.
Stay tuned.
The backup frontcourt
I am fascinated by the reserve frontcourt of Kelly Olynyk and Jonathan Mogbo. What it lacks in rim-protection it makes up for in a lot of other things: Olynyk’s passing and shooting, Mogbo’s ability to run the floor, create in transition and disrupt on defence.
I think Mogbo’s best long-term role will be small-ball centre, meaning he will have to get some more reps in the middle. At the same time, you don’t want him to have to battle NBA-sized big men every night in his rookie season, as he (ideally) doubles his game total from last season.
It turns out Rajaković was thinking about the pairing as Olynyk missed the season’s first 23 games because of a back injury, too.
“There is going to be a learning curve, obviously, for both of them to get adjusted to each other,” Rajaković said. “Because this last stretch we played Jonathan Mogbo quite a bit at … backup (centre), now he’s going to be sliding more to position four, guarding more wings and really excited to see what it looks like and his growth and where it goes for him.”
Mogbo has been on the floor for 22 of Olynyk’s first 29 minutes of the year, and the Raptors have been bad. Small sample size — ignore. You can also ignore the defensive numbers for good, especially until Barnes returns to help anchor those lineups. Offensively, Olynyk’s skills at his position should free up Mogbo to better show his.
Gradey at the rim
Even as he struggled dramatically to start his NBA career, Gradey Dick immediately showed good instincts in attacking closeouts. If you are going to be a high-volume, accurate shooter in the NBA, you have to develop counters.
He is still making the right plays, but his finishing has been poor since his return from his calf injury. He is down to 49.1 percent on his 53 attempts at the rim, according to Basketball Reference. He was a more palatable 63.7 percent on 80 such attempts last year. He was awful on this front against the Knicks.
“Young players need to practice, and he had a lot of practice, a lot of preparation, going into the season,” Rajaković said. “And (in the) first 10 games, he was shooting at the rim 68 percent. And once the games started (piling up), and the 30-plus minutes started, you cannot continue working out and practicing at the same pace, that would be doing too much.”
That is one explanation. The other is that Dick is still slight, and doesn’t absorb contact from bigger players well. Both can be true. To fully weaponize his shot, he needs to be more dangerous when he is run off the line, both as a playmaker and scorer. Otherwise, defenders will not have a difficult decision to make when the ball is swung to Dick on the outside.
(Top photo of Scottie Barnes: David Berding/Getty Images)
