The Raptors were a team of questions this year, and while it might be hard to answer every single one, it’s a good bet that a right answer might start and end with Scottie Barnes. Who was the team’s best player? Scottie Barnes. Who anchored them defensively? Scottie Barnes. Who stepped up when things looked ugly? Scottie Barnes. Who’s an NBA All-Star? Scottie Barnes. And who looks like the Raptors’ future? Well, that would be Scott Wayne Barnes Jr.
Scottie has emerged as a bona-fide star, as a playoff riser; a figure who the team can rally behind, and who brings a combination of size, defense, and playmaking that has been exceedingly rare throughout the history of the NBA. The man delivered two playoff triple doubles of points and assists, while providing 6 stocks in a do-or-die game 6. Scottie was one of the few reasons the Raptors were able to hold the line against star-stacked Cleveland this postseason, and with that level of production on display, one can only imagine Barnes’ next leap could come sooner than later.
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Barnes’ scoring dipped only marginally, with no real change to his assist or rebounding numbers, though he was able to grab an extra half a block every game. Scottie became the clear number-two scoring option behind Brandon Ingram for most of the season, and in exchange, has become hailed as one of the league’s premier two-way players, gaining increased media attention after his playoff heroics.
Some defining moments stand out for Barnes this year. His naming to the All-Star team, snubbing for DPOY finalist, and his tying of the Raptors single game rebounding record with 25 boards, to name a few. But nothing stood out to me more than the run with Immanuel Quickley out, where Scottie Barnes slotted in as the Raptors’ point guard. The Raptors had six straight games of Scottie Barnes double digit assists in March, winning half and losing the others. The games dropped were against the LA Clippers and the Detroit Pistons (one led by superstar Kawhi Leonard and the other the top team in the east), alongside an admittedly embarrassing fumbling of the Sacramento Kings. Much has been said about how unreliable “March Basketball”, is for gauging the skills of a player, with frequently improbable success stories emerging late in the season before a final playoff push. These concerns should be belied by the fact that Scottie averaged 8.5 assists in the first round of the playoffs while averaging 24 points and nearly three stocks. Those are star numbers.
The SB-PG experiment was, in my mind, long overdue. There exists the age-old adage, that when a man shows you who he is, to believe him. Well, Barnes still wears his heart on his sleeve. In his Instagram bio, the first thing you see is “Toronto Raptors.” The thing after that? “6’9 PG.”
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There exists a great deal of discourse about the value of using facilitating wings to play point guard, and whether or not there is a place for small guards in the NBA anymore. I say, if they stuck Magic Johnson at power forward, the Showtime Lakers would have been worse off for it, and the Toronto Raptors could be making a mistake of comparable magnitude. Scottie lacks certain things often demanded of modern day point guards, namely, that truly automatic three-point shot, but his basketball IQ and gravity are building blocks of a team’s quarterback that Scottie has in spades.
Darko Rajaković’s branding of Barnes as someone able to make the leap to true superstar status might seem like jumping the gun to some. But this season, Scottie has put on display more than potential; he’s delivered results, consistency, and leadership, commodities that can bring the Raptors back to their apex sooner than anyone might have ever believed.
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