Toronto Raptors Player Preview: Scottie Barnes has to lead the way

This Raptors team is Scottie Barnes’ team now, and whether he’s got a good coach and/or adequate teammates on the roster, it’s up to him to lead the way for this new iteration of the Toronto Raptors team.

Around this time last year, our friend, RaptorsHQ’s Jay Rosales, previewed Scottie Barnes’ upcoming Raptors season as the “Franchise’s direction.” He was bang-on with that assessment.

Last season was a transition year for the Raptors, as the front office finally gave up clinging to the hope that they could still retool around the remnants of their “Run it back” core and, instead, pivoted towards making decisions geared towards the team’s future.

The several trades shipping out Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, and Dennis Schroeder, and now the max contract, yeah, he’s the franchise direction for sure.

Previously, in the days of our Raps…

Scottie Barnes bounced back from a below-expectation sophomore season with an All-Star season, posting 19.9 points, 8.2 boards, 6.1 dimes, and a combined 2.8 stocks. He also posted a healthy bump on his perimeter shooting, making 101 trifectas last season, which is only 20 makes short of his first two seasons. Barnes’ accuracy from the perimeter got better, hitting at a 34.1% clip, a career-high, and hopefully, for now.

With a new coach (Darko Rajakovic) at the helm last season, it was clear from the get-go that Dennis Schroder Barnes would be, if not the main, one of the focal points of the team’s offence. While the wins didn’t come at the rate the fanbase expected, Barnes demonstrated that he’s ready to take a big step and that he did, putting up 20.2 points, 8.1 rebounds, 5.8 dimes, 2.7 stocks while shooting 36.5% from the perimeter, which led to his selection as an injury-replacement for Joel Embiid at the NBA All-Star Game.

Looking at the Multi-Year LEBRON posted by the BBall Index, the departure of Pascal Siakam put a dent in Barnes’ growth curve, and Jakob Poeltl’s injury and subpar teammates made his curve take a bit of a nose dive. If not for a “season-ending” hand injury, who knows what this graph would look like at the end of the season.

Leadership

Barnes will enter the upcoming season undisputedly as “the man,” with this season being his chance to be more vocal and flex his leadership skills. While we don’t expect him to be a grizzled vet who will know what to do or how to react as a leader at all times, the season should demonstrate whether he has the makings of a team leader.

Primarily, we expect Barnes to lead by example. Siakam’s departure last season put a lot of pressure on Barnes to consistently put up numbers and lead the way with his energy and enthusiasm. When he did both, Barnes looked like an unstoppable machine. That’s why when his performance or energy dipped, it looked like he was struggling to give effort on at least one end of the floor.

As a leader on the floor, Barnes must be a consistent primary option. I’m unsure whether he will return with an elite “bag” this season. Still, the expectation is that he should be operating that “this is my team now,” at the very least, or better yet, with the “I’m him” mentality. Nikola Jokic has a wonky bag and handle, but Barnes has shown that he can dominate a playoff series. We can’t expect Barnes to be a perfect offensive player next season. Still, franchise players put their teams on their backs, will “will their team” and steal games, and, at times, show up as the best player on the floor between the two teams, more often than not.

Expectations

Aside from the “leadership” angle, it’s fair to expect more than the jump we’ve seen through 60 games last season. The landscape changes every season, and if we’re looking at personal accolades, Barnes will need to hit another gear to be an All-Star level player next season. The All-Star spots will be heavily coveted, especially now with Karl Anthony Towns moving to the Eastern Conference, Pascal Siakam playing for a better coach (and a winning team), Kirstaps Porzingis and Jimmy Butler might get healthy, and who knows if this is the season for the likes of Cade Cunningham and Franz Wagner shift gears.

That said, it’s hard for Barnes to be in the same gear as last season and expect an All-Star selection, let alone as an injury replacement. It would be great if Barnes could either lead the team and overachieve in the win column or, at the very least, bump his numbers to 25/10/7.

The former will be a tough task, as the team’s overall talent is inferior compared to most of the teams expected to be in the playoffs, as his production could be throttled if he doesn’t have teammates that are good play finishers, especially the ones that can space and/or play a and off-ball moving target.

Bottomline, Barnes should have a bulletin board material to prove that Bill Simmons and Ryan Russilo are dead wrong:

Or how about what Aaron Gordon said:

Hardware aside, the arrival of better point-of-attack defenders should move Barnes closer to the basket, where he’s much more effective as a help defender, and also be able to conserve his energy if necessary.

Challenges

For Barnes, winning, leadership, offensive production, defence, and accolades may be improbable this season. Still, achieving at least two, if not three, of the abovementioned things should be easy. Barnes’ growth can only take him so far, and he’ll need his coach to put him in situations where he will succeed consistently. That’s a tough challenge for a second-year coach. Still, hopefully, coach Darko Rajakovic’s got a much better handle on this roster and can maximize the talent around him. Barnes will need his teammates to shift gears, specifically Immanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett, and Gradey Dick, as being competitive each game will allow them to be in a position to win games or, at the very least, pad their stats.

Our friend Jay Rosales mentioned that Scottie Barnes was the Raptors’ franchise direction last season. This season, Barnes controls the direction of how this team will do this season and what the immediate future will look like for the Raptors.