Four NBA stars share wisdom on Raptors' Scottie Barnes unlocking his potential

Dec 30 2022, 7:55 pm

Toronto Raptors forward Scottie Barnes might’ve been the most popular athlete in Canada at one point in 2022.

Shaking off any questions about whether he was the right draft pick for Toronto at fourth overall in the 2021 NBA Draft, Barnes took the league by storm in his Rookie of the Year-winning campaign last season.

But the glow of Barnes’ dynamic first season — where the Raptors finished 48-34 and surprisingly snagged the East’s fifth seed in the postseason —  seems like a far cry from their current 15-20 record and their apparent lack of cohesion as they’ve now dropped eight of their last ten games and sit 11th in the East.

Barnes himself has seen a small dip in his per-game marks in a few major categories: points (15.3 to 14.6) and rebounds (7.5 to 7.0) while turning the ball over slightly more (1.8 to 2.3).

He’s upped his field goal attempts per game (13.3 to 12.6) as well as his three-point attempts (3.3 to 2.6), but both his overall field goal percentage of .448 and three-point mark of .298 are down from .492 and .301 last seasons.

He might not be much — if at all — worse than he was a season ago, but the metrics don’t look much better, either.

Hopes of Barnes cracking the All-Star team in year two like many fans thought possible seem all but out the window, and there’s no shortage of critics of his season.

But if Barnes is about the same player he was during last season, well, surely that’s not all that bad of a player, right?

Teammate Fred VanVleet called critics of Barnes’ stagnant sophomore season “ridiculous” last month, adding that “everybody goes through it.”

“There are highs, there are lows. There are good games, there are bad games. He’s finding his way. Just gotta continue to keep working and keep playing. Nobody around here is worried about him.”

And it’s clear that many of the NBA’s other top stars feel similar to Barnes’ point guard: even if there’s no big leap from Barnes just yet, there’s nothing to worry about when it comes to his game.

Brooklyn’s Kevin Durant was one of the first stars to compliment Barnes in his rookie season, saying he “has a little something extra” in his game last November.

Visiting Scotiabank Arena earlier this month with the Nets, Durant offered more advice for Barnes.

“You can easily get complacent if you don’t practice much. You have some success and then you relax a bit,” Durant said.

By Durant’s third year in the league, he was an NBA All-Star and actually led the league in scoring with 30.1 points per game. While Barnes might not quite be on that trajectory, Durant sees Barnes as “understanding” of the work ahead of him.

“You find ways to get your individual skills better, but also work with your team,” Durant added. “You can get comfortable after your first year, but you realize you got to really put your foot on the gas and get even better that second and third year and I think Scottie is understanding of that.”

Philadelphia’s Tyrese Maxey, who infamously once missed a combined six layups with Barnes in a tag-team skills challenge at last year’s NBA All-Star Weekend, is just a year ahead of the Raptors’ sophomore on their NBA timelines. Just nine months separate the two in age, with Maxey being a 2020 first-round pick, taken a year before Barnes.

“He’s gonna be good for a long time. As a friend, I’m proud of him and I can’t wait to see how he grows,” Maxey said in October. “Scottie’s great. He’s a 6’9 point forward that can rebound, pass score… he can do a lot of different things.”

But unlike how some feel about Barnes, Memphis’ Ja Morant doesn’t seem to be able to relate to any sort of sophomore struggles.

“I don’t know how you want me to answer that. I took a big leap my second year in the league,” Morant said in response to my question last night about the challenges sophomores face.

But if Morant’s year two was a big leap, year three was a mammoth one. Morant went from a 19-points-per-game scorer to averaging 27.4 points a night, winning the Most Improved Player award for the 2021-22 season.

And as for how he was able to make a big jump? Well, Morant seems to think it’s only a matter of time before Barnes figures that out for himself.

“Scottie is a special talent. It’s just, you know, finding your niche, finding your strong suits within the team, within the NBA style, play, and just locking in on that and becoming great,” Morant added. “You just gotta have patience. I feel like most people don’t know what NBA player deal with day in and day out. I’m sure y’all Raptors fans want to hear that.”

On the way out from his press conference last night, Morant reiterated his support for Barnes.

“Everybody’s time is different. He’ll be special,” he added.

After a strong regular season in 2017-18, Boston’s Jayson Tatum finished third in rookie of the year voting behind Ben Simmons and Donovan Mitchell.

But Tatum really shone in the 2018 playoffs, as the Celtics rose to the Eastern Conference Final, leading the team in scoring at just age 19 as the team came within a game of advancing to the NBA Finals.

But while his postseason numbers were gaudy, Tatum didn’t exactly vault into superstardom over the course of his sophomore regular season, putting up 15.7 points and 6.0 rebounds as a 20-year-old.

Like both Durant and Morant, it took Tatum until his third season to crack his first All-Star game.

And just like, well, everyone in NBA circles, they seem to have plenty of positivity to share about the Raptors’ possible face of the franchise.

“I’m a big fan of Scottie. I love the way he competes on both ends, how talented he is,” Tatum added. “But the cat is out of the bag, he’s not surprising people anymore. People know how talented he is, what he’s capable of. I think everyone in their second year that is going on that trajectory [struggles a little bit]. But he’s going to be fine… guys are ready for him and preparing for him, as they should be. I have a ton of respect for him. He’s gonna continue to grow and get better.

Barnes’ future in the NBA is yet to be decided, and there are many questions about his potential: will he be an All-Star or an MVP candidate one day? Will he become the focal point of the Raptors’ offence? Will he end up leading Toronto to an NBA title?

There’s no way of really knowing for sure just yet.

But if those that have been there before him are right in their predictions, the Raptors’ youngster will be just fine.

Adam LaskarisAdam Laskaris

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