"I'm a winner": Raptors star Scottie Barnes drops offseason workout tape
Heading into his fourth season with the Toronto Raptors, Scottie Barnes has some pretty big expectations on his shoulders.
The clear face of the franchise after an up-and-down season that saw the organization trade away cornerstone pieces in OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam, the 23-year-old Florida native appears ready to take even another leap this season.
And in an offseason workout video posted to Instagram by the ballislife account and shot by jxnfilmedit, Barnes made a few proclamations about the upcoming season.
“They say rebuild, but I just want to win now. I’m a winner; that’s been my mindset since day one. I don’t like to lose, and I’m just trying to get back to winning basketball,” Barnes said in the video.
View this post on Instagram
Barnes averaged 19.9 points, 8.2 rebounds, and 6.1 assists in 60 games last season for the Raptors and made the All-Star team for the first time in his career.
Though he became the team’s de facto leader once Barnes himself suffered a hand injury in early March that sidelined him for the remainder of the season.
The fourth overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, Barnes is the only player from his draft class to have made an All-Star Game so far.
But it’ll take more than Barnes’ individual successes for Toronto to compete in what should be a tight Eastern Conference this season. The franchise is coming off one of their worst years in recent memory, finishing 12th in the conference with a record of just 25-57.
With the NBA preseason kicking off in early October (and the Raptors starting theirs with a game in Montreal), it’s a little over a month before the games count for real. Toronto gets their 2024-25 regular season going on October 23, when they host the Cleveland Cavaliers at Scotiabank Arena.