Samson Folk, Trevon Heath, and Esfandiar Baraheni get together for the annual awards draft.
“A major question, I think, is how the Raptors set Barnes up for easy success on offense so that he can maintain the high level defensive effort that made him a top 3 defender in the world. As far as I can tell, the 3 easiest ways to score are:
- Hitting catch and shoot triples
- Being fed the ball at the rim
- Finishing in transition
So, one of these falls under the purview of Barnes and his own development. The other two are heavily team context dependent.
Obviously, it would be great if Barnes could graduate out of the “really bad 3-point shooter” class that he currently lives in. The 38% he hit across from downtown across 7 games against the Cavs was mildly heartening. Seeing something like that over the course of a season would create a grinch-like heart growth within this writer.
In terms of catching at the rim to finish in the halfcourt? It can happen, but it’s probably not going to be a very voluminous option for Barnes. For one, Barnes spends too much time on ball to be a fully dedicated roller/cutter. For another, Jakob Poeltl is the most talented screener, the largest player on the team, and a very talented roller which makes him the logical selection for the most volume. It was very nice to see that Barnes, Poeltl, and Collin Murray Boyles were all providing near elite finishing numbers as rollers (all above 1.25 ppp, all above the 75th-percentile), but Barnes had the smallest volume of the trio for obvious reasons. There’s a reason the Raptors had a high rim frequency, and were 5th in paint touch points, they’re stacked with great rollers.
The last one, transition, is the home run swing to me. We have, for years, seen RJ Barrett near the top of the NBA in terms of transition volume. Last year he was 7th in volume, and around the 50th-percentile in efficiency. It’s obvious why the Raptors guard is always near the top. He rebounds well for a guard, creating grab-and-go opportunities. He loves to run alongside others when they push. He likes to take shots. Simple stuff.
Barnes does all these things as well, but with a very important distinction – Barnes’ rebounds are the contested, high point rebounds a lot more often than they are the loose ball collection rebounds. It’s a lot easier to run out with one vs the other. Players like Barnes & Barrett also suffer as grab-and-go handlers when it comes to typical transition spacing and efficiency because they’ve been playing on a team with very little shooting talent. Teams opt to take away the rim and live with transition triples. This was exacerbated last year when even their best shooter, Immanuel Quickley shot 29-percent on transition triples, something we all hope improves measurably this season.”
Have a blessed day.
