Raps’ Barnes not living up to 2nd-year expectations
Aseason removed from his satisfying rookieof-the-year run, Scottie Barnes is starting to hear the first murmurs of discontent.
Oh, no one is ready to turn on Barnes and his limitless love of the game by any means, but with each passing game in which he fails to live up to that high standard he set a year ago, the murmurs get a little louder.
Barnes has not been overly bad on the whole. He’s still averaging 13.8 points a game, 6.6 rebounds and 4.9 assists a game. So, he’s still contributing.
The issue is he’s not contributing to the same degree he was a year ago and in a season in which expectations have been high for the sophomore and former No. 4 overall pick to take things to another level, that slippage is being noticed.
A year ago, those numbers were 15.3 points, 7.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists and both within the team and certainly from the outside, the expectations were those numbers would go up.
Barnes has kept his own personal goals to himself for the most part, other than a desire to become a better defender, but the belief within the team is his own aspirations are no less lofty.
“Scottie puts a lot of pressure and a lot of weight on his shoulders,” veteran teammate Thad Young said after Saturday’s loss to the Pacers in Indianapolis, which saw Barnes shoot just 4-for-16 from the field on a night his offence was in serious demand with both Fred Vanvleet and Pascal Siakam sidelined.
“Sometimes that can be your biggest killer, but I love that about him. That he puts a lot of stress and pressure on himself to be great and be better each and every day. It’s only going to make him a better individual and a better player.”
But even Young concedes the start to the year has been uneven at best for the future face of the franchise. That conceded, Young doesn’t believe this is anything out of the ordinary for a young man still finding his way in the NBA.
“You have guys who go through the sophomore slump and sometimes it hits a little sooner than later,” Young said when asked what he was seeing from Barnes right now. “But I think Scottie is still going to be great. All of this is a part of the growing process. As long he understands it’s part of the growing process and does not get down on himself, he’s going to be great.”
And the reason Young is so confident that whatever Barnes is going through right now is temporary is because of the strong level of self-belief he sees in Barnes.
“Scottie is a highly confident individual,” Young said. “So, I’m not too worried about him getting down on himself or him feeling a certain way. More so, trying to figure out how can we get him back going. How can we get him back to the Scottie Barnes that we had last year, the rookie of the year, the guy who everyone was talking about being a stud in t his league for a long time. I think he will get back to that, but one of the biggest things is him just continuing to go out there and play, just like he is now.”
After a bit of a less aggressive start a year ago and after head coach Nick Nurse repeatedly made pleas through the media for Barnes to just back opponents down in the post and cram on them, he started to do that with some regularity.
This season, teams seem a little more prepared to gang-defend those bully drives, making a bucket at the end of those moves less certain
There’s also been less of them as Barnes seems to have slipped back into settling for mid to long-range jumpers that haven’t been falling of late.
Rockets head coach Stephen Silas already has plenty of experience dealing with high-draft picks coming into the league and finding their way. Houston, after all is a perennial high lottery pick team since James Harden flew the coop.
“For me, it’s the understanding that Year 2 is so much different than Year 1,” Silas said of his approach with his young future stars.
“Year 1 is learning and figuring things out and whatnot, but it’s your opponent’s figuring things out against you. So, you’re not a surprise when you’re walking into the arena this year as opposed to last year. Teams are going to be making adjustments. That’s what they’re doing to Jalen (Green), and I’m sure they’re doing the same thing to Scottie this season.
Young was asked if he has seen that already widely known confidence of Barnes’ waver even a bit as he makes the adjustment to what teams are doing to him in Year 2.
“No. No,” Young said repeating himself for emphasis. “You still see him driving to the basket. You still see him taking shots with confidence. You still see him getting into his one-on-one mode where he has a mismatch, and he is taking guys.
“It’s just sometimes guys have a bad streak of games or sometimes they have a bad start to the season. Then they take off at some point. Things will change. They always do.”