Barnes sees better days
Change is coming, but the core is solid and there’s reason for optimism
Fans see the passing and the shooting and they are drawn to Scottie Barnes because of his many and varied basketball skills.
Those who see him when the bright lights aren’t on — those closest to him, upon whom his impact is the greatest and most important — see an entirely different side. And it gives them optimism that Barnes will lead the Raptors out of these dark, bleak days.
“I think what fans can’t really see is just his personality and how good of a teammate he is, how much he cares about basketball and about winning,” RJ Barrett said of Barnes as the Raptors did one final gang media session for the season. “That stuff is good to see. I don’t think the fans can really grasp that part of it, but he just comes to work and wants to win.”
Barnes’s teammates didn’t get to see much of him on the court in the final third of the season, after a broken finger knocked him out for all of March and April. But they did get to see him as a more vocal leader, a trait Barnes said came from emulating teammate Garrett Temple on the bench. It took away some of the sting of not playing, and should pay dividends when training camp begins in September.
“Every timeout you see me sharing, hyping the guys up, telling guys things I see from my point of view,” Barnes said. “Helping them out any way I can, just being a vocal leader, it helps them a lot.
“Not being out there on the floor, it hurts. So it’s like: OK, I’m not out there on the floor playing with those guys, what am I supposed to
say? It just makes it so easy, so comfortable, so natural giving them my perspective, helping them out.”
Having Barnes find his voice is a portend for a promising young core, as is Barnes and Jakob Poeltl returning to health and Barrett and Immanuel Quickley — acquired in a late December trade with the New York Knicks — finding greater familiarity with teammates.
The supposed top four starters played fewer than six games together in a wretched season. The prospect of starting camp with all of them is a source of optimism even after a 25-57 finish. Given their combined skills and personalities, that optimism isn’t entirely cockeyed.
“You could see that at times when we had our guys out there on the court … it felt good and it looked good and the results were there,” Poeltl said. “And I don’t think those were outliers. It was more that almost all of the losses were more of the outliers than when we were actually performing. So that gives you a lot of confidence.”
There is sure to be roster churn — there has to be on a 57-loss team, regardless of extenuating circumstances — but there is no denying the core fits together. And there is a sense they have something to prove collectively. It begins with Barnes returning to all-star form as a more effective leader, but it runs right across the roster.
“I think our team is very well rounded as far as the fact that we have great talent, but we also have great people,” said Quickley, a restricted free agent who is a virtual lock to get a lucrative multi-year contract from Toronto in the summer. “When you come to work, you want to come to work in an environment where people are very talented at their craft but they also are great people, because that gives you a chance to do something special looking forward to the future. So it’ll be fun.”
There was a lighthearted air to the player exit session — “I learned he has fragile fingers,” teammate Kelly Olynyk joked about Barnes right off the bat — because the Raptors, to a man, feel their problems are solvable: that roster upheaval, injuries and personal tragedies that touched Barrett and Quickley were the reasons for the horrid results.
A lot of their hopes of turning it around in one season will rest on Barnes. “These guys trust me; it goes a long way as well,” he said. “They trust me. They hear my voice and they know I’m a smart player, and they’re willing to just take that advice and go out on the floor and apply it.”