Aaron Rose: Raptors Are Moving Forward
The Toronto Raptors are moving forward. At least that is the view of our man Aaron Rose. Carry on reading to find out why he thinks there is reason for optimism in the north.
Maybe it hasn’t always felt that way this season, but the Raptors are moving forward. They reached the All-Star Break 19-36 with the sixth-worst record in the NBA and at times recently they’ve looked worse than that. The on-court product has been disappointing and if there was some hope that Toronto would maybe sneak into the play-in tournament and go on a magical Miami Heat-like run this year, that belief has vanished.
But take a step back for a moment.
When this season began there were two questions lingering over the organization:
How good is Scottie Barnes and what’s the future direction of this team?
On the heels of his incredible Rookie of the Year campaign, Barnes regressed as a sophomore. Across the board, his numbers stagnated or declined, and Toronto didn’t quite know what Year 3 would look like for Barnes. There was hope that he’d take another jump, but nobody knew for certain.
“Scottie had a level year last year. I wish I could have predicted this jump maybe better,” Raptors president Masai Ujiri said earlier this year. “I’ve always believed in him. You guys know I believed in him in the draft, but some of those things are sometimes difficult to project in our business.”
This season Barnes has shown he’s ready for a bigger role.
It hasn’t always been pretty, but it’s been better than anyone could have asked for when this season began. The 22-year-old snuck into the All-Star Game as an injury replacement and his numbers this year have put him firmly in the conversation as one of the league’s premiere young stars. He’s averaging 20.1 points, 8.1 rebounds, and 6 assists per game while shooting 35.3% from three-point range, a 7.2 percentage point jump from last season.
That development from Barnes helped Toronto find the answer to that second question.
After a year and a half wandering in the NBA’s wilderness, the Raptors decided it was time to take decisive action. In December, they moved OG Anunoby to the New York Knicks for Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett, and a month later, it was Pascal Siakam’s turn to move on. Toronto flipped the former face of the franchise to the Indiana Pacers for Bruce Brown Jr. and multiple first-round picks.
Did it take too long to get here? Certainly.
Toronto would have been better off moving Anunoby and Siakam at last year’s trade deadline or in the summer. It’s hard to know exactly what the returns would have been back then, but it’s not hard to imagine both players would have been more valuable with more term remaining on their contracts.
But at least the organization pivoted eventually, replacing Anunoby and Siakam with a core of young players who want to be in Toronto and should fit nicely around Barnes as the Raptors look toward the future.
That’s progress.
Now the Raptors are entering a new phase in their competitive window and it’s going to take some time to get back to where they want to be.
“A normal rebuild with other teams takes five, six years. Do we have the patience for that?” Ujiri asked. “Do we have the patience for three to five years building of our team? Someway, somehow we are going to have to have patience.”
That’s meant having some patience with Barnes who has been up and down since taking over the reins of the franchise. He’s struggled at times with the spotlight of being the star in Toronto and his statistical output has dipped a little as he’s been forced to take on tougher defensive assignments without Siakam around to carry the load.
“I think he’s the face of the franchise, but at the same time, he’s 22. The learning curve is not going to be just uphill,” Raptors coach Darko Rajaković said last month. “It’s going to be moments that we are looking at him and thinking that he’s a prodigy. And there’s going to be nights like, ‘What are you doing?’ All of that is OK. All of that is a part of learning and getting better.”
But there are reasons to be optimistic about where Toronto is heading.
Gradey Dick has bounced back from a rough start to the season and has looked more comfortable after a two-week shutdown to work on improving and developing his body. He’s averaging 8 points per game while shooting 44.4% from three-point range over his last 15 games and has shown in spurts that he’s more than just a floor-spacing three-point shooter.
Barrett too has been a pleasant surprise for Toronto since coming over from New York. He’s averaging 20.5 points per game with the Raptors, a number that would represent the best mark for a season in his career. As important is how he’s been scoring, putting up offensive efficiency numbers on par with LeBron James and Jayson Tatum since joining Toronto.
While Quickley has struggled a little in a bigger role, the Raptors are still optimistic he’ll flourish as an elite three-point shooter to help lead the organization alongside Barnes moving forward.
Who else sticks around Toronto long-term remains to be seen.
Ochai Agbaji, acquired by the Raptors from the Utah Jazz at the trade deadline, has a chance to be the kind of defense-first guard the Raptors will need to replace what they lost in the Anunoby trade. Canadian Kelly Olynyk, who came over in that same deadline deal, is expected to re-sign with Toronto to provide some veteran leadership for the Raptors. But after that, there are more questions than answers when it comes to everyone else.
What’s clear, though, is Toronto is moving in the right direction.
Barnes’ continued ascent into stardom has breathed new life into the organization and the path forward at the very least makes sense. If that was the goal coming into the year, Toronto has passed the test even if it hasn’t always seemed that way.
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