In losing, maybe Raptors’ Scottie Barnes has found what is necessary to dominate – The Athletic
“I think the biggest thing that I really learned,” Barnes said Wednesday, “is just how hard it is to win basketball games (in the NBA).”
“There is no other way to learn,” new Raptors coach Darko Rajaković added. “All of us — when we win and when everything is going right in our lives, we tend to relax. Our brain is wired that way. But once we are going through rough times and failing, that really motivates us to find answers and ways to get out. … You’ve got to fail (to) learn to get better.”
To that end, Barnes has made some changes. He mentioned improving his conditioning, and that was at the forefront of his offseason work. Rajaković mentioned that he believes Barnes’ left hand has improved. So long as his shot is developing — drills at the end of the practice notwithstanding, it would be silly to expect him to suddenly be an efficient shooter off the dribble in his third year — his ballhandling is going to have to improve rapidly to be an effective playmaker, especially in an offence that figures to involve fewer on-ball screens and post touches.
Also, Barnes is just bigger. He mentioned adding nine pounds in the offseason, so specific that it is hard to doubt, and that he feels stronger. Strength has always been Barnes’, well, strength, and Barnes seems intent on leaning into that by leaning into his defenders.
The trick will be to do that without over-dribbling. He is going to have to use that strength to outmaneuver opponents without the ball more often than he is with it. Even as the Raptors put the ball in Barnes’ hands more often, he cannot forget how big of a weapon he can be without it. Barnes’ desire to be great, and his wish to have fun in the process, has been clear from the moment he was drafted.
“I think last year, I had a lot of (good) spurts and moments, not able to just go through a whole game (at the same high level),” Barnes said. “When I’m out there on the floor … every game, I just want to set that tone, have that dominance on the floor, make my presence known.”
Whatever happens with Siakam and O.G. Anunoby, the Raptors still see Barnes as the bridge to their next significantly successful team. Whether or not that can happen will depend on what the Raptors do around Barnes, but it also requires Barnes to do his part, too.
A sophomore slump isn’t the end of the world, so long as it yields change.
“Scottie is an all-star type of player,” Rajaković said. “He is a guy who can do so many things. He should be the guy (who in) two, three years down the road, teams are really having a headache when they are preparing (their) scouting and they have multiple coverages on him. … If you switch, he’s going to punish you. If you don’t switch, he’s going to punish you with good decision-making. If you give him room, he’s going to knock down a shot. If you close out, he’s going to go by you.
“We’re trying to make a complete player out of him.”
For the Raptors to thrive, Pascal Siakam needs to shine – Sportsnet
So pardon Siakam if he surveys the landscape and hardly feels like the world has somehow turned upside down because former head coach Nick Nurse was fired and replaced by Darko Rajakovic.
The latter has earned good marks early for running a sharp, organized training camp and presenting his philosophies in crisp, digestible form. He’s preaching a more egalitarian approach on offence and wants Barnes to have the ball in his hands more than in his first two seasons.
Between that and the fact that the team has not begun to negotiate a contract extension for Siakam, it’s easy to read it all as a shift away from the player who transformed himself from a late first-round pick to an all-star in the space of four seasons, but things change when the ball goes up.
Chances are when the shot clock winds the ball will find its way to the best player on the floor, and more often than not it will be in Siakam’s hands. It’s the way of the world in the NBA.
Siakam knows it too.
“I’m a basketball player. I’m a purist. I’ve always played basketball for the right reasons, which is to win and continue to try to be the best player I can be,” Siakam said earlier this week when asked about any changes Rajakovic is trying to implement and how they might affect him. “That’s always been my main thing as a player. I really don’t care what the system is. If you’re a good player and you know how to play the game, you find a way. I believe that I’m that type of person.
“On the floor, I don’t care what you’re trying to do, the ball finds the best players all the time,” he added. “The game is just going to go into finding the guys that make a difference. So it doesn’t really matter. I’m a player that adapts to everything and I play the right way.”
But there are different ways to arrive at the same place. Rajakovic hopes that instead of players creating advantages off the dribble — or at least by using multiple dribbles against a set defence — they will be set up by a higher volume of cuts and quicker ball movement.
He calls it “0.5 basketball” where whatever the player with the ball is going to do — shoot, drive, or pass — the decision is made within a half-second of their first touch. It’s an idealistic goal, as even rookie centre Christian Koloko, who was at the bottom of the Raptors ladder and near the bottom of the league in terms of seconds per touch, held the ball for an average of 1.2 seconds each time he had it, per NBA.com’s second spectrum play tracker statistics. To be fair, that’s a long way from Doncic, who averaged 6.12 seconds per touch to ‘lead’ the league, but the point is that “0.5 basketball” is a guide, rather than a code.
All that said, Siakam may be on to something. The idea that he was a ball hog who pounded the air out of the ball when he had it seems overblown. He was roughly in the middle of the Raptors’ top rotation players as he averaged 3.62 second per touch, well behind Fred VanVleet who averaged 4.84 seconds per touch and just slightly ahead of Barnes. Similarly, Siakam’s 2.82 dribbles per touch were significantly less than VanVleet’s and just ahead of Barnes’ in Toronto, and league-wide placed him well behind fellow high-usage play-making wings such as LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, Giannis Antetokounmpo or Doncic.
So perhaps the idea that Siakam has major adjustments to make — or at least changes that are more drastic than those required of Barnes or anyone else new to Rajakovic’s philosophies — is a bit of a red herring. It’s a new coach and system, but Siakam’s ability to mesh within shouldn’t necessarily be in doubt.
“I think we’ll find out once we start playing opponents and get into games and stuff,” Siakam said of how things have felt so far in camp. “I think it’s just a matter of, for me, just continue to play off instincts, which is how I play anyway. I think the more we do it, the more we grow. And when we start playing other people, the more we’ll see.”
With Darko Rajakovic’s preferred style of play, predicated on movement and quick decision-making, Siakam may not have the ball in his hands as much as he’s become accustomed to. One of the things they’ve worked on early in camp is using him off the ball, in addition to having him initiate the offence. It’s a bit of an adjustment for the 29-year-old, who averaged a career-best 24.2 points per game in a more ball-dominant role last season, but it should play to some of his natural strengths.
“He’s doing a great job,” Rajakovic said on Thursday. “It’s actually allowing him to be more efficient. He’s doing a great job of cutting and playing without the ball and with spacing. You cannot hide the talent on the floor. He is extremely talented and an extremely high-quality player. The ball is always going to find the best players on the court, and way he’s played these three days of training camp, I’m very proud of him.”
“I think it’s just a matter of, for me, continuing to play off instincts, which is how I play anyway,” said Siakam. “I think the more we do it, the more we grow, and when we start playing other people, the more we’ll see. I can’t really tell now.”
That opportunity will come when the Raptors tip off the preseason against the Sacramento Kings in Vancouver on Sunday, leading up to the regular-season opener later this month. But, for now, Siakam isn’t looking too far ahead. He doesn’t have a choice but to take things day-by-day.
Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster have taken a wait-and-see approach with their free agents before. It worked nearly a decade ago, lighting a fire under some of those DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry-led Raptors teams and sparking their resurgence. That’s their hope here, that Siakam, as well as O.G. Anunoby and Gary Trent Jr., who are also playing for new contracts, won’t be lacking for motivation.
There’s also the matter of maintaining flexibility, which is something this Raptors front office is known to value. Clearly, they’re not sold on building around the pairing of Siakam and Scottie Barnes, who’s seven years younger and has similar strengths and weaknesses on the court. This past summer could have taken them in a number of different directions, from moving Siakam to Atlanta for a package of younger players that better fit Barnes’ timeline (which they strongly considered) to adding Damian Lillard without breaking up their core of Siakam, Barnes and O.G. Anunoby (which they felt they could’ve done if the former Blazers point guard didn’t block a trade to Toronto).
Signing Siakam to an extension would make him ineligible to be traded for six months. Meaning, if they did it over the off-season they couldn’t have moved him this summer, and if they do it now he can’t be moved this season (the trade deadline is four months away).
Could they be waiting to see how this team gels under Rajakovic over the first few months before deciding whether to trade Siakam ahead of the February deadline or offer the extension from there (he can sign it until the end of the regular season)?
If so, that’s a dangerous game to play – bold, but risky.
Harsh lessons from Scottie Barnes’ sophomore Raptors season
Being smarter, being more consistent, being able to different ways to survive the tough moments in every game have to become key parts of this group’s identity.
And a lot of that is going to rest with Barnes, who Rajakovic says will become far more of a focal point.
If Barnes has truly learned from last season, great; he’s sure going to get a wide berth from his coach to show whether he has.
“There is no other way to learn, all of us, when we win and when everything is going right in our lives, we tend to relax, our brains is wired that way,” Rajakovic said Wednesday.
“But once we are going through rough times and failing, that really motivates us to find answers and ways to get out.
“That applies for everybody, players, coaches, everybody who is working any job seriously. You’ve got to fail and learn to get better.”
Barnes is toeing the company line two days into camp about what style the Raptors might want to play this season.
They all heard president Masai Ujiri talk about “selfishness” on media day and heard him use the same word at the end of last season.
It stung them all and they are trying to disavow it and point to their team-oriented approach every chance they get.
Barnes, who might be able to dominate the ball, and the game, made his point Wednesday.
“They want to put me in those positions where I can be able to settle into my playmaking abilities, being able to go score, be able to just make those right reads on the floor, they trust me with that,” he said. “So I think I’ll be ready. I’m ready to be able to make those decisions with the ball. I feel like I’m great with the ball in my hands to make those decisions. I’m a smart player. I’m not a selfish player.”
Precious Achiuwa, playmaker? New Raptors coach thinks so
“Precious is a player we can use some at position five, some at position four,” Rajakovic said this week after a practice at the Christine Sinclair Community Centre. “He’ll play a lot with the ball at the elbow, making great plays there connecting with teammates.
“In the first two days of training camp he’s done a great job of finding people and playing the right way.”
That would certainly be a seismic shift in the responsibilities Achiuwa has had in his two seasons in Toronto under Nick Nurse.
He’s showed himself to be a great rim runner in transition, he’s a capable multi-positional defender with good, quick feet and solid instincts and he’s got some developing shooting skills.
But as a ballhandler and decision-maker initiating offence at the elbows or the top of the key?
That’s new and that’s Rajakovic trying to deeply mine Achiuwa’s skill setto know me. I’m getting to know him as well, getting to understand each other,” Achiuwa said. “Just continue in trusting what he says, and following his lead and things he’s trying to implement and our job is just trying to go out there and carry that out.
“That’s a lot of responsibility … I think the No.1 key playing from the elbows and the top of the key is getting everyone involved. That’s definitely the No 1 priority and I’m looking do that at the highest level I possibly can.”
Achiuwa seems to be exactly the kind of player the Raptors hired Rajakovic to make better. A coach with a history of player development success mixed with a 24-year-old who has barely cut his teeth in his NBA career looks like a perfect match.
There’s no doubt Achiuwa has a deep skill set and he’s shown flashes since the Raptors got him as the centrepiece of the sign-and-trade deal that sent Kyle Lowry to the Miami Heat in 2021.
Markquis Nowell: Toronto’s next great success story – Raptors HQ
College Basketball Analyst, Jay Bilas, sang Nowell’s praises. “He’s either going to get drafted or have his phone ring right away as soon as the draft is over, because he can play. He can really play…..I think he’s going to not only play in the NBA, but I think he’s got an opportunity to play for quite some time.”
Nowell was smart enough to know that nothing’s guaranteed in this business, especially with someone his size. To prepare for the likelihood of going undrafted and/or battling taller players for an NBA roster spot, Markquis sought advice from the “who’s who” of sub-6’0 NBA guards: Isaiah Thomas, Raptors legend, Muggsy Bogues, Raptors umm legend(?), Isiah Thomas, Jose Alvarado, Nate Robinson, and fellow NYC native, Kemba Walker.
“You want to build relationships with the people who did it before you. I wanted to see if they had any knowledge or wisdom I can learn from and use throughout my career. I’m trying to keep short guards relevant. There’s not many of us in the NBA that’s playing at a high level. I want to put on for them.”
Rewatch the first clip on this post. Look at the joy on Markquis’ face as he receives the call from Masai Ujiri, welcoming him to the Toronto Raptors. That joy is a product of understanding the grind, betting on yourself, and **insert another former Raptor’s motto**. Nowell’s journey is only starting but he may have more fuel than anyone from this draft class.
“I use it as fuel, motivation to prove people who don’t believe in me wrong. It’s another chapter in the book, it’s another story I have to write to make it to the NBA.”
Nowell quickly showed his value during Summer League. His 12 points and 6.8 assists averages don’t tell the full story of his impact. Markquis was a headliner…..in Vegas!
Raptors' Markquis Nowell could wind up following Fred VanVleet route | Toronto Sun
For Nowell, having that kind of success story to point to and actually have a connection to makes those moments when his own tough road gets particularly difficult much more bearable.
“Fred VanVleet is one of the guys I looked up to growing up,” Nowell said, ignoring the fact that VanVleet is just six years older. “Just seeing his story and how he grew from the ground up is just a blessing to see and now I’m kind of in a similar situation. And I’m getting his support, so it means a lot.”
It was Nowell, however, that reached out to VanVleet, who is now just a phone call away when advice or support is needed.
You can make the argument that Nowell may have even a slight edge over where VanVleet was when he came out of college. Nowell arrives as a consensus three-time all-American and won the prestigious Bob Cousy Award as the nation’s top male point guard.
It’s an award that has been won by the likes of Ja Morant, Jalen Brunson and Kemba Walker in the past.
Nowell, though, isn’t counting on any of that to help him reach his next target.“I had a lot of good accolades in college, but my size is the reason I have to go through what I have to go through,” he said. “It has been that way my whole life so it’s not something new to me. I’m just going to take advantage of my opportunities, take advantage of what God has given me and use it to the best of my abilities.”
Nowell is well aware of VanVleet’s debut with the Raptors in training camp, when he picked up Kyle Lowry full-court in the first scrimmage and didn’t let up on him the rest of camp.
It earned VanVleet rave reviews from the coaching staff and what would become a deep and enduring respect that would turn into a friendship from Lowry, who is not easily won over.
“It’s been a thought on my mind,” Nowell said of that first camp scrimmage. “Whoever I need to pick up in that moment, that’s what I’m going to do because I know that will be what gets me on the court. I want to be able to play minutes at the highest level, not really so much in the G-League but if I have to, I have to, but I want to be in the NBA.”
Garrett Temple pop quiz: Raptors wing on Gregg Popovich, Kyle Lowry and more – The Athletic
How many 10-day contracts did you sign in your career?
(Counting to himself.) Two. Three. Four. Five, six, seven, eight. Eight?
Yes, two with Houston.
Yep. One was Sacramento. One with San Antonio.
Two (with) Milwaukee, two (with) Charlotte. What’s life like as a 10-day player?
Man, it’s not easy. It’s pressure-packed. I will say I’m glad I did it at a young age when I didn’t have a family. I didn’t have the mindset of, ‘I have to provide for somebody else.’ So that pressure, the pressures of life, weren’t all me. It was really just the pressure of trying to play basketball and trying to make a team. But I was living out of my suitcase. I was at the whim of the coach. And then after that I was at the whim of the governor, if he wanted to sign a guy and have to release somebody else. So a lot of credit to a lot of the coaches that I played for that they gave me a chance to actually play during those 10 days.
So counting those eight contracts, how many contracts have you signed in the NBA, not counting training camp invites?
Oh, wow. That’s an interesting question.
I’m going to give you credit if you’re close because there’s a lot of conflicting information out there.
Counting those eight — 22?
I have it at 18. That’s a lot of signatures. How has signing a contract changed? Did you have to do it on (physical) paper?
Yeah, I used to have to do it on paper. I had to be there. Now I DocuSign them. I may be there. I may be on vacation with the family. It’s a lot easier.
Raptors Want Jakob Poeltl to Take on a Bigger Offensive Role – Sports Illustrated
At this point, it’s been litigated ad nauseam. The Toronto Raptors gave up this year’s first-round pick to re-acquire the 7-foot center from the San Antonio Spurs at last season’s trade deadline. In a vacuum, the deal wasn’t all that bad, but considering the way last year played out, it was far from ideal.
What’s clear, though, is the Raptors see Poeltl as more than just a valuable role player. Not only did they pay a premium to bring him back, but Toronto re-signed him this summer to a four-year, $78 million deal. Now, the plan is to make him a focal point of this new Raptors offense.
“We’re going to use Jakob more playing at the elbows, top of the key with the ball in his hands. We want to cut around him. He’s (a) really good passer, very unselfish player,” Raptors coach Darko Rajaković said Tuesday. “We’re going to be trying to play through him even more.”
It’ll be part of the team’s shift away from an isolation style of basketball and toward a style that involves more ball and player movement this season.
Expect more cutting, off-ball screens, and handoffs from the team this season as they look to make Poeltl more of an offensive hub the way the Denver Nuggets treat Nikola Jokic or the Sacramento Kings treat Domantas Sabonis.
“That high-post offense, trying to run the ball, a motion offense, through the 5, is going to take some time to get used to,” Poeltl said on Monday. “We had elements of that in the past, but it’s going to be a bigger focus now.”
The change should help with Toronto’s lack of floor spacing. It’s something Poeltl talked about when the Raptors first acquired him after he played a similar sort of style as the offensive engine for a lackluster San Antonio Spurs team. Even though he is far from a traditional floor spacer, his size and screening ability creates movement space for cutters on the court.
