The Toronto Raptors have not had a good time since Scottie Barnes broke his hand. They suffered a (very explicable) 15-game losing streak which, by margin of victory, was the sixth-worst 15-game stretch of any team in league history. And that’s honestly not so shocking; the talent on the floor, by virtue of injury, just wasn’t competitive. Still: we learned.
And once players, NBA-caliber players, starting players, started trickling back into the lineup, the Raptors started playing real basketball again. They went on a two-game winning streak with most of the rotation back, barring Barnes and Jakob Poeltl. In those wins, too, we learned.
But what did we learn? Who looks like a future star, who a future contributor, and who a future non-Raptor? What has this stretch told us about each Raptor?
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Ochai Agbaji
Agbaji is emerging into Toronto’s best point-of-attack and wing defender. The Raptors haven’t had a player like that since … yeah, OG Anunoby. Now, Agbaji isn’t that caliber of defender, by any means. But it’s impressive that he has picked up the mantle of team’s best defender that Anunoby left behind.
What Agbaji offers is the classic combination of strength, length, and foot speed. He is listed at 6-foot-5 and 215 pounds, but that undersells his hulking size on the court. He has the length of one of the league’s larger small forwards, at 6-foot-10; it’s not Anunoby or Barnes-like, whose wingspans are both over 7 feet, but it’s still very good. He’s used that length especially well in the pick and roll, denying anything over the top while mostly switching onto the big. The Milwaukee Bucks ran him through approximately 1000 picks against Damian Lillard, and he held up well. Then the Indiana Pacers did the same with Haliburton, and Agbaji let him get loose. That’s life. The Raptors have asked Agbaji to guard those stars, as well as Jalen Brunson, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Cade Cunningham, Jamal Murray, and others. He’s not been the issue in most defensive games.
At his peak, Agbaji might be best used at the point of attack while Barnes is Toronto’s hulking tagger and helper to provide court coverage. The two could exchange those roles if a switch requires it. But the Raptors have needed someone to step into the role of defensive focal point. Agbaji isn’t elite there, but he’s the best on the team. That’s a win, and it’s been a win with him on the court, with Toronto being better on both ends with Agbaji playing.
There are still downsides. He can die on screens (this is the biggest problem, and it happens a lot, forcing Toronto to switch even when the personnel shouldn’t), and his east-west mobility isn’t ideal for dealing with shiftier guards. And offensively, even though he has shown juice in a number of areas, such as live-dribble passing, cutting, and shooting, he isn’t consistent enough in any of them to be a plus. But he looks the type of player that Toronto needs. Or at least, he looks like he will become that. Finding such contributors is the purpose of lost weeks. Consider his performances to be Toronto’s most significant positive.
Immanuel Quickley
Over the months of March and April, he has been averaging 20 points and 9 assists per game. That’s maybe not quite all-star point guard numbers, but it’s pretty darn close. (Tyrese Haliburton got there in 2022-23 with one extra assist per game.) Quickley’s turnovers have been incredibly low, at just 2.5; among assist leaders his assists-to-turnover ratio has been fifth in the league over that time period, behind only Fred VanVleet, Tyrese Haliburton, Chris Paul, and James Harden. That’s veteran, high-quality passing. (Even if part of you wishes he took more passing risks to create higher-quality looks, and so maybe had a few fewer turnovers.)
And Quickley has done it on a cold streak from deep, shooting just 33 percent since March 1. It’s all the more impressive that the passing has been so hot without the shooting.
He’s done it all with dramatically improved driving. He’s taking extra dribbles, driving further into the paint, and using east-west direction change to create actual layups rather than just floaters. (He’s very good at floaters! But layups are better.) Since March 1, Quickley’s add extra drives per game and extra driving efficiency. He’s done it largely with extra shots around the rim finishing his drives, adding almost 0.2 points per such shot as compared to his season prior to March 1.
Add it all together, and Quickley is looking like the point guard of the future. It’s not a stretch to say that he could grow into an All-Star guard over time, if the passing and driving sticks around. He’s an elite off-ball player and growing into an elite on-ball one. Talk about a perfect offensive guard partner for Barnes.
Gary Trent jr.
Trent has been one of Toronto’s most consistent players in March and April. Samson said it better than I could, so you can read his excellent piece on Trent here. His scoring has been way way up during this stretch — which, of course, because someone needs to shoot the ball on a bad team. But his efficiency from 2-point range has actually taken a huge leap forward, not back. He has averaged more steals. He’s been a leader on and off the court, and as an upcoming free agent, he has very much helped his standing.
RJ Barrett
If the man is on a hot streak in Toronto, it hasn’t ended yet. He has shot more than 10 percentage points better from 2-point range in Toronto and more than six percentage points better from 3-point range. As a result, his efficiency jumped from 21st percentile to 78th. And he has done all that while improving his passing and rebounding.
Initially, it seemed like he might be better cast as a fourth option with the starters versus a third option in New York. But after everyone was hurt, Barrett’s role skyrocketed. Yet his performance has not, and neither has his efficiency. He may be missing some triples now, but he’s making almost everything else — and that’s as the team’s primary option quite frequently. His on/offs have been spectacular.
He’s driving like a madman, cutting brilliantly, and making everything he throws at the rim. The free throws are manna from heaven. Barrett’s just not cooling off, no matter how much the context shifts around him. He looks like another future leader for Toronto, not just a present stopgap.
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Jordan Nwora
The defense is not improving. He can really play on the offensive end, but the only way he’s going to help the team is either by being a full-blown star there or becoming a passable defender. Neither has happened.
He does lots well! He is a strong shooter, both on the catch and pull-up. He is a nifty passer and a clever finisher on the drive. He has great handles for his size. But none of that is star-level. His on/offs are quite poor despite being one of Toronto’s more experience players for a stretch there. And the defense isn’t budging. He doesn’t challenge well, gets lost during scrambles, and doesn’t generate events. He doesn’t provide resistance at the point of attack. Nwora has had opportunity. He has not capitalized. He was out of the rotation against Washington, even with Barnes and Poeltl still out. That might herald Toronto’s commitment to his role on the team.
Buce Brown
He works so hard to create contested floaters for himself. He has plenty of juice in plenty of areas. He has a crisp handle. He is a solid cutter. He is a wizard passer. He can shoot, sometimes. He is a great finisher. But he neither converts advantages well for this team nor creates them. And he looks lost within the scheme at points, freelancing out of scripted sets to drive into crowds.
His numbers are down in Toronto. His on/offs are terrible despite being the team’s most experienced wing (and guard) for a long stretch in March and April. He should be improving the team when he’s on the court, and he’s not doing that. Quickley and Barrett without Brown have won their minutes for Toronto, while Quickley and Barrett with Brown have had a net rating of negative-21.8.
His defense never really arrived in Toronto. Picks and isolations are shredding Toronto when defended by Brown, and that has been true before or after March 1. Brown is a very good basketball player. And it seemed like he would fit with this Raptors squad. But it hasn’t happened.
Jalen McDaniels
Hasn’t been an NBA-quality player in Toronto. No need to get into the details.
Javon Freeman-Liberty
Freeman-Liberty is a case study for analysis and evaluation. He does so much well, which is very visible, and so much poorly, which is harder to see, that it would be very easy to miss why he hasn’t been a winner.
Let’s start with what he does well. He really has the juice as an athlete. His acceleration, body control, mobility, and ankle strength are all phenomenal. I’m surprised he never had a breakout 30-point game during Toronto’s down stretch when Freeman-Liberty was starting. He can get deep in the paint at will, and he is a nifty finisher from all across his body when he’s there. He’s a heady cutter and flat-out sprints off screens to get to the rim; he developed great chemistry with Kelly Olynyk on some sets. He has some shooting to go along with it.
But Freeman-Liberty just doesn’t see the floor well enough to be a point guard. Or, really, for any position. He has dribbled out countless possessions, cuts and movement all around him, without reading advantages in real time. He doesn’t see movement in the defense and where the ball needs to go to create good looks. He averaged 1.8 assists per game from March 1 onward, which sort of tells the story on its own. He just doesn’t playmake.
Jontay Porter
Unchanged
Gradey Dick
Dick was doing wonderfully for a stretch when the new-look Raptors were healthy. He was cutting and shooting and passing and — best of all — winning his minutes. That has dropped off recently, and it’s no surprise. Dick has always been cast as a strong supporting player, meant to make already good lineups better. He is not going to help bad lineups.
He scored well from March 1 onward, but his efficiency dropped. His defensive contributions, already thin, fell off. All of that is normal. It was known in which situations Dick would be helpful; the Raptors were unable to put Dick in those situations because of injury. That’s life. He got good experience, but Toronto didn’t necessarily learn anything new about him that it didn’t already know.
Kelly Olynyk
Olynyk has a host of offensive skills, which Toronto has sorely needed, but he’s not really capable of winning minutes as a starting center in today’s NBA. He doesn’t offer enough resistance at the rim, and he can’t hold up in switches — Toronto needs both desperately at the moment. That’s not Olynyk’s fault. He’s best cast as a bench big, playing in stretches against opposing teams’ benches, and using his shooting and passing and footwork and handles to run up the score. He is not meant to be defanging Tyrese Haliburton pick and rolls 40 times a game.
All of this is known. Olynyk is a good player being asked to do too much. He will be a very helpful rotation piece next season alongside Poeltl, rather than replacing him.
Garrett Temple
What a vet. Really cool that he got some time in this lost season, and he actually looked like one of Toronto’s best players for some stretches. That’s more a commentary on the team than it is on Temple.
Mo Gueye
He’s so raw that he won’t be contributing at the NBA level for some time, if at all. He blocked a whack of shots in late March when the Raptors called on him. But nothing else was there. That’s completely normal; he is the type of player who can thrive at the G-League level based on athleticism alone, but he needs to sharpen his skills in order for those abilities to translate to the NBA. He needs time for that.
Malik Williams
We haven’t seen enough of Williams to know much. He has a big body, and the Raptors have been in need of just that.
Chris Boucher
Free this man. He deserves to be playing minutes on a good team.
DJ Carton
Was playing well, but has been out with injury. He was quiet in his minutes, so we didn’t learn enough to put him on the trending up side, but that was where I was leaning. Really unfortunate timing with his ankle sprain.
