Is Scottie Barnes a big enough star for Toronto?

He has an All-Star nod under his belt but whether he reaches All-NBA level could determine how far away from good the Raptors will be.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

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Overgrown Slope; Georges Seurat; 1881

Scottie Barnes signed a maximum rookie extension at the beginning of the summer; this was an obvious, non-controversial move by the Raptors to begin locking up their next core. There was no apparently player option on the deal, which means Barnes is locked up through the end of the decade. Barring a trade, Barnes will be at the center of what Toronto does for the rest of the 2020s if not longer. He’s currently the most promising prospect and likely the best player on the roster, the only Raptor with an All-Star bid to his name. (He made it last season as a reserve in the East.)

Barnes is clearly a quite good player, and has been since his rookie season when he deservedly won Rookie of the Year over Evan Mobley by a thin margin. In discussing Barnes it’s easy to fall into a familiar trap in which a player comes in and is immediately “pretty good” but then doesn’t perform substantively better in the next couple of seasons, so you downgrade future growth based on stagnation. Isn’t it better to come in at a high level and stay there than to enter the league as most rookies do (total drags) and need to improve just to get to good? It’s better to be good from the start, even if the next leap takes some time.

The question is where the next leap for Barnes is coming from, especially on a weird, overmatched team that the Raptors project to be this season.

Last season, Barnes essentially took the reins of the Raptors, who have been almost fully cleansed of the relics of 2019. Pascal Siakam and O.G. Anunoby were traded midseason; unfortunately, Barnes missed much of the last six weeks of the 2023-24 campaign, giving the coaching staff and fans little time to see him outside whatever shadow the two veterans cast. Overall, Barnes did increase his role to star level, hitting a usage rate above 24% and increasing the number of threes he took, his assists and his turnovers. His efficiency rebounded to peak levels after a sophomore slump, which is a good sign with a growing role. When it matters, Barnes is a good defender. What happens for the next few seasons will determine if he can become a great defender.

The player he most reminds me of at this point is Brandon Roy, who like Barnes was a somewhat reluctant scorer, though never as reluctant as, say, Kawhi Leonard, who took years to become a true alpha offensive lead. Roy had a great all-around game on passable efficiency and a solid floor-lifting ease to his play. Injuries destroyed his career.

Roy at his peak, though, was better than Barnes is now. Barnes has time on his side — Roy came into the league at 22, and Barnes just turned 23. But Roy also existed in a different NBA, where the three-pointer wasn’t quite so central to wins and losses and where a 20-point scorer meant something. The question is whether Barnes can be as good now as Roy was then without either ramping up the scoring in an Antetokounmpoan fashion — more twos and free throws — or whether he needs to fully develop the three-pointer (31% on low frequency for his career) to be a big enough star for the Raptors to thrive.

Jaylen Brown is a more contemporary comparison for Barnes, but I think they are quite different: Brown was always a superior shooter, even from his earliest days in the league, and Barnes is a far, far better and more willing passer. Stronger handles, too. I’m skeptical Barnes will ever score like Brown unless the jumper completely explodes in the next few years. Barnes could end up better than Brown or not, but I just don’t think they are same type of player.

There are broader questions for the Raptors than whether Barnes peaks as a one- or three-time All-Star or gets into the All-NBA conversations (or even more). Even if Barnes pegs his potential and hits All-NBA status in the next couple of years — possible but far from guaranteed — who else is coming for the ride?

R.J. Barrett has moments of stardom laced through his games, but putting it together for more than a week here and a week there has been difficult. (He’s another player who would have looked better in the NBA of 15 years ago.) Immanuel Quickley started every game he played for the Raptors after the trade last season, and I think is a legit 20-point scorer and deep threat. He actually even had a pretty spectacular assist-to-turnover ratio with Toronto, too.

Barnes should forever be the best of those three players. In the East, IQ and Barrett could be fringe All-Stars. The questions are whether a line-up starring those three players and two bigs can defend well enough to win games consistently and whether a line-up starring those three players as the primary scorers can score efficiently enough to win games consistently. Of course, a lot of that depends on the bigs in question. It’s a total mish-mash in Toronto right now: Jakob Poeltl and Kelly Olynyk are there, and Chris Boucher is still around. Bruno Fernando is hanging on.

You’re not playing Poeltl and Olynyk, or probably Poeltl and Boucher, together, at least not to start a game. So Bruce Brown or Ochai Agbaji is probably getting that fifth slot. And I have to say: Barnes and Barrett just don’t feel big enough collectively to add another wing to the mix, not with IQ at the point. Even with a great defender like Poeltl guarding the rim, and given Barnes and Brown’s above-average defensive chops, it feels … gelatinous. Soft. A little buttery. And given that the offense doesn’t project to being spectacular enough to survive an efficient 110 from the other team, the worries come into view.

Let’s come back to Barnes. Who’s the perfect co-star for him? Is it a high-usage scorer to allow him to ease into a No. 2 role? (Is it Quickley, but more?) Is it a 3-and-D center to warp the floor and allow the staff to fill shooting around Barnes’ more inside-out attack? Is it flexible given Barnes’ versatility? Are there players on the market who are not quite co-stars who could nonetheless make Barnes’ life much easier? Does Jerami Grant move the needle? Brandon Ingram?

Toronto shouldn’t be in a rush, obviously. Finishing with a bottom-4 record this season is likely impossible when competing with Washington, Portland, Brooklyn, Utah, Detroit and Charlotte. But the Raptors should still be in talent collection mode, and the most efficient way to collect talent is through high draft picks. (See: Barnes, Scottie.) There is trade market opportunity, and the fact that the Raptors prioritized players over draft equity in one of their two big trades last season is an interesting wrinkle that tells me the front office doesn’t see a long rebuild on the horizon.

He’s a risk on multiple levels, but I actually think Michael Porter Jr. is a potentially great fit next to Barnes, if Denver soon decides to prioritize keeping Aaron Gordon with Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray, perhaps forcing a divorce with MPJ. (I mean, Murray would be a spectacular fit as well, but if Denver is trading Murray, something’s gone wrong with Murray. And speaking of Murrays, MPJ makes a lot of sense considering Toronto was reportedly trying to pry Keegan Murray from Sacramento in an Anunoby deal last year. Keegan Murray: 80% of MPJ’s upside with 0% of his particular brand of cringe.)

Ironically given the vitriol of the ROY race, Evan Mobley feels like a solid Barnes co-star as well, but I suspect Cleveland will remain in the Mobley business for a long time. I do think there’s room for a younger-than-Poeltl center on the roster, given that there are teams in desperate need of a good starting-level center (hello New Orleans, Golden State and maybe New York) which could boost Poeltl’s market. So maybe Jarrett Allen ends up in Toronto down the line. Or, uh, cough cough, Deandre Ayton. Or soon-to-be free agent Myles Turner. But we digress.

These are interesting times for Toronto professional basketball, and Barnes is a particularly fascinating player to watch this season. The near-term fate of the Raptors is not entirely in his hands, but how he continues to develop certainly plays a major role in where this team goes and when.

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Back on Wednesday (paid subscribers only) with some links and perhaps some potential first-time All-Stars.