Tha Cynic wrote:Barrett can get to the rim, but he really doesn’t shift defenses. Generally teams don’t overreact to his drives as he kind of gallops his way there. The only player on this team who shifts defenses is Barnes as he consistently faces double and triple coverage when he gets the ball inside the arc. Teams typically just play Barrett and Quickley single coverage
Agreed.
Ultimately the problem with guys like RJ, or Rudy Gay, or even Brandon Ingram or DeMar (their better versions), is that they lack what people have started calling "portability" the last decade or two. And they always seem to get overpaid because
As your #1 or #2 scorer, Barrett is not significantly worse than someone like Quickley. But if they're competing to be the #3 or #4 options on offence - which they have to be if the team is gonna be good and the other 4 starters aren't like a top 5 guy like Jokic/SGA and then a couple 3 and D guys and a defensive star,, and even then you'd want that innings-eater style offensive guy to be a good defender like Josh Howard instead of RJ - there's a real gap between what Quickley can provide and what RJ can.
When your top 2 or 3 guys shift the defence and the ball swings to Quickley against a close out, he can put up a 3 where he shoots it well, or drive if the close out is hard enough to deny it. So you're getting a 3 from a good shooter or a paint touch if you help off him. Those are bad outcomes for a defence.
If it swings to RJ, you can just close out without running him off the 3 and letting him drive and it's like whatever, the possession you've given up is an average one (1.07 seems to be the halfcourt possession average in the league right now, but that includes offensive rebounds, so RJ shooting the 3 at like 1.02 per possession probably gets up to average with offensive rebounds I would guess?).
Like if we draft Harper and he's the guy he looks like offensively, he'll be better off with Quickley and Agbaji flanking him and providing spacing than he would with RJ in place of either guy.
RJ's game make more sense as a 6th man on a good team, keeping the 2nd unit afloat offensively. Or helping a team be respectable as a starter like he did on the Knicks before they were really good.
The Celtics and OKC don't have guys who can't hit a 3 AND play D in their rotation with the lone exception of Hartenstein or the Celtics depth centers. If you're playing 1-4, and you're not special, you gotta do both or at least one of those things. RJ does neither.
Our big hope should be that like Demar, he goes from a below average to an above average mid-range guy in his mid 20s, and can be dealt when that looks attractive to some team. Or you move him at the 2027 deadline as a similarly expiring deal after we've added 3 first rounders (ours the next 2 years and Indy's in 2026) and we have a better idea what Chomche, Walter and Dick look like and if Quickley is a solid starting PG or not and if Barnes is a top 25 or top 50 guy, and we know what kind of guy we need to target.
He has no scoring range and so that does limit his creation potential.
