RJ Barrett is Criminally Underrated

[PushDaRock]

His TS% hasn’t improved much because of his horrendous year at the line, but everywhere else on the court he’s been a much more efficient player.

So we know he isn't good in the RA, outside of those 32 games last year. He was in the bottom third of players who scored 18+ ppg and were PG/SG/SF. That wasn't good. And we know he doesn't shoot the middle or the long two much, and that he isn't a particularly remarkable guy on his short game.

He's an above-average shooter from the corner, and he does generate a lot of shots at the rim, which is a useful skillset. There are some things, as I've said over the course of this thread and others, which are worth a look with him. But taking his 32 games from 2024 into an average with his 58 games from this year probably doesn't make sense, because there's more like 5.7 seasons of his career where he hasn't looked anything like that, and he set a bunch of career-highs in the process, as I just noted earlier. Those don't really look like sustainable numbers, particularly the proportion of his shots he was getting at the rim.

His TS% hasn't improved much because he has a weak jumper, is weak at the line, isn't a good ATB 3pt shooter and is weak at the rim.

Like, you say it's because of his FT% shooting, but if Barrett shot 80% at the line this season, that still wouldn't have taken him to league-average efficiency. It sure would have helped, it would have taken him to -0.6% rTS which would have been a lot more palatable... but it's also an unreachable standard. At 70%, he'd have been at 55.6%. He's a 69.7% FT player on his career who has shot 71.5% or less in 4 of 6 seasons, so that's a little more in-line with expectations. But he's also shot 74% twice, at which rate he'd have posted 56.2% TS (-1.4% rTS).

He's a weak FT shooter, it's a known thing. This was an especially bad year, so it was particularly profound, but he hovers in a similar space efficiency-wise. He gets a lot of FGA in the RA, which helps boost his raw FG%, that's a big chunk of why he looked so good in 2024. He was getting 43% of his shots in the RA, and shooting a MASSIVE outlier 73% there, which is very far different from anything else he'd done before... and he was setting a career-high from 3-10, AND he was setting a career-high from the corner.

His next contract won’t start until 2027. If we extend him this offseason at ~$30mil a year to cover his age 27-29 seasons, I think there’s a good chance it ends up being a below-market deal

Maybe. But it's gonna be a lot of money if we get a guy who keeps doing what he did this season and what he did in New York, you know? That's the concern, and that's why I want to see what he looks like with BI and Quick and everyone all together. To try and suss out which is the "real" RJ, so to speak.

The 15 games he played without Barnes this season really dragged out down his efficiency overall. He was 49.7 TS% in those games when it was him and Gradey as our primary scorers. He was a more respectable 56.8 TS% playing with Barnes this season. There is reason to believe he can be up around league average if not over it next year while playing with better talent and without the tanking orders from management we saw last season.

[Indeed]

I am unsure you can base on frequency, since the lineup he was playing lacked ball handler that can attack the rim. Are you expecting to shift his on ball to Dick or Agbaji or Mitchell (Quickley was hardly playing with him)? And outside of our C, most of our perimeter players are below 10% frequency (outside of Brown), that says a lot on our offense.

As for below 50th percentile, none of our players are above 50% except Bouncher and Olynyk, that also proves my theory that our problem is lacking spaces due to having non-shooting bigs.

You said he’s better off-ball when he is factually below average at cutting. What point are you trying to make? Is it supposed to be a feather in RJ’s cap that he is below average at cutting? How does that help us? Do you know who else compromises spacing? RJ, who shoots below league average from 3.

Think about your argument for a second. We should be happy that RJ will be moving more off-ball when he is decidedly not good at that either (at least when it comes to cutting)? He has never been a good cutter at any time, even when playing with ball handlers. How is that a positive?

If you are trying to use RJ’s cutting “ability” as a pro in your argument for RJ you are not doing a good job selling RJ.

Tell me RJ is a good driver. Tell me he draws free throws. Tell me his passing has improved. Don’t try and sell me on things that has proven to not be good at. He’s not a good off ball player and when you put that in context of this team (and its flaws) you can see how he’d be the odd man out.

Depends on the definition of an "off ball" player. He is really good when he catches the ball on the move off a curl especially going right to left. Not sure what you would technically call those actions but it does involve being off the ball at least initially. Just straight cutting to the rim and finishing, that's not been something he does too much of.

And it is very unlikely Barrett can cut to the rim and finish being defended by the best opposing defender last year.

Again, the problem has been Barnes, since VanVleet, Siakam and as I said a year ago being Barrett. Any offensive player we got were snubbed because people think Barnes can replace that offense, but the reality is pretty clear, particularly, not able to space the floor.

[tsherkin]

The 15 games he played without Barnes this season really dragged out down his efficiency overall. He was 49.7 TS% in those games when it was him and Gradey as our primary scorers. He was a more respectable 56.8 TS% playing with Barnes this season. There is reason to believe he can be up around league average if not over it next year while playing with better talent and without the tanking orders from management we saw last season.

Yeah, and if you're paying attention to what I've been saying this entire time, this is all part of why I want to see how he plays with a healthy team and good spacing, as I've been saying, right? I want to see what he can do when the environment around him doesn't put all the pressure on his performance. We know he isn't a tier-2 offensive player, that's fine. No one thinks that, and everyone recognizes that he needs a little more in the setup.

I'm somewhat in the middle of the back and forth here. Some people are being a little overly complimentary toward RJ, whilst others are being overly harsh. I think he has any kind of potential to be of value to us, but I want to wait and see what he looks like when we have our actual team.

[earthtone]

His TS% hasn’t improved much because of his horrendous year at the line, but everywhere else on the court he’s been a much more efficient player.

But taking his 32 games from 2024 into an average with his 58 games from this year probably doesn't make sense, because there's more like 5.7 seasons of his career where he hasn't looked anything like that, and he set a bunch of career-highs in the process, as I just noted earlier.

I definitely see the point in not putting too much weight on that hot stretch, but I’m looking at the differences between Knick RJ & Raptor RJ, and that’s 30% of his time as a Raptor. I don’t see why we wouldn’t take it into account.

He's a weak FT shooter, it's a known thing. This was an especially bad year, so it was particularly profound, but he hovers in a similar space efficiency-wise. He gets a lot of FGA in the RA, which helps boost his raw FG%, that's a big chunk of why he looked so good in 2024. He was getting 43% of his shots in the RA, and shooting a MASSIVE outlier 73% there, which is very far different from anything else he'd done before... and he was setting a career-high from 3-10, AND he was setting a career-high from the corner.

That’s a big part of my overall point though. Efficiency can be very role-dependent, and from day one the org has been focused on changing RJ’s play-style to a more streamlined game. It makes sense his shot diet is different than anything he’s done before, he’s in a new role in a new organization.

Like, you say it's because of his FT% shooting, but if Barrett shot 80% at the line this season, that still wouldn't have taken him to league-average efficiency. It sure would have helped, it would have taken him to -0.6% rTS which would have been a lot more palatable... but it's also an unreachable standard. At 70%, he'd have been at 55.6%. He's a 69.7% FT player on his career who has shot 71.5% or less in 4 of 6 seasons, so that's a little more in-line with expectations. But he's also shot 74% twice, at which rate he'd have posted 56.2% TS (-1.4% rTS).

Maybe. But it's gonna be a lot of money if we get a guy who keeps doing what he did this season and what he did in New York, you know? That's the concern, and that's why I want to see what he looks like with BI and Quick and everyone all together. To try and suss out which is the "real" RJ, so to speak.

^I think that’s the case for optimism for RJ tbh. If he plays the exact same way but gets his free throw percentage up to 74% - which we know he’s capable of - he’ll have a 56.2% TS.

That’s right in line with Maxey, Cade, Ja, Jrue, Bam, Franz, etc. That’s not a bad number at all for a SG, especially one who creates so many looks for himself and others.

A guy who averages 20/5/5 on 50/36/70 is very comfortably a $30mil/year player.

[ConSarnit]

I am unsure you can base on frequency, since the lineup he was playing lacked ball handler that can attack the rim. Are you expecting to shift his on ball to Dick or Agbaji or Mitchell (Quickley was hardly playing with him)? And outside of our C, most of our perimeter players are below 10% frequency (outside of Brown), that says a lot on our offense.

As for below 50th percentile, none of our players are above 50% except Bouncher and Olynyk, that also proves my theory that our problem is lacking spaces due to having non-shooting bigs.

You said he’s better off-ball when he is factually below average at cutting. What point are you trying to make? Is it supposed to be a feather in RJ’s cap that he is below average at cutting? How does that help us? Do you know who else compromises spacing? RJ, who shoots below league average from 3.

Think about your argument for a second. We should be happy that RJ will be moving more off-ball when he is decidedly not good at that either (at least when it comes to cutting)? He has never been a good cutter at any time, even when playing with ball handlers. How is that a positive?

If you are trying to use RJ’s cutting “ability” as a pro in your argument for RJ you are not doing a good job selling RJ.

Tell me RJ is a good driver. Tell me he draws free throws. Tell me his passing has improved. Don’t try and sell me on things that has proven to not be good at. He’s not a good off ball player and when you put that in context of this team (and its flaws) you can see how he’d be the odd man out.

Depends on the definition of an "off ball" player. He is really good when he catches the ball on the move off a curl especially going right to left. Not sure what you would technically call those actions but it does involve being off the ball at least initially. Just straight cutting to the rim and finishing, that's not been something he does too much of.

Agreed. If he’s running a secondary/tertiary action or the defense is scrambling he’s good at attacking the rim. Whether that’s considered “off-ball” or not I’m not sure. In the traditional sense I’d say no, especially with what is considered a “cut”.

To me, off-ball is cutting, c&s shooting, screening, etc. Outside of being an ok corner 3pt shooter RJ hasn’t shown much when placed in traditional off-ball roles. He’s a solid enough player but he’s going to get marginalized on this team and his value decreases the further you push him down the pecking order. The further away a player is from “on ball guy” the more you need shooting and defense from them. This is especially true at sg which is the highest volume (and efficiency) 3pt shooting position.

[ConSarnit]

His TS% hasn’t improved much because of his horrendous year at the line, but everywhere else on the court he’s been a much more efficient player.

But taking his 32 games from 2024 into an average with his 58 games from this year probably doesn't make sense, because there's more like 5.7 seasons of his career where he hasn't looked anything like that, and he set a bunch of career-highs in the process, as I just noted earlier.

I definitely see the point in not putting too much weight on that hot stretch, but I’m looking at the differences between Knick RJ & Raptor RJ, and that’s 30% of his time as a Raptor. I don’t see why we wouldn’t take it into account.

He's a weak FT shooter, it's a known thing. This was an especially bad year, so it was particularly profound, but he hovers in a similar space efficiency-wise. He gets a lot of FGA in the RA, which helps boost his raw FG%, that's a big chunk of why he looked so good in 2024. He was getting 43% of his shots in the RA, and shooting a MASSIVE outlier 73% there, which is very far different from anything else he'd done before... and he was setting a career-high from 3-10, AND he was setting a career-high from the corner.

That’s a big part of my overall point though. Efficiency can be very role-dependent, and from day one the org has been focused on changing RJ’s play-style to a more streamlined game. It makes sense his shot diet is different than anything he’s done before, he’s in a new role in a new organization.

Like, you say it's because of his FT% shooting, but if Barrett shot 80% at the line this season, that still wouldn't have taken him to league-average efficiency. It sure would have helped, it would have taken him to -0.6% rTS which would have been a lot more palatable... but it's also an unreachable standard. At 70%, he'd have been at 55.6%. He's a 69.7% FT player on his career who has shot 71.5% or less in 4 of 6 seasons, so that's a little more in-line with expectations. But he's also shot 74% twice, at which rate he'd have posted 56.2% TS (-1.4% rTS).

Maybe. But it's gonna be a lot of money if we get a guy who keeps doing what he did this season and what he did in New York, you know? That's the concern, and that's why I want to see what he looks like with BI and Quick and everyone all together. To try and suss out which is the "real" RJ, so to speak.

^I think that’s the case for optimism for RJ tbh. If he plays the exact same way but gets his free throw percentage up to 74% - which we know he’s capable of - he’ll have a 56.2% TS.

That’s right in line with Maxey, Cade, Ja, Jrue, Bam, Franz, etc. That’s not a bad number at all for a SG, especially one who creates so many looks for himself and others.

A guy who averages 20/5/5 on 50/36/70 is very comfortably a $30mil/year player.

That’s not a good outcome for this team. Ingram, at his best, is a league average efficiency scorer. Barnes is well below league average. Barrett at even 56 TS% is still below league average. If our 3 top scoring options are all average to below average scorers that is a bad sign for our offense. Combine that with our below average defense that we’d be getting from the 1-3 positions and that is not the makeup of a good team.

20ppg on below average efficiency is not all that valuable of a player. There are boatload of NBA players who can give you 20ppg if the bar is 56 TS%.

[tsherkin]

I definitely see the point in not putting too much weight on that hot stretch, but I’m looking at the differences between Knick RJ & Raptor RJ, and that’s 30% of his time as a Raptor. I don’t see why we wouldn’t take it into account.

We SHOULD take it into account; we should just be cognizant of what it was that happened, and what parts are likely repeatable and which are not, that's all.

That’s a big part of my overall point though. Efficiency can be very role-dependent, and from day one the org has been focused on changing RJ’s play-style to a more streamlined game. It makes sense his shot diet is different than anything he’s done before, he’s in a new role in a new organization.

Yes, to a point. But the idea that he's going to maintain 40%+ of his shots in the RA is probably a bit too much of a reach. That's EXTREMELY difficult even for dudes who are way more athletic than he is, so it's a concern. Remember, RJ already gets 33.5% of his shots in the RA on his career, which is high to begin with. He's never been at 40%+ before and after his rookie year, it's only in seasons with us that he's topped 32.5%. We can probably look forward to 35, 36% of his shots in the RA at the volume we've been feeding him (as he managed this year), but replicating what he did in that stretch before is a bit of a stretch... particularly coupled to the career-high shooting and all that.

^I think that’s the case for optimism for RJ tbh. If he plays the exact same way but gets his free throw percentage up to 74% - which we know he’s capable of - he’ll have a 56.2% TS.

That’s right in line with Maxey, Cade, Ja, Jrue, Bam, Franz, etc. That’s not a bad number at all for a SG, especially one who creates so many looks for himself and others.

It's not great, and particularly with those guys, their usage outpaces their efficiency to a degree which is problematic. Cade is at least a VERY good playmaker, so he can make up for it offensively (and Ja is pretty good when healthy as well, due to his athleticism). Obviously, your primary score makes up a good chunk of that, and there are other things which can drive your offense. And we have other guys who are more proficient shooters, while RJ does bring us something we otherwise sorely lack.


Again, I don't want to play the anti-RJ hand too hard; I'm in a wait-and-see mode with him. Right now, he rebounds well, his passing is improved, he gets to the rim very well, draws fouls very well... and can't shoot to save his life anywhere but the right corner. He has very particular needs to drive him towards competent efficiency, and there is a lot of "if" with him.

You know what I mean?

[earthtone]

Yes, to a point. But the idea that he's going to maintain 40%+ of his shots in the RA is probably a bit too much of a reach. That's EXTREMELY difficult even for dudes who are way more athletic than he is, so it's a concern. Remember, RJ already gets 33.5% of his shots in the RA on his career, which is high to begin with. He's never been at 40%+ before and after his rookie year, it's only in seasons with us that he's topped 32.5%. We can probably look forward to 35, 36% of his shots in the RA at the volume we've been feeding him (as he managed this year), but replicating what he did in that stretch before is a bit of a stretch... particularly coupled to the career-high shooting and all that.

I don't know where to find that stat, but is 40% of attempts in the restricted area abnormally high for driving/playmaking guards? Who are some of the other guys in the high 30's - low 40's range?

It's not great, and particularly with those guys, their usage outpaces their efficiency to a degree which is problematic. Cade is at least a VERY good playmaker, so he can make up for it offensively (and Ja is pretty good when healthy as well, due to his athleticism). Obviously, your primary score makes up a good chunk of that, and there are other things which can drive your offense. And we have other guys who are more proficient shooters, while RJ does bring us something we otherwise sorely lack.

Again, I don't want to play the anti-RJ hand too hard; I'm in a wait-and-see mode with him. Right now, he rebounds well, his passing is improved, he gets to the rim very well, draws fouls very well... and can't shoot to save his life anywhere but the right corner. He has very particular needs to drive him towards competent efficiency, and there is a lot of "if" with him.

You know what I mean?

I don't think you're anti-RJ, I think we might just have different views on the importance of efficiency in evaluating players, especially young guys. Weighting to league average includes so many play finishing bigs and low-usage spot up types who don't carry any creation responsibilities. Maxey, Cade, Ja, Trae, Bam, Franz are all All-Stars. Their usage outpaces their efficiency because that's their role; to be responsible for shot creation and taking the scoring burden for their team.

If you can match high volume with high efficiency, that's a superstar level player. Not many guys reach that bar, and its safe to say that's not in RJ's future. But high volume with average efficiency is all-star/sub all-star level, and I think RJ's shown enough to think he gets there and/or becomes more efficient with lower usage.

[MEDIC]

Depends on the definition of an "off ball" player. He is really good when he catches the ball on the move off a curl especially going right to left. Not sure what you would technically call those actions but it does involve being off the ball at least initially. Just straight cutting to the rim and finishing, that's not been something he does too much of.

100% those are off the ball actions.

[GLF]

Yes, to a point. But the idea that he's going to maintain 40%+ of his shots in the RA is probably a bit too much of a reach. That's EXTREMELY difficult even for dudes who are way more athletic than he is, so it's a concern. Remember, RJ already gets 33.5% of his shots in the RA on his career, which is high to begin with. He's never been at 40%+ before and after his rookie year, it's only in seasons with us that he's topped 32.5%. We can probably look forward to 35, 36% of his shots in the RA at the volume we've been feeding him (as he managed this year), but replicating what he did in that stretch before is a bit of a stretch... particularly coupled to the career-high shooting and all that.

I don't know where to find that stat, but is 40% of attempts in the restricted area abnormally high for driving/playmaking guards? Who are some of the other guys in the high 30's - low 40's range?

It's not great, and particularly with those guys, their usage outpaces their efficiency to a degree which is problematic. Cade is at least a VERY good playmaker, so he can make up for it offensively (and Ja is pretty good when healthy as well, due to his athleticism). Obviously, your primary score makes up a good chunk of that, and there are other things which can drive your offense. And we have other guys who are more proficient shooters, while RJ does bring us something we otherwise sorely lack.

Again, I don't want to play the anti-RJ hand too hard; I'm in a wait-and-see mode with him. Right now, he rebounds well, his passing is improved, he gets to the rim very well, draws fouls very well... and can't shoot to save his life anywhere but the right corner. He has very particular needs to drive him towards competent efficiency, and there is a lot of "if" with him.

You know what I mean?

I don't think you're anti-RJ, I think we might just have different views on the importance of efficiency in evaluating players, especially young guys. Weighting to league average includes so many play finishing bigs and low-usage spot up types who don't carry any creation responsibilities. Maxey, Cade, Ja, Trae, Bam, Franz are all All-Stars. Their usage outpaces their efficiency because that's their role; to be responsible for shot creation and taking the scoring burden for their team.

If you can match high volume with high efficiency, that's a superstar level player. Not many guys reach that bar, and its safe to say that's not in RJ's future. But high volume with average efficiency is all-star/sub all-star level, and I think RJ's shown enough to think he gets there and/or becomes more efficient with lower usage.

Samson talks about that all the time. High usage league average efficiency players are important. To maintain a league average efficiency with high usage isn’t an easy feet and that’s why those are usually the All Star to borderline All Star calibre players. To expect everyone to be this uber efficient player isn’t realistic. It doesn’t mean they aren’t important to the team and don’t affect winning. Because the reality is those high efficient role players usually would not be able to stay that efficient if they upped their usage and took harder shot or took on more responsibility.

Ochai is a perfect example. People love him so much now (to the point that they hate on Gradey when just like a year ago it was the other way around) because he improved his efficiency, but he takes some of the easiest shots in basketball. He is not asked to do too much on offence. And this isn’t a knock on Ochai bc I’m so happy he figured it out, but being a guy who can take tougher shots and make it at a league average efficiency or take on more usage and stay league average is a good thing. It isn’t a guarantee that a highly efficient role player would be able to take on RJ’s usage and still stay league average in efficiency. And if RJ just got his free throw percentage to 74% like you said (which is doable) he would be above league average.

These types of players usually get more love on a winning team. I hope if we start winning next season like we should people will look at RJ a bit differently.

[tsherkin]

I don't know where to find that stat, but is 40% of attempts in the restricted area abnormally high for driving/playmaking guards? Who are some of the other guys in the high 30's - low 40's range?

Yes, it is quite high. Most guys these guys are in the high 20s, so even the low/mid 30s is pretty high. Shai, for example, led the league in drives per game during the RS at 20.6 (17.8 was second place) and took a league-high 21.8 FGA/g. He took 20.6% of his shots in the paint. In his 20+ ppg seasons (the past 4 seasons), Ja Morant has taken 28.8% (only one season of 30%+), and he has no jumper to speak of beyond the foul line.

There are examples of guys who shoot larger proportions inside the RA, but 40%+ is extremely high. Ja didn't take that as a rookie, for example, though he was just beneath that marker at 39.6% (on 14 FGA/g

I don't think you're anti-RJ, I think we might just have different views on the importance of efficiency in evaluating players, especially young guys. Weighting to league average includes so many play finishing bigs and low-usage spot up types who don't carry any creation responsibilities. Maxey, Cade, Ja, Trae, Bam, Franz are all All-Stars. Their usage outpaces their efficiency because that's their role; to be responsible for shot creation and taking the scoring burden for their team.

If you can match high volume with high efficiency, that's a superstar level player. Not many guys reach that bar, and its safe to say that's not in RJ's future. But high volume with average efficiency is all-star/sub all-star level, and I think RJ's shown enough to think he gets there and/or becomes more efficient with lower usage.

There are plenty of non-superstar guys who are efficient. The magnitude of that efficiency relative to league average varies, of course; not everyone is going to be a +6% rTS type of player, naturally.

Obviously, the specific importance of efficiency differs depending on the makeup of the team. The better you are, the more you can tolerate a weaker scorer. And the worse you are, the more you need to lean on people where it doesn't otherwise make sense to run them that sort of volume. And the context in which a player finds his shots can matter a lot as well. Are the point of attack, do they take a lot of unassisted shots, how often are they shooting contested shots, etc, etc, etc. These are all valid things to consider.

Barrett, for example, took 0.5 more FGA/g than anyone else on the team this year, making him technically our lead option by FGA/g and PPG. That was obviously a bad idea; his skill set inside that role isn't sufficient. You do not want a mediocre-efficiency guy driving your volume scoring, which seems fairly obvious. As I said before, with someone like Cade, you can tolerate it due to his playmaking (and to some extent because they just don't have any superior options), so you live with that and understand that it hurts your ceiling.

RJ is interesting. Like I've been saying, I'm curious to see what he can do. I don't really want to bank on him matching a bunk of career-highs to get him where he needs to be. Like we talked about, but if he does get into that neighborhood of being a positive TSAdd player, then that would be very helpful for us... even if it's just to up his trade value. Whatever the case, we need to see. And I like the story of RJ, so I'd love for us to find a way to keep him, even though it feels like the $30+ mil/year contract he'll end up netting probably isn't ideal for us.

Franz, for example, is a guy holding Orlando back due to his inefficiency. Him and Banchero both. They need to improve, or add someone to help them change their role. Same with Cade in Detroit, and Ja in Memphis. Those guys aren't hot examples, because they're focal options, they're primary offensive engines for their teams. RJ is not that, he's proven he isn't good in that role quite handily by now.

But, one of the intriguing things about next year is that he doesn't have to be. We can get him to maybe 14 FGA/g, with far better spacing. And then with more room to move, maybe we can use the threat of Quick and BI to open things up for him a little more. And that IS compelling. Like I said, specific usage is so important to player performance, so it's why there's less hesitation for me there and why I am interested to see what he can do.

But yeah, like... let me run this at you.

In 2024-2025, there were 81 players who played 40+ games and scored 15+ ppg.

Of those players, Barnes was dead-ass last in TS% and Barrett was 73rd.

52 of those guys were above league-average efficiency. 51 of them were at 58.2% or better (which would have been above league-average even in 2024 and 2023, when league average was 58.0 and 58.1%).

That puts some things in perspective, no?

So perhaps that will help highlight my concern.

The league rewards scorers a lot even when they should, so I don't really care about All-Star consideration as a general rule. It's often a daft process. And while a guy like Barrett doesn't need to be Christian Braun, for sure, the more of these mediocre scorers you have on your team, the tougher it is to field an elite offense and the more you need to lean on defense to drive you. Much the same way as the more you lean into possession control at the expense of shot-making, the harder a time you'll have against better defenses and in the playoffs, despite what shows as a high team ORTG.

Just some food for thought.

I like RJ, I hope he's able to come through for us, but especially if we're keeping Sinkhole Scottie and running Quick (who has also never hit league-average efficiency), we're gonna need to get some more punch in our offense, and a guy struggling to reach league-average efficiency is going to be of only so much value even WITH Ingram.

Now, we have some guys. Poeltl is efficient in his role. Not a volume guy, but an efficient roleplayer. Agbaji has potential. Battle. But mostly, we have a lot of weak to terrible scorers. Shead, Walter and Mogbo were problematic... but also young and rookies. Gradey had a rough year, but he has some potential as well.

So the other thing is that as we start running more efficient roleplayers, then we can start tolerating a little bit lower efficiency from our core guys as well, right? But we don't even do that at this time, which is part of why we are so awful on offense at the moment.

Again, obviously, having Quick healthy will be useful. He's a good ATB shooter and he's a lot more efficient than some of the rookies, or Scottie. Having BI come in, he's obviously a guy who has ever posted a 104 TS+ season in volume, shoots well, isolates well, passes well, he's an AS-level player. He's going to change how defenses play our other guys, no doubt.

So those are the things that make it worth taking a look at RJ next year. Otherwise, we've seen guys like him before, even in Toronto. You know we've seen DeRozan. We've seen Fred, for that matter, and Pascal. Now, those guys had other things going for them, but we've struggled to one extent or another with offense since the title season. We haven't had a +1.0 offense since 2019, and a lot of it has come from fielding mediocre guys in volume roles. Obviously, that's an incomplete discussion about Fred and Pascal, who both did more than just score, which helped them add value. Fred's a net-positive offensive player even if he blows at hitting shots inside the arc (and scoring efficiently in general) and Pascal was a good defender who was just miscast as a #1 without a dominant perimeter playmaker driving the offense (and a good iso guy, etc, etc).

RJ, though, maps a lot to pre-San Antonio Demar. Weak defender, good per-game averages, weak scoring efficiency in volume. Emotional connection to the city. By the same token, Demar proved that he could be on good offenses. 2014-2018, he was averaging 20+ for us, and we rocked +2.1, +5.4, +3.6, +3.5, and +5.2 offenses as a slower-than-average team with Demar. We had other guys, like Kyle and Jonas and OG and such, who helped make that happen. And then we fell apart in the playoffs, but that's a whole different stage of the game to worry about right now.

So it's something to think about.

That's a lot of ramble, but I think you can get the gist of what I'm saying, yeah?

[tsherkin]

Samson talks about that all the time. High usage league average efficiency players are important. To maintain a league average efficiency with high usage isn’t an easy feet and that’s why those are usually the All Star to borderline All Star calibre players. To expect everyone to be this uber efficient player isn’t realistic. It doesn’t mean they aren’t important to the team and don’t affect winning. Because the reality is those high efficient role players usually would not be able to stay that efficient if they upped their usage and took harder shot or took on more responsibility.

"Uber efficient" is hyperbolic.

Asking for a guy to be like +1 or +2% rTS in a focal scoring role isn't an insane ask, if what you're trying to field is a team that will go deep into the playoffs. There are factors, of course. It depends a lot on what your team looks like. We've seen models of teams which kill it on D and on the boards, and they can tolerate weaker scorers at the fore until they start getting past the first, second round. After that, it becomes a challenge. No one here is really asking RJ to put up +5% rTS.

It's more about asking him to shoot less, and trying to distribute the offense more, frankly. And then also trying to best position him with easier looks to take advantage of his strengths.

It's important to remember we are watching the most efficient era of basketball. The more you lag there, the tougher your life is going to be... especially if you are simultaneously trying to drag yourself up defensively. Defense, of course, allows you to be a little worse on O at times.

Ochai is a perfect example. People love him so much now (to the point that they hate on Gradey when just like a year ago it was the other way around) because he improved his efficiency, but he takes some of the easiest shots in basketball. He is not asked to do too much on offence. And this isn’t a knock on Ochai bc I’m so happy he figured it out, but being a guy who can take tougher shots and make it at a league average efficiency or take on more usage and stay league average is a good thing

Surely. He projects as a complementary player, and you need guys like that, the remoras working off the sharks. And again, like I said before, the magnitude of performance from your roleplayers can also lower the threshold of what you need from your focal guys at times, so long as they can make shots.

. It isn’t a guarantee that a highly efficient role player would be able to take on RJ’s usage and still stay league average in efficiency. And if RJ just got his free throw percentage to 74% like you said (which is doable) he would be above league average.

He wouldn't, though. He'd be just under, as I noted above.

That said, if RJ were cast more as a second option, it would be a little different, but he wasn't even taking 17 FGA/g, and he was pretty rough compared to his peers in volume... which has been a consistent thing with him to this point in his career due to his specific weaknesses.

Speaking of second options, Jaylen Brown was a 100 TS+ guy for the 2024 Celtics as the second option. Jamal Murray was a 98 TS+ for the 2023 Nuggets in the RS, before lighting it up in the postseason. Klay was a 97 TS+ when he played in the 2022 RS, and Wiggins was a 99 TS+ guy. Middleton was at 103 for the 2021 Bucks (who, of course, were driven by Giannis being a monster).

Naturally, Boston and Golden State were both phenomenal defenses and the Nuggets had Jokic, so it was a little different.

So if we can sort of manipulate his shot distribution, ask of him less scoring volume and lean a little on the defensive draw of Ingram as well as the spacing of other guys, then we've got something to work with. But it bears recollection that when you take any of those kickstands out from beneath him, he's going to have problems again, which does have to factor into the thought process around his utility to the team.

[ConSarnit]

Yes, to a point. But the idea that he's going to maintain 40%+ of his shots in the RA is probably a bit too much of a reach. That's EXTREMELY difficult even for dudes who are way more athletic than he is, so it's a concern. Remember, RJ already gets 33.5% of his shots in the RA on his career, which is high to begin with. He's never been at 40%+ before and after his rookie year, it's only in seasons with us that he's topped 32.5%. We can probably look forward to 35, 36% of his shots in the RA at the volume we've been feeding him (as he managed this year), but replicating what he did in that stretch before is a bit of a stretch... particularly coupled to the career-high shooting and all that.

I don't know where to find that stat, but is 40% of attempts in the restricted area abnormally high for driving/playmaking guards? Who are some of the other guys in the high 30's - low 40's range?

It's not great, and particularly with those guys, their usage outpaces their efficiency to a degree which is problematic. Cade is at least a VERY good playmaker, so he can make up for it offensively (and Ja is pretty good when healthy as well, due to his athleticism). Obviously, your primary score makes up a good chunk of that, and there are other things which can drive your offense. And we have other guys who are more proficient shooters, while RJ does bring us something we otherwise sorely lack.

Again, I don't want to play the anti-RJ hand too hard; I'm in a wait-and-see mode with him. Right now, he rebounds well, his passing is improved, he gets to the rim very well, draws fouls very well... and can't shoot to save his life anywhere but the right corner. He has very particular needs to drive him towards competent efficiency, and there is a lot of "if" with him.

You know what I mean?

I don't think you're anti-RJ, I think we might just have different views on the importance of efficiency in evaluating players, especially young guys. Weighting to league average includes so many play finishing bigs and low-usage spot up types who don't carry any creation responsibilities. Maxey, Cade, Ja, Trae, Bam, Franz are all All-Stars. Their usage outpaces their efficiency because that's their role; to be responsible for shot creation and taking the scoring burden for their team.

If you can match high volume with high efficiency, that's a superstar level player. Not many guys reach that bar, and its safe to say that's not in RJ's future. But high volume with average efficiency is all-star/sub all-star level, and I think RJ's shown enough to think he gets there and/or becomes more efficient with lower usage.

Samson talks about that all the time. High usage league average efficiency players are important. To maintain a league average efficiency with high usage isn’t an easy feet and that’s why those are usually the All Star to borderline All Star calibre players. To expect everyone to be this uber efficient player isn’t realistic. It doesn’t mean they aren’t important to the team and don’t affect winning. Because the reality is those high efficient role players usually would not be able to stay that efficient if they upped their usage and took harder shot or took on more responsibility.

Ochai is a perfect example. People love him so much now (to the point that they hate on Gradey when just like a year ago it was the other way around) because he improved his efficiency, but he takes some of the easiest shots in basketball. He is not asked to do too much on offence. And this isn’t a knock on Ochai bc I’m so happy he figured it out, but being a guy who can take tougher shots and make it at a league average efficiency or take on more usage and stay league average is a good thing. It isn’t a guarantee that a highly efficient role player would be able to take on RJ’s usage and still stay league average in efficiency. And if RJ just got his free throw percentage to 74% like you said (which is doable) he would be above league average.

These types of players usually get more love on a winning team. I hope if we start winning next season like we should people will look at RJ a bit differently.

This years RJ, even shooting 74% from the line, is still a below average efficiency player. His TS% would be 56.3%. League average is 57.6%.

[tsherkin]

This years RJ, even shooting 74% from the line, is still a below average efficiency player. His TS% would be 56.3%. League average is 57.6%.

Yeah, I had him at 56.2% above with the fractional FT. 73.95% at the line if he's at exactly 230 FTM. Either way, he's still like 1.3 to 1.4% below average.

But to be fair to RJ, we also significantly lowered his corner 3 proportion, right? And he's actually good there, it's an above-average skill for him in about half of his seasons. In 2024, he was up over 30% from the corner (by proportion, not FG%), and that was a big chunk of what was helping him out, and why he shot 39.2% from 3 over those 32 games.

We definitely have the luxury of getting him back in the corner this year with everyone else doing their thing, which has to be at least a little encouraging.

[earthtone]

I don't know where to find that stat, but is 40% of attempts in the restricted area abnormally high for driving/playmaking guards? Who are some of the other guys in the high 30's - low 40's range?

Yes, it is quite high. Most guys these guys are in the high 20s, so even the low/mid 30s is pretty high. Shai, for example, led the league in drives per game during the RS at 20.6 (17.8 was second place) and took a league-high 21.8 FGA/g. He took 20.6% of his shots in the paint. In his 20+ ppg seasons (the past 4 seasons), Ja Morant has taken 28.8% (only one season of 30%+), and he has no jumper to speak of beyond the foul line.

There are examples of guys who shoot larger proportions inside the RA, but 40%+ is extremely high. Ja didn't take that as a rookie, for example, though he was just beneath that marker at 39.6% (on 14 FGA/g

I don't think you're anti-RJ, I think we might just have different views on the importance of efficiency in evaluating players, especially young guys. Weighting to league average includes so many play finishing bigs and low-usage spot up types who don't carry any creation responsibilities. Maxey, Cade, Ja, Trae, Bam, Franz are all All-Stars. Their usage outpaces their efficiency because that's their role; to be responsible for shot creation and taking the scoring burden for their team.

If you can match high volume with high efficiency, that's a superstar level player. Not many guys reach that bar, and its safe to say that's not in RJ's future. But high volume with average efficiency is all-star/sub all-star level, and I think RJ's shown enough to think he gets there and/or becomes more efficient with lower usage.

There are plenty of non-superstar guys who are efficient. The magnitude of that efficiency relative to league average varies, of course; not everyone is going to be a +6% rTS type of player, naturally.

Obviously, the specific importance of efficiency differs depending on the makeup of the team. The better you are, the more you can tolerate a weaker scorer. And the worse you are, the more you need to lean on people where it doesn't otherwise make sense to run them that sort of volume. And the context in which a player finds his shots can matter a lot as well. Are the point of attack, do they take a lot of unassisted shots, how often are they shooting contested shots, etc, etc, etc. These are all valid things to consider.

Barrett, for example, took 0.5 more FGA/g than anyone else on the team this year, making him technically our lead option by FGA/g and PPG. That was obviously a bad idea; his skill set inside that role isn't sufficient. You do not want a mediocre-efficiency guy driving your volume scoring, which seems fairly obvious. As I said before, with someone like Cade, you can tolerate it due to his playmaking (and to some extent because they just don't have any superior options), so you live with that and understand that it hurts your ceiling.

RJ is interesting. Like I've been saying, I'm curious to see what he can do. I don't really want to bank on him matching a bunk of career-highs to get him where he needs to be. Like we talked about, but if he does get into that neighborhood of being a positive TSAdd player, then that would be very helpful for us... even if it's just to up his trade value. Whatever the case, we need to see. And I like the story of RJ, so I'd love for us to find a way to keep him, even though it feels like the $30+ mil/year contract he'll end up netting probably isn't ideal for us.

Franz, for example, is a guy holding Orlando back due to his inefficiency. Him and Banchero both. They need to improve, or add someone to help them change their role. Same with Cade in Detroit, and Ja in Memphis. Those guys aren't hot examples, because they're focal options, they're primary offensive engines for their teams. RJ is not that, he's proven he isn't good in that role quite handily by now.

But, one of the intriguing things about next year is that he doesn't have to be. We can get him to maybe 14 FGA/g, with far better spacing. And then with more room to move, maybe we can use the threat of Quick and BI to open things up for him a little more. And that IS compelling. Like I said, specific usage is so important to player performance, so it's why there's less hesitation for me there and why I am interested to see what he can do.

But yeah, like... let me run this at you.

In 2024-2025, there were 81 players who played 40+ games and scored 15+ ppg.

Of those players, Barnes was dead-ass last in TS% and Barrett was 73rd.

52 of those guys were above league-average efficiency. 51 of them were at 58.2% or better (which would have been above league-average even in 2024 and 2023, when league average was 58.0 and 58.1%).

That puts some things in perspective, no?

So perhaps that will help highlight my concern.

The league rewards scorers a lot even when they should, so I don't really care about All-Star consideration as a general rule. It's often a daft process. And while a guy like Barrett doesn't need to be Christian Braun, for sure, the more of these mediocre scorers you have on your team, the tougher it is to field an elite offense and the more you need to lean on defense to drive you. Much the same way as the more you lean into possession control at the expense of shot-making, the harder a time you'll have against better defenses and in the playoffs, despite what shows as a high team ORTG.

Just some food for thought.

I like RJ, I hope he's able to come through for us, but especially if we're keeping Sinkhole Scottie and running Quick (who has also never hit league-average efficiency), we're gonna need to get some more punch in our offense, and a guy struggling to reach league-average efficiency is going to be of only so much value even WITH Ingram.

Now, we have some guys. Poeltl is efficient in his role. Not a volume guy, but an efficient roleplayer. Agbaji has potential. Battle. But mostly, we have a lot of weak to terrible scorers. Shead, Walter and Mogbo were problematic... but also young and rookies. Gradey had a rough year, but he has some potential as well.

So the other thing is that as we start running more efficient roleplayers, then we can start tolerating a little bit lower efficiency from our core guys as well, right? But we don't even do that at this time, which is part of why we are so awful on offense at the moment.

Again, obviously, having Quick healthy will be useful. He's a good ATB shooter and he's a lot more efficient than some of the rookies, or Scottie. Having BI come in, he's obviously a guy who has ever posted a 104 TS+ season in volume, shoots well, isolates well, passes well, he's an AS-level player. He's going to change how defenses play our other guys, no doubt.

So those are the things that make it worth taking a look at RJ next year. Otherwise, we've seen guys like him before, even in Toronto. You know we've seen DeRozan. We've seen Fred, for that matter, and Pascal. Now, those guys had other things going for them, but we've struggled to one extent or another with offense since the title season. We haven't had a +1.0 offense since 2019, and a lot of it has come from fielding mediocre guys in volume roles. Obviously, that's an incomplete discussion about Fred and Pascal, who both did more than just score, which helped them add value. Fred's a net-positive offensive player even if he blows at hitting shots inside the arc (and scoring efficiently in general) and Pascal was a good defender who was just miscast as a #1 without a dominant perimeter playmaker driving the offense (and a good iso guy, etc, etc).

RJ, though, maps a lot to pre-San Antonio Demar. Weak defender, good per-game averages, weak scoring efficiency in volume. Emotional connection to the city. By the same token, Demar proved that he could be on good offenses. 2014-2018, he was averaging 20+ for us, and we rocked +2.1, +5.4, +3.6, +3.5, and +5.2 offenses as a slower-than-average team with Demar. We had other guys, like Kyle and Jonas and OG and such, who helped make that happen. And then we fell apart in the playoffs, but that's a whole different stage of the game to worry about right now.

So it's something to think about.

That's a lot of ramble, but I think you can get the gist of what I'm saying, yeah?

Yeah, can definitely see where you're coming from. I don't think we'll see eye-to-eye on the importance of raw efficiency, but that's all right.

I think what we definitely agree on is Barrett is miscast as a first option, and has a lot of room to grow in an offence where BI shoulders a lot of the creation responsibilities. Like you responded to GLF, there are a lot of examples of great teams with 2nd options who are below league average in efficiency, and I think Barrett can be one of those guys.

[tsherkin]

I think what we definitely agree on is Barrett is miscast as a first option, and has a lot of room to grow in an offence where BI shoulders a lot of the creation responsibilities. Like you responded to GLF, there are a lot of examples of great teams with 2nd options who are below league average in efficiency, and I think Barrett can be one of those guys.

It becomes considerably more tolerable when we have a real lead guy, and if our roleplayers are coming through, for sure. Obviously, more is better than less, but we'll make do.

As it always does, it'll come down to seeing what happens when the season gets rolling. I hope he ends up coming through for us.

[GLF]

I don't know where to find that stat, but is 40% of attempts in the restricted area abnormally high for driving/playmaking guards? Who are some of the other guys in the high 30's - low 40's range?

Yes, it is quite high. Most guys these guys are in the high 20s, so even the low/mid 30s is pretty high. Shai, for example, led the league in drives per game during the RS at 20.6 (17.8 was second place) and took a league-high 21.8 FGA/g. He took 20.6% of his shots in the paint. In his 20+ ppg seasons (the past 4 seasons), Ja Morant has taken 28.8% (only one season of 30%+), and he has no jumper to speak of beyond the foul line.

There are examples of guys who shoot larger proportions inside the RA, but 40%+ is extremely high. Ja didn't take that as a rookie, for example, though he was just beneath that marker at 39.6% (on 14 FGA/g

I don't think you're anti-RJ, I think we might just have different views on the importance of efficiency in evaluating players, especially young guys. Weighting to league average includes so many play finishing bigs and low-usage spot up types who don't carry any creation responsibilities. Maxey, Cade, Ja, Trae, Bam, Franz are all All-Stars. Their usage outpaces their efficiency because that's their role; to be responsible for shot creation and taking the scoring burden for their team.

If you can match high volume with high efficiency, that's a superstar level player. Not many guys reach that bar, and its safe to say that's not in RJ's future. But high volume with average efficiency is all-star/sub all-star level, and I think RJ's shown enough to think he gets there and/or becomes more efficient with lower usage.

There are plenty of non-superstar guys who are efficient. The magnitude of that efficiency relative to league average varies, of course; not everyone is going to be a +6% rTS type of player, naturally.

Obviously, the specific importance of efficiency differs depending on the makeup of the team. The better you are, the more you can tolerate a weaker scorer. And the worse you are, the more you need to lean on people where it doesn't otherwise make sense to run them that sort of volume. And the context in which a player finds his shots can matter a lot as well. Are the point of attack, do they take a lot of unassisted shots, how often are they shooting contested shots, etc, etc, etc. These are all valid things to consider.

Barrett, for example, took 0.5 more FGA/g than anyone else on the team this year, making him technically our lead option by FGA/g and PPG. That was obviously a bad idea; his skill set inside that role isn't sufficient. You do not want a mediocre-efficiency guy driving your volume scoring, which seems fairly obvious. As I said before, with someone like Cade, you can tolerate it due to his playmaking (and to some extent because they just don't have any superior options), so you live with that and understand that it hurts your ceiling.

RJ is interesting. Like I've been saying, I'm curious to see what he can do. I don't really want to bank on him matching a bunk of career-highs to get him where he needs to be. Like we talked about, but if he does get into that neighborhood of being a positive TSAdd player, then that would be very helpful for us... even if it's just to up his trade value. Whatever the case, we need to see. And I like the story of RJ, so I'd love for us to find a way to keep him, even though it feels like the $30+ mil/year contract he'll end up netting probably isn't ideal for us.

Franz, for example, is a guy holding Orlando back due to his inefficiency. Him and Banchero both. They need to improve, or add someone to help them change their role. Same with Cade in Detroit, and Ja in Memphis. Those guys aren't hot examples, because they're focal options, they're primary offensive engines for their teams. RJ is not that, he's proven he isn't good in that role quite handily by now.

But, one of the intriguing things about next year is that he doesn't have to be. We can get him to maybe 14 FGA/g, with far better spacing. And then with more room to move, maybe we can use the threat of Quick and BI to open things up for him a little more. And that IS compelling. Like I said, specific usage is so important to player performance, so it's why there's less hesitation for me there and why I am interested to see what he can do.

But yeah, like... let me run this at you.

In 2024-2025, there were 81 players who played 40+ games and scored 15+ ppg.

Of those players, Barnes was dead-ass last in TS% and Barrett was 73rd.

52 of those guys were above league-average efficiency. 51 of them were at 58.2% or better (which would have been above league-average even in 2024 and 2023, when league average was 58.0 and 58.1%).

That puts some things in perspective, no?

So perhaps that will help highlight my concern.

The league rewards scorers a lot even when they should, so I don't really care about All-Star consideration as a general rule. It's often a daft process. And while a guy like Barrett doesn't need to be Christian Braun, for sure, the more of these mediocre scorers you have on your team, the tougher it is to field an elite offense and the more you need to lean on defense to drive you. Much the same way as the more you lean into possession control at the expense of shot-making, the harder a time you'll have against better defenses and in the playoffs, despite what shows as a high team ORTG.

Just some food for thought.

I like RJ, I hope he's able to come through for us, but especially if we're keeping Sinkhole Scottie and running Quick (who has also never hit league-average efficiency), we're gonna need to get some more punch in our offense, and a guy struggling to reach league-average efficiency is going to be of only so much value even WITH Ingram.

Now, we have some guys. Poeltl is efficient in his role. Not a volume guy, but an efficient roleplayer. Agbaji has potential. Battle. But mostly, we have a lot of weak to terrible scorers. Shead, Walter and Mogbo were problematic... but also young and rookies. Gradey had a rough year, but he has some potential as well.

So the other thing is that as we start running more efficient roleplayers, then we can start tolerating a little bit lower efficiency from our core guys as well, right? But we don't even do that at this time, which is part of why we are so awful on offense at the moment.

Again, obviously, having Quick healthy will be useful. He's a good ATB shooter and he's a lot more efficient than some of the rookies, or Scottie. Having BI come in, he's obviously a guy who has ever posted a 104 TS+ season in volume, shoots well, isolates well, passes well, he's an AS-level player. He's going to change how defenses play our other guys, no doubt.

So those are the things that make it worth taking a look at RJ next year. Otherwise, we've seen guys like him before, even in Toronto. You know we've seen DeRozan. We've seen Fred, for that matter, and Pascal. Now, those guys had other things going for them, but we've struggled to one extent or another with offense since the title season. We haven't had a +1.0 offense since 2019, and a lot of it has come from fielding mediocre guys in volume roles. Obviously, that's an incomplete discussion about Fred and Pascal, who both did more than just score, which helped them add value. Fred's a net-positive offensive player even if he blows at hitting shots inside the arc (and scoring efficiently in general) and Pascal was a good defender who was just miscast as a #1 without a dominant perimeter playmaker driving the offense (and a good iso guy, etc, etc).

RJ, though, maps a lot to pre-San Antonio Demar. Weak defender, good per-game averages, weak scoring efficiency in volume. Emotional connection to the city. By the same token, Demar proved that he could be on good offenses. 2014-2018, he was averaging 20+ for us, and we rocked +2.1, +5.4, +3.6, +3.5, and +5.2 offenses as a slower-than-average team with Demar. We had other guys, like Kyle and Jonas and OG and such, who helped make that happen. And then we fell apart in the playoffs, but that's a whole different stage of the game to worry about right now.

So it's something to think about.

That's a lot of ramble, but I think you can get the gist of what I'm saying, yeah?

Yeah, can definitely see where you're coming from. I don't think we'll see eye-to-eye on the importance of raw efficiency, but that's all right.

I think what we definitely agree on is Barrett is miscast as a first option, and has a lot of room to grow in an offence where BI shoulders a lot of the creation responsibilities. Like you responded to GLF, there are a lot of examples of great teams with 2nd options who are below league average in efficiency, and I think Barrett can be one of those guys.

Yup. And to be honest he probably won’t be second option, he’ll probably be 3rd or 4th depending on how IQ is playing so even better for him.

[tsherkin]

Yup. And to be honest he probably won’t be second option, he’ll probably be 3rd or 4th depending on how IQ is playing so even better for him.

There are a bunch of things I'm quite curious to see how Toronto handles this season. Where Scottie and RJ end up in the offensive pecking order are two of them, no doubt.

[GLF]

Yup. And to be honest he probably won’t be second option, he’ll probably be 3rd or 4th depending on how IQ is playing so even better for him.

There are a bunch of things I'm quite curious to see how Toronto handles this season. Where Scottie and RJ end up in the offensive pecking order are two of them, no doubt.

I know you think Scottie should be like 4th on the team in shot attempts based on your many posts about him lol but I can assure you there is no way in hell RJ will be ahead of him in the pecking order. Right or wrong. RJ may not even be apart of this team’s future. They will not prioritize him over Scottie. Now RJ will probably score more points than Scottie (like he has in the past) bc he’s usually way more aggressive, will have the lesser defender on him and less attention on him, but I don’t think he’ll be the second option. I would be shocked. And I’m not saying whether I agree or not, just that it’s very unlikely it happens. Third in the pecking order is the highest he’ll be. But I know the front office would probably prefer if it were IQ third and RJ 4th.

[tsherkin]

I know you think Scottie should be like 4th on the team in shot attempts based on your many posts about him lol but I can assure you there is no way in hell RJ will be ahead of him in the pecking order. Right or wrong. RJ may not even be apart of this team’s future. They will not prioritize him over Scottie.

I very much believe that to be true, yes.

I shouldn't have said "pecking order," I should have said "how they will be used." Like, what types of sets are run for them, what kinds of shots they are getting, etc. Because you're right, for good or for ill, the team does seem to be all in on Scottie being a relevant scoring threat.