Official RJ Barrett Thread Part 2

[Scase]

Player A
23.8/6.0/4.6
PER - 18.0
TS - 55.0%

Player B
23.5/6.8/6.1
PER - 17.1
TS - 54.6%

Player A is 3x allstar Jaylen Brown, while Player B is RJ Barrett.

RJ gets way too much hate. Kid is having an allstar caliber season IMO.

Edit - Browns stats where not much different last season either.

Yeah, Jalen Brown is also doing it on one of the best teams in the NBA. That kinda matters. Brown is a proven championship player who won FMVP.

Claiming his numbers were "not much different last season" ignores that he was also doing that on 58% TS%. And if you ignore the aberration that last year was, Browns worst year efficiency wise, is as good as RJs best. And none of this even touches on the defensive gap between them.

Man, if you want to praise him do it, but don't use BS comparisons. JB basically carried them to a chip last year, RJ can't even carry this team to 8 wins, this is insanity.

[XTC]

Player A
23.8/6.0/4.6
PER - 18.0
TS - 55.0%

Player B
23.5/6.8/6.1
PER - 17.1
TS - 54.6%

Player A is 3x allstar Jaylen Brown, while Player B is RJ Barrett.

RJ gets way too much hate. Kid is having an allstar caliber season IMO.

Edit - Browns stats where not much different last season either.

Yeah, Jalen Brown is also doing it on one of the best teams in the NBA. That kinda matters. Brown is a proven championship player who won FMVP.

Claiming his numbers were "not much different last season" ignores that he was also doing that on 58% TS%. And if you ignore the aberration that last year was, Browns worst year efficiency wise, is as good as RJs best. And none of this even touches on the defensive gap between them.

Man, if you want to praise him do it, but don't use BS comparisons. JB basically carried them to a chip last year, RJ can't even carry this team to 8 wins, this is insanity.

It's fine to say RJ can't carry this team to the NBA finals and win the championship.

But it's also fine to admit he's a good young player who has shown he improves every single year. RJ also had a TS% of 58.0 as well. He has had some stinkers this year but I can definetly see him climing to 56-57%

[Scase]

Player A
23.8/6.0/4.6
PER - 18.0
TS - 55.0%

Player B
23.5/6.8/6.1
PER - 17.1
TS - 54.6%

Player A is 3x allstar Jaylen Brown, while Player B is RJ Barrett.

RJ gets way too much hate. Kid is having an allstar caliber season IMO.

Edit - Browns stats where not much different last season either.

Yeah, Jalen Brown is also doing it on one of the best teams in the NBA. That kinda matters. Brown is a proven championship player who won FMVP.

Claiming his numbers were "not much different last season" ignores that he was also doing that on 58% TS%. And if you ignore the aberration that last year was, Browns worst year efficiency wise, is as good as RJs best. And none of this even touches on the defensive gap between them.

Man, if you want to praise him do it, but don't use BS comparisons. JB basically carried them to a chip last year, RJ can't even carry this team to 8 wins, this is insanity.

It's fine to say RJ can't carry this team to the NBA finals and win the championship.

But it's also fine to admit he's a good young player who has shown he improves every single year. RJ also had a TS% of 58.0 as well. He has had some stinkers this year but I can definetly see him climing to 56-57%

Yes all that is fine, what isn't fine is trying to say him and JB are the same because of basic counting stats. Be happy for him, applaud his progression, but there is no need to make horrible comparisons.

[pingpongrac]

Player A
23.8/6.0/4.6
PER - 18.0
TS - 55.0%

Player B
23.5/6.8/6.1
PER - 17.1
TS - 54.6%

Player A is 3x allstar Jaylen Brown, while Player B is RJ Barrett.

RJ gets way too much hate. Kid is having an allstar caliber season IMO.

Edit - Browns stats where not much different last season either.

Yeah, Jalen Brown is also doing it on one of the best teams in the NBA. That kinda matters. Brown is a proven championship player who won FMVP.

Claiming his numbers were "not much different last season" ignores that he was also doing that on 58% TS%. And if you ignore the aberration that last year was, Browns worst year efficiency wise, is as good as RJs best. And none of this even touches on the defensive gap between them.

Man, if you want to praise him do it, but don't use BS comparisons. JB basically carried them to a chip last year, RJ can't even carry this team to 8 wins, this is insanity.

On the flip side, it is also a hell of a lot easier to be more efficient when you’re playing alongside a top 5-10 offensive player in the league and 2-3 borderline all-star talents on a 50+ win team — which has been the case for most of Brown’s career. The thing that sets them apart is their defence where Brown clearly has a huge advantage, but Brown is also making 2x as much money. The reality is the two players are very similar offensively though. They both do a lot of damage in transition and inside the paint, but Brown is the better shooter while Barrett is a better playmaker.

If you swap them on each other’s teams, Boston is still a top team and arguable favourite to win it all while we’re still a bottom 10 team. No need to go to the complete other end of the spectrum and claim Brown basically carried the Celtics to a Championship last year. That 21/5/5 on 54 TS% performance against the Mavs is one of the weakest FMVPs in the past decade and White/Jrue/Horford were great on both ends throughout the postseason while Tatum still led Boston in PPG, REB and AST.

It’s really not THAT bad of a comparison, but I think the point is they’re producing similar numbers and some people act like RJ is trash while Brown is a premier player in the league.

[XTC]

Player A
23.8/6.0/4.6
PER - 18.0
TS - 55.0%

Player B
23.5/6.8/6.1
PER - 17.1
TS - 54.6%

Player A is 3x allstar Jaylen Brown, while Player B is RJ Barrett.

RJ gets way too much hate. Kid is having an allstar caliber season IMO.

Edit - Browns stats where not much different last season either.

Yeah, Jalen Brown is also doing it on one of the best teams in the NBA. That kinda matters. Brown is a proven championship player who won FMVP.

Claiming his numbers were "not much different last season" ignores that he was also doing that on 58% TS%. And if you ignore the aberration that last year was, Browns worst year efficiency wise, is as good as RJs best. And none of this even touches on the defensive gap between them.

Man, if you want to praise him do it, but don't use BS comparisons. JB basically carried them to a chip last year, RJ can't even carry this team to 8 wins, this is insanity.

On the flip side, it is also a hell of a lot easier to be more efficient when you’re playing alongside a top 5-10 offensive player in the league and 2-3 borderline all-star talents on a 50+ win team — which has been the case for most of Brown’s career. The thing that sets them apart is their defence where Brown clearly has a huge advantage, but Brown is also making 2x as much money. The reality is the two players are very similar offensively though. They both do a lot of damage in transition and inside the paint, but Brown is the better shooter while Barrett is a better playmaker.

If you swap them on each other’s teams, Boston is still a top team and arguable favourite to win it all while we’re still a bottom 10 team. No need to go to the complete other end of the spectrum and claim Brown basically carried the Celtics to a Championship last year. That 21/5/5 on 54 TS% performance against the Mavs is one of the weakest FMVPs in the past decade and White/Jrue/Horford were great on both ends throughout the postseason while Tatum still led Boston in PPG, REB and AST.

It’s really not THAT bad of a comparison, but I think the point is they’re producing similar numbers and some people act like RJ is trash while Brown is a premier player in the league.

Speaking of teammates...

RJ is averaging 24.8/7.0/5.6 with a TS of 61.5% with Scottie in the line up. People really underestimate how bad our roster has been this season.

[MEDIC]

.

Man, if you want to praise him do it, but don't use BS comparisons. JB basically carried them to a chip last year, RJ can't even carry this team to 8 wins, this is insanity.

That is kind of unfair as well. How many wins do you think Jaylen Brown get us if you swap him and RJ & he has to play with this roster (missing Scottie and IQ)

[mtcan]

.

Man, if you want to praise him do it, but don't use BS comparisons. JB basically carried them to a chip last year, RJ can't even carry this team to 8 wins, this is insanity.

That is kind of unfair as well. How many wins do you think Jaylen Brown get us if you swap him and RJ & he has to play with this roster (missing Scottie and IQ)

Jaylen Brown was also disrespected around for years until his playoff MVP and championship performances.

I take nothing the haters say seriously because of this and how Gradey was **** on as a rookie. This is the home of knee jerk reactions and poorly aging takes.

I think RJ can have JB level of impact when the games start to matter.

[YogurtProducer]

Player A
23.8/6.0/4.6
PER - 18.0
TS - 55.0%

Player B
23.5/6.8/6.1
PER - 17.1
TS - 54.6%

Player A is 3x allstar Jaylen Brown, while Player B is RJ Barrett.

RJ gets way too much hate. Kid is having an allstar caliber season IMO.

Edit - Browns stats where not much different last season either.

Yeah, Jalen Brown is also doing it on one of the best teams in the NBA. That kinda matters. Brown is a proven championship player who won FMVP.

Claiming his numbers were "not much different last season" ignores that he was also doing that on 58% TS%. And if you ignore the aberration that last year was, Browns worst year efficiency wise, is as good as RJs best. And none of this even touches on the defensive gap between them.

Man, if you want to praise him do it, but don't use BS comparisons. JB basically carried them to a chip last year, RJ can't even carry this team to 8 wins, this is insanity.

On the flip side, it is also a hell of a lot easier to be more efficient when you’re playing alongside a top 5-10 offensive player in the league and 2-3 borderline all-star talents on a 50+ win team — which has been the case for most of Brown’s career. The thing that sets them apart is their defence where Brown clearly has a huge advantage, but Brown is also making 2x as much money. The reality is the two players are very similar offensively though. They both do a lot of damage in transition and inside the paint, but Brown is the better shooter while Barrett is a better playmaker.

If you swap them on each other’s teams, Boston is still a top team and arguable favourite to win it all while we’re still a bottom 10 team. No need to go to the complete other end of the spectrum and claim Brown basically carried the Celtics to a Championship last year. That 21/5/5 on 54 TS% performance against the Mavs is one of the weakest FMVPs in the past decade and White/Jrue/Horford were great on both ends throughout the postseason while Tatum still led Boston in PPG, REB and AST.

It’s really not THAT bad of a comparison, but I think the point is they’re producing similar numbers and some people act like RJ is trash while Brown is a premier player in the league.

Not to mention, Scase's post is a little misleading.

Brown from age 20 to 22 was a 11/4/1 player who had a 55.1TS%. So saying "RJs best season = Jaylens worst season" efficiency wise is ignoring everything Brown did pre-2019, and also ignores that RJ had a 61.5TS% in Toronto last year as well (which I get, small sample size and all). However, in RJ's 56 games in Toronto he is putting up 23/6/5 on 58TS% which as a larger sample seems more "right" than using last years or this years smaller samples.

RJ is the same age right now that Brown was when he made an all-star game for the first time. Jaylen put up 25/6/3 on 59TS% that year. RJ is at 24/7/6 on 55TS% right now (which improves to 25/7/6 on 62TS% with Scottie playing). As others said, what would Jaylen have looked like on this Raptors team instead of a stacked Boston team?

So TLDR - Scase pretty much ignores Browns bad years, while wiping out RJs good years. That is the bad faith argument stuff I am talking about that dilutes the quality of this board.

Edit - and in all honesty, I am not super high on RJs future. I can see him thriving on a team like Boston with 4 shooters around him, but unfortunately we have Scottie who IMO is not gonna be a high level shooter ever (although his C+S #'s are getting promising)

[mademan]

People like Brown because he's a 2 way player that locked Luka down in a playoff series.

I think he's overrated, but his off-ball utility and 2 way play make him a strong addition to any title contender.

[YogurtProducer]

People like Brown because he's a 2 way player that locked Luka down in a playoff series.

I think he's overrated, but his offball utiliy and 2 way play make him a strong addition to any title contender.

100%. Brown is a great defender whereas RJ is far from that.

[Scase]

Player A
23.8/6.0/4.6
PER - 18.0
TS - 55.0%

Player B
23.5/6.8/6.1
PER - 17.1
TS - 54.6%

Player A is 3x allstar Jaylen Brown, while Player B is RJ Barrett.

RJ gets way too much hate. Kid is having an allstar caliber season IMO.

Edit - Browns stats where not much different last season either.

Yeah, Jalen Brown is also doing it on one of the best teams in the NBA. That kinda matters. Brown is a proven championship player who won FMVP.

Claiming his numbers were "not much different last season" ignores that he was also doing that on 58% TS%. And if you ignore the aberration that last year was, Browns worst year efficiency wise, is as good as RJs best. And none of this even touches on the defensive gap between them.

Man, if you want to praise him do it, but don't use BS comparisons. JB basically carried them to a chip last year, RJ can't even carry this team to 8 wins, this is insanity.

On the flip side, it is also a hell of a lot easier to be more efficient when you’re playing alongside a top 5-10 offensive player in the league and 2-3 borderline all-star talents on a 50+ win team — which has been the case for most of Brown’s career. The thing that sets them apart is their defence where Brown clearly has a huge advantage, but Brown is also making 2x as much money. The reality is the two players are very similar offensively though. They both do a lot of damage in transition and inside the paint, but Brown is the better shooter while Barrett is a better playmaker.

If you swap them on each other’s teams, Boston is still a top team and arguable favourite to win it all while we’re still a bottom 10 team. No need to go to the complete other end of the spectrum and claim Brown basically carried the Celtics to a Championship last year. That 21/5/5 on 54 TS% performance against the Mavs is one of the weakest FMVPs in the past decade and White/Jrue/Horford were great on both ends throughout the postseason while Tatum still led Boston in PPG, REB and AST.

It’s really not THAT bad of a comparison, but I think the point is they’re producing similar numbers and some people act like RJ is trash while Brown is a premier player in the league.

Sure if you completely ignore that they have very different games and shot diets, as well as RJ playing terrible defence. Stop looking at basic counting stats, that was my whole point. JB has not made 3ASGs and an all NBA 2nd team and RJ none, for no reason.

No one is suggesting that RJ is trash and JB is a top 5 player, simply that comparing them is absurd. People lost their minds when RJ was getting compared to Siakam, acting like it was a massive insult to Siakam, and yet this is reasonable?

[Psubs]

If we keep Dick, I don't see how Barrett can be on the same team.

Barrett is like Derozan that can shoot the 3 a little better but FT's a little worse. He might be the one packaged to bring in superstar for a championship run.

[Scase]

Yeah, Jalen Brown is also doing it on one of the best teams in the NBA. That kinda matters. Brown is a proven championship player who won FMVP.

Claiming his numbers were "not much different last season" ignores that he was also doing that on 58% TS%. And if you ignore the aberration that last year was, Browns worst year efficiency wise, is as good as RJs best. And none of this even touches on the defensive gap between them.

Man, if you want to praise him do it, but don't use BS comparisons. JB basically carried them to a chip last year, RJ can't even carry this team to 8 wins, this is insanity.

On the flip side, it is also a hell of a lot easier to be more efficient when you’re playing alongside a top 5-10 offensive player in the league and 2-3 borderline all-star talents on a 50+ win team — which has been the case for most of Brown’s career. The thing that sets them apart is their defence where Brown clearly has a huge advantage, but Brown is also making 2x as much money. The reality is the two players are very similar offensively though. They both do a lot of damage in transition and inside the paint, but Brown is the better shooter while Barrett is a better playmaker.

If you swap them on each other’s teams, Boston is still a top team and arguable favourite to win it all while we’re still a bottom 10 team. No need to go to the complete other end of the spectrum and claim Brown basically carried the Celtics to a Championship last year. That 21/5/5 on 54 TS% performance against the Mavs is one of the weakest FMVPs in the past decade and White/Jrue/Horford were great on both ends throughout the postseason while Tatum still led Boston in PPG, REB and AST.

It’s really not THAT bad of a comparison, but I think the point is they’re producing similar numbers and some people act like RJ is trash while Brown is a premier player in the league.

Not to mention, Scase's post is a little misleading.

Brown from age 20 to 22 was a 11/4/1 player who had a 55.1TS%. So saying "RJs best season = Jaylens worst season" efficiency wise is ignoring everything Brown did pre-2019, and also ignores that RJ had a 61.5TS% in Toronto last year as well (which I get, small sample size and all). However, in RJ's 56 games in Toronto he is putting up 23/6/5 on 58TS% which as a larger sample seems more "right" than using last years or this years smaller samples.

RJ is the same age right now that Brown was when he made an all-star game for the first time. Jaylen put up 25/6/3 on 59TS% that year. RJ is at 24/7/6 on 55TS% right now (which improves to 25/7/6 on 62TS% with Scottie playing). As others said, what would Jaylen have looked like on this Raptors team instead of a stacked Boston team?

So TLDR - Scase pretty much ignores Browns bad years, while wiping out RJs good years. That is the bad faith argument stuff I am talking about that dilutes the quality of this board.

Edit - and in all honesty, I am not super high on RJs future. I can see him thriving on a team like Boston with 4 shooters around him, but unfortunately we have Scottie who IMO is not gonna be a high level shooter ever (although his C+S #'s are getting promising)

I'm not ignoring anything about JBs early career, the comparison was being made about THIS year. So I focused on that and the conveniently left out last year when JB was putting up significantly better numbers. This is JBs 3rd worst year of his career efficiency wise, and it's been less than 30 games. How is that a reasonable comparison to be made?


First 3 years JB vs RJ

11/4/1 on 9FGA for 55.1% TS 24.4MPG
17/5/3 on 15FGA for 51.1% TS 33.5MPG

Is that supposed to be a pro RJ argument, like I don't get it. If anything it makes him look worse. JBs averages are pulled right down because he only averaged 5.4FGA his first year which is almost a third less than RJ. Using basic counting stats with zero context is a bad faith argument, if you think it's diluting the quality of the board, try not contributing to it.

Also why are you deciding to stop at age 22? Couldn't possibly be that at age 22 JB put up 13/4/1 on 54.7% TS%, and then in the next year he put up 20/6/2 on 58.3% TS% could it? What's with the arbitrary cut offs?

I'm not ignoring or wiping out anything, at best I am saying that the 32 games he played for us last year are an outlier due to sample size. And even if we include that, nothing changes.

The entire point of my post, is that trying to use counting stats in less than 30 games this season, to try and say RJ is just as good as JB, while ignoring team performance and general accolades is absurd.

[LoveMyRaps]

If we keep Dick, I don't see how Barrett can be on the same team.

Barrett is like Derozan that can shoot the 3 a little better but FT's a little worse. He might be the one packaged to bring in superstar for a championship run.

RJ ain't going anywhere right now.

We're still several years away from becoming a contender.

Maybe 4 years from now, when Scottie is in his prime, we move RJ for that final piece to a championship team.

OR maybe RJ ends up becoming that final piece himself, because you know... he's only 24 right now and hasn't even entered his prime.

[ontnut]

If we keep Dick, I don't see how Barrett can be on the same team.

Barrett is like Derozan that can shoot the 3 a little better but FT's a little worse. He might be the one packaged to bring in superstar for a championship run.

RJ ain't going anywhere right now.

We're still several years away from becoming a contender.

Maybe 4 years from now, when Scottie is in his prime, we move RJ for that final piece to a championship team.

OR maybe RJ ends up becoming that final piece himself, because you know... he's only 24 right now and hasn't even entered his prime.

Dick and Barrett can also play together (with a defensive lineup), or separately depending on need for more iso type scoring, or floor spacing. They both have their place on a good team.

Barrett's problem has always been on the defensive end, and he's putting up the best adv defensive stats of his career so far this year (other than NYK year 2). Still a negative on that end, but his offensive output and efficiency improvement has made him the most valuable he's ever been. Very underrated right now overall, and I don't know who I'd even trade him for at this point. He's the kind of player we want at this point in time.

[raincityraptors]

Player A
23.8/6.0/4.6
PER - 18.0
TS - 55.0%

Player B
23.5/6.8/6.1
PER - 17.1
TS - 54.6%

Player A is 3x allstar Jaylen Brown, while Player B is RJ Barrett.

RJ gets way too much hate. Kid is having an allstar caliber season IMO.

Edit - Browns stats where not much different last season either.

Love your perspective and it would be great if you kept posting here.

Our home town boy has shown so much growth and if anyone should celebrate it, it's us on this board.

It's unreal how so many (including the media) are stuck on pointing out the same flaws we have seen his whole career.

Can we also focus on the new growth we have seen this season? We do that for other players.

If we send 1 player to the All Star game this season, it's RJ Barret because he is the one who has had the burden of being the number 1 option the most.

However him being the number one option has not warranted results in wins to be considered an All Star . . .

[Raps in 4]

If we keep Dick, I don't see how Barrett can be on the same team.

Barrett is like Derozan that can shoot the 3 a little better but FT's a little worse. He might be the one packaged to bring in superstar for a championship run.

RJ ain't going anywhere right now.

We're still several years away from becoming a contender.

Maybe 4 years from now, when Scottie is in his prime, we move RJ for that final piece to a championship team.

OR maybe RJ ends up becoming that final piece himself, because you know... he's only 24 right now and hasn't even entered his prime.

RJ hasn't dramatically improved any part of his game since entering the league. Any improvements have mostly come from changing his role on offence. I'm not hopeful he's going to suddenly become an elite scorer after six seasons in the NBA.

I agree that we likely won't be moving him any time soon, but I am absolutely not hopeful that he has some sort of untapped potential. I think he is who he is at this point. And that's fine. He's a serviceable NBA player.

[Brinbe]

Making any comparisons between players is useless without considering that the game is played on both ends and JB's defense is easily what elevates him well above RJ. As well as being a way better overall athlete.

Jordan is considered the GOAT not just because of his scoring, though that does play a part, but because he's also one of the most impactful defensive guards of all time.

That being said, I think RJ's done an okay job shouldering the load offensively with Scottie out, even though that's clearly not his best role. And though he wasn't super efficient against the Bulls, he actually did an okay job considering he was playing out there with Mogbo/Yak as his starting frontcourt, which is just some super archaic spacing. And there's lots of other 'better' players that on better teams with better teammates that would probably do just as well if put in his situation.

Could he be a third guy on a good team? Eh, maybe? We already see the bump in his numbers playing off of Scottie and that would probably get boosted even more with a number one guy in the mix to take further attention of him and let him drive/attack closeouts and shoot 3s like he did last season. But at that point, isn't that what Ochai already does, albeit at way lesser volume but better defense?

But that scoring prowess does have ultimately have limited utility when considering that RJ mostly gives it right back on the defensive end and that's gonna always be the issue with him and there's no need to really sugarcoat it. He's a big reason why the unit struggles, though it's not all on him, and it's hard to really be a winning team when you have to make up for that when the guy isn't a real A1 scorer/playmaker. He's probably best suited to guard twos but does he have the foot-speed to keep up with them? Probably not. And he obviously struggles guarding bigger wings/forwards and I don't know that things will meaningfully change there as he gets even older. Most of all it's the off-ball details, reads, instincts that he obviously lacks on that end, especially in comparison to his offensive game, which is considerably more advanced.

[Ell Curry]

If we keep Dick, I don't see how Barrett can be on the same team.

Barrett is like Derozan that can shoot the 3 a little better but FT's a little worse. He might be the one packaged to bring in superstar for a championship run.

I agree with his salary being more useful in a trade since we have young, cheap depth now (Mogbo, Walter) and 3 firsts the next 2 years including what should be a top 10 one this year, so we can move 3-4 assets for 1 very good starter and not be the Knicks in terms of depth.

But in theory you could platoon/stagger Barrett and Grady. Say we draft a wing who can defend this year like Flagg and don't do much trade/signing wise. In 2026-27 we could look like this:

Poeltl-MLE-2026(TOR)-Chomche
Barnes-Mogbo
Flagg-Agbaji-Battle
Dick-Barrett-Walter
Quickley-2026(IND)-Shead

And maybe Barrett is offensively the PG on the 2nd unit and Walter guards the PGs.

Though that's 16 guys with the PDX 2nd this year, so yeah, like I said, we should probably hope to do something like Barrett + multiple firsts + Dick/Walter for an all-star wing, or Barrett + Poeltl + picks for a star center (Adebayo, Sabonis both on teams going nowhere) or Barrett + Quickley + picks in a reverse OG trade for a star PG (I dunno about a specific name here. Maxey? Phoenix maybe send us Booker moving to PG and we add in Poeltl and take on Nurkic and Grayson Allen's money)

But if we pick Harper, Jakucionis, Tre Johnson or Demin I think that's too little perimeter defence to keep Dick and Barrett around. Edgecombe is hard to say, we'd still be in trouble against big wings but he should be useful on defence at least.

[ash_k]

People like Brown because he's a 2 way player that locked Luka down in a playoff series.

I think he's overrated, but his off-ball utility and 2 way play make him a strong addition to any title contender.

Some of you guys are calling the reigning Eastern Conference finals MVP and NBA Finals MVP......overrated! okay