Official Scottie Barnes Thread - Part 6

[YogurtProducer]

I think it’s accurate to say Barnes was a poor scorer and inefficient player last year.

I think it’s accurate to say that his defence and his effort were awful to start the season.

What I don’t think is fair is to utilize the above two points to place doubt on what Scottie will be as a veteran (year 5 and beyond), particularly when we ignore context and areas where he showed improvement, especially in the last two months of the season.

Here are some things that were also true for Barnes last season:

Spoiler:

-his role changed a minimum of three times throughout the season
-at no point was Scottie consistently put into his most advantageous spots. Of course, one can argue that the team was trying to stretch Scottie’s comfort zones a bit, which in the end might be of benefit, but in that stretching he was definitely given the ball in situations that were not his forte. For instance, we spent most of the first two months of the season relegating Scottie to being an off-ball guy in the corner or playing him with other poor offensive players (the bench), giving him the ball at the top of the arc and saying, “okay now go create.”
-Barnes shot the ball from deep better in the first quarter than other any other quarter, which might indicate that he has the ability and more consistency (even if that consistency is a 33% three point shooter) might come with conditioning.
-Scottie’s defense took a huge leap about halfway through the season, particularly with respect to what he did inside the arc (his perimeter defence was still average, but as a roamer he was fantastic in Feb/March imo).
-despite being an inefficient player overall, he was by far our most efficient fourth quarter scorer (and near the top of the league in this regard), regardless of the opponent and the coverages. Being able to break any defence or defender thrown at you, especially at the end of games against elite teams, is not the kind of flash/sign that you ignore.

So while I think it’s accurate to critique Barnes for where he was flat out bad and showed regression, I think it’s unfair to use those measures to place doubt on his future as a potential franchise player when we aren’t applying context, acknowledging areas where he did improveme, and not placing a 10,000 watt spotlight on his extremely promising quality of being able to takeover the end of games regardless of the opponent.

And he’s only 22.

And he might have been our most important player last year. Net on/offs:

Scottie +5.5
Fred +3.9
Pascal +3.1
OG +2.4
Trent -6.2

Jak and Koloko's identical net on/offs (+9.2) suggest we were just much better with a big.

But to your last statement, Scottie was always going to take a little longer to develop. He was a role player on all those good youth teams. His efficiency will improve as his skills with the ball improve which is something we can already see happening.

Not sure where you got those #'s but they are wrong.

Jakob +14.4
Koloko +9.6
FVV +5.9
Scottie +4.9
Siakam +3.1
OG +3.5
GTJ -6.7

[sidsid]

I think people are mistaking "year 3 is important. He needs to show SOME strides in his weaknesses this year"

To mean

"year 3 has to be his break out year or hes a bust"

when thats not at all whats being said...

Sent from my SM-G960W using RealGM mobile app

What i'd say you can assess pretty rapidly this year, if he's put in the right roles, is his elite playmaking.

We'll see if he has the full Lowry package of sense of the game and ability to make the players around him better. On and off ball, he'll be tasked with finding ways to alleviate the pressure in a motion offense. There was zero purposeful motion last year, so this should be eye opening (with the Poetl caveat in there).

That's how elite playmakers translate this skill to easing scoring offense for themselves. You don't need to be Kevin Durant if you get to play against single coverage defense because the opposition is terrified of leaving passing lanes for Jokic to exploit.

[VanWest82]

I think it’s accurate to say Barnes was a poor scorer and inefficient player last year.

I think it’s accurate to say that his defence and his effort were awful to start the season.

What I don’t think is fair is to utilize the above two points to place doubt on what Scottie will be as a veteran (year 5 and beyond), particularly when we ignore context and areas where he showed improvement, especially in the last two months of the season.

Here are some things that were also true for Barnes last season:

Spoiler:

-his role changed a minimum of three times throughout the season
-at no point was Scottie consistently put into his most advantageous spots. Of course, one can argue that the team was trying to stretch Scottie’s comfort zones a bit, which in the end might be of benefit, but in that stretching he was definitely given the ball in situations that were not his forte. For instance, we spent most of the first two months of the season relegating Scottie to being an off-ball guy in the corner or playing him with other poor offensive players (the bench), giving him the ball at the top of the arc and saying, “okay now go create.”
-Barnes shot the ball from deep better in the first quarter than other any other quarter, which might indicate that he has the ability and more consistency (even if that consistency is a 33% three point shooter) might come with conditioning.
-Scottie’s defense took a huge leap about halfway through the season, particularly with respect to what he did inside the arc (his perimeter defence was still average, but as a roamer he was fantastic in Feb/March imo).
-despite being an inefficient player overall, he was by far our most efficient fourth quarter scorer (and near the top of the league in this regard), regardless of the opponent and the coverages. Being able to break any defence or defender thrown at you, especially at the end of games against elite teams, is not the kind of flash/sign that you ignore.

So while I think it’s accurate to critique Barnes for where he was flat out bad and showed regression, I think it’s unfair to use those measures to place doubt on his future as a potential franchise player when we aren’t applying context, acknowledging areas where he did improveme, and not placing a 10,000 watt spotlight on his extremely promising quality of being able to takeover the end of games regardless of the opponent.

And he’s only 22.

And he might have been our most important player last year. Net on/offs:

Scottie +5.5
Fred +3.9
Pascal +3.1
OG +2.4
Trent -6.2

Jak and Koloko's identical net on/offs (+9.2) suggest we were just much better with a big.

But to your last statement, Scottie was always going to take a little longer to develop. He was a role player on all those good youth teams. His efficiency will improve as his skills with the ball improve which is something we can already see happening.

Not sure where you got those #'s but they are wrong.

Jakob +14.4
Koloko +9.6
FVV +5.9
Scottie +4.9
Siakam +3.1
OG +3.5
GTJ -6.7

[YogurtProducer]

And he might have been our most important player last year. Net on/offs:

Scottie +5.5
Fred +3.9
Pascal +3.1
OG +2.4
Trent -6.2

Jak and Koloko's identical net on/offs (+9.2) suggest we were just much better with a big.

But to your last statement, Scottie was always going to take a little longer to develop. He was a role player on all those good youth teams. His efficiency will improve as his skills with the ball improve which is something we can already see happening.

Not sure where you got those #'s but they are wrong.

Jakob +14.4
Koloko +9.6
FVV +5.9
Scottie +4.9
Siakam +3.1
OG +3.5
GTJ -6.7

IIRC basketball references on/off's are wrong

[Nebuchadnezzar]

And he might have been our most important player last year. Net on/offs:

Scottie +5.5
Fred +3.9
Pascal +3.1
OG +2.4
Trent -6.2

Jak and Koloko's identical net on/offs (+9.2) suggest we were just much better with a big.

But to your last statement, Scottie was always going to take a little longer to develop. He was a role player on all those good youth teams. His efficiency will improve as his skills with the ball improve which is something we can already see happening.

Not sure where you got those #'s but they are wrong.

Jakob +14.4
Koloko +9.6
FVV +5.9
Scottie +4.9
Siakam +3.1
OG +3.5
GTJ -6.7

Yet again another example of this board's lack of knowledge about big men and their role on a team. Even though this stat appears to be wrong anyways, to compare Koloko's impact to Yak's impact on the floor is a complete undermining of what Jakob means to this squad.

[pingpongrac]

I think people are mistaking "year 3 is important. He needs to show SOME strides in his weaknesses this year"

To mean

"year 3 has to be his break out year or hes a bust"

when thats not at all whats being said...

Sent from my SM-G960W using RealGM mobile app

Seriously. I'm getting real tired of posters telling me I'm not actually a fan of Scottie or the team because I want to see more improvement in his 3rd year. You literally can't say anything negative about his game or point out any flaw because "he's only 22!!!" which leads to being called a hater.

On another note, the year 3 Giannis comparison is a terrible one to make. I posted about Scottie's numbers being very similar to year 3 Giannis and year 4 Kawhi near the end of his rookie season. If he posted nearly identical numbers for a 3rd season in a row, how would that be seen as a good thing for his potential development? I think Scottie has A LOT of potential which is why I have such high expectations for him. Everything is working in his favour and he looks primed to have a big season. We shouldn't completely write off any weaknesses or concerns we have about his game just because of his age though.

[VanWest82]

Yet again another example of this board's lack of knowledge about big men and their role on a team. Even though this stat appears to be wrong anyways, to compare Koloko's impact to Yak's impact on the floor is a complete undermining of what Jakob means to this squad.

That's not what I did; rather, I suggested that perhaps neither Jak nor Koloko were actually our most important player despite their gaudy on/offs. A better explanation for why their plus/minus was so high was because our team functioned much better with a big on the court. The gap in play quality between Jak and Koloko only adds to that theory.

[Clay Davis]

And he might have been our most important player last year. Net on/offs:

Scottie +5.5
Fred +3.9
Pascal +3.1
OG +2.4
Trent -6.2

Jak and Koloko's identical net on/offs (+9.2) suggest we were just much better with a big.

But to your last statement, Scottie was always going to take a little longer to develop. He was a role player on all those good youth teams. His efficiency will improve as his skills with the ball improve which is something we can already see happening.

Not sure where you got those #'s but they are wrong.

Jakob +14.4
Koloko +9.6
FVV +5.9
Scottie +4.9
Siakam +3.1
OG +3.5
GTJ -6.7

I thought Scottie rizz'd it up at C

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Yet again another example of this board's lack of knowledge about big men and their role on a team. Even though this stat appears to be wrong anyways, to compare Koloko's impact to Yak's impact on the floor is a complete undermining of what Jakob means to this squad.

That's not what I did; rather, I suggested that perhaps neither Jak nor Koloko were actually our most important player despite their gaudy on/offs. A better explanation for why their plus/minus was so high was because our team functioned much better with a big on the court. The gap in play quality between Jak and Koloko only adds to that theory.

Koloko barely played - why wouldn't he have played more if that was the case? The raptors were markedly better with Yak on the court.

[VanWest82]

Yet again another example of this board's lack of knowledge about big men and their role on a team. Even though this stat appears to be wrong anyways, to compare Koloko's impact to Yak's impact on the floor is a complete undermining of what Jakob means to this squad.

That's not what I did; rather, I suggested that perhaps neither Jak nor Koloko were actually our most important player despite their gaudy on/offs. A better explanation for why their plus/minus was so high was because our team functioned much better with a big on the court. The gap in play quality between Jak and Koloko only adds to that theory.

Koloko barely played - why wouldn't he have played more if that was the case? The raptors were markedly better with Yak on the court.

Koloko played more mins with us than Jak did. You seem to be missing my point. Jak is clearly better, and yet, the one other guy that also had much better plus/minus than Scottie, Fred, P, OG, etc., was Koloko. This suggests that any decent big made us much better, and so some of Jak's team leading plus/minus was probably due to that, which means Scottie had a more reasonable case for most important Raptor last year than the Jak/Koloko on/offs might first suggest.

[Madvillainy2004]

Not sure where you got those #'s but they are wrong.

Jakob +14.4
Koloko +9.6
FVV +5.9
Scottie +4.9
Siakam +3.1
OG +3.5
GTJ -6.7

Yet again another example of this board's lack of knowledge about big men and their role on a team. Even though this stat appears to be wrong anyways, to compare Koloko's impact to Yak's impact on the floor is a complete undermining of what Jakob means to this squad.

It more speaks to what this board was yelling about since Gasol left and that's having a good center makes a world of difference. Even the teams that can go small Warriors/Bucks/Lakers/Grizz have guys like Jaren, Draymond, AD, and Giannis playing beside a bigger body for stretches because just how tough the position can be. Koloko just being a decent center defensively raised the teams level of play. And Yak slid in and obviously is terrific but also just having a good big opened up a lot.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Yet again another example of this board's lack of knowledge about big men and their role on a team. Even though this stat appears to be wrong anyways, to compare Koloko's impact to Yak's impact on the floor is a complete undermining of what Jakob means to this squad.

It more speaks to what this board was yelling about since Gasol left and that's having a good center makes a world of difference. Even the teams that can go small Warriors/Bucks/Lakers/Grizz have guys like Jaren, Draymond, AD, and Giannis playing beside a bigger body for stretches because just how tough the position can be. Koloko just being a decent center defensively raised the teams level of play. And Yak slid in and obviously is terrific but also just having a good big opened up a lot.

This was not about having a " decent big", it's about how valuable Yak is. Other than this stat Koloko was a liability on the court. Why didn't he play 30 minutes a game then if he had such an impact on winning?

[VanWest82]

This was not about having a " decent big", it's about how valuable Yak is. Other than this stat Koloko was a liability on the court. Why didn't he play 30 minutes a game then if he had such an impact on winning?

He's currently out indefinitely with a respiratory condition. For all we know that was part of the reason he didn't play more. Nurse didn't trust/develop any of our young guys as head coach besides Scottie. That's another reason.

Koloko was a liability and yet we were crushing teams with him in the game. That's evidence of the importance of bigs to this roster.

[Madvillainy2004]

Yet again another example of this board's lack of knowledge about big men and their role on a team. Even though this stat appears to be wrong anyways, to compare Koloko's impact to Yak's impact on the floor is a complete undermining of what Jakob means to this squad.

It more speaks to what this board was yelling about since Gasol left and that's having a good center makes a world of difference. Even the teams that can go small Warriors/Bucks/Lakers/Grizz have guys like Jaren, Draymond, AD, and Giannis playing beside a bigger body for stretches because just how tough the position can be. Koloko just being a decent center defensively raised the teams level of play. And Yak slid in and obviously is terrific but also just having a good big opened up a lot.

This was not about having a " decent big", it's about how valuable Yak is. Other than this stat Koloko was a liability on the court. Why didn't he play 30 minutes a game then if he had such an impact on winning?

I'm a massive Poeltl fan and have been since his rookie season. But as awesome as he is I think if the team had any decent center they would've been better off for a majority of last season.

[tsherkin]

Completely understandable. I think the issue you're running up against is that your assessment of his performance comes across as blatantly missing context.

That's almost assuredly because people are reacting to individual statements rather than the breadth of my writing ITT, in fairness. I have laid context and framing for my statements on numerous occasions to account for such. I have repeatedly talked about how it isn't damning that this one year was a bit of a regression and that we need to see his third and fourth seasons and so forth before we can make more fervent judgements, etc, etc. I have talked about his age and his limited time in college, and how we knew he was raw coming in and all that. I have talked about interesting scenarios if he's able to develop his scoring skills and some different ways we can try to deploy him right now to try and support him in scoring more efficiently and all that too. So it's just frustrating because people basically see anything even remotely not-complimentary and just go into attack mode. At some point, my tone comes across as more critical because I spend so much time responding to "sunbeams and roses" personas who don't want to admit that there are any concerning markers to consider. It's all just according to plan and awesome to them, and that's as much BS as doom-saying about Scottie based on a rough second season.

[Johnny Bball]

Yet again another example of this board's lack of knowledge about big men and their role on a team. Even though this stat appears to be wrong anyways, to compare Koloko's impact to Yak's impact on the floor is a complete undermining of what Jakob means to this squad.

It more speaks to what this board was yelling about since Gasol left and that's having a good center makes a world of difference. Even the teams that can go small Warriors/Bucks/Lakers/Grizz have guys like Jaren, Draymond, AD, and Giannis playing beside a bigger body for stretches because just how tough the position can be. Koloko just being a decent center defensively raised the teams level of play. And Yak slid in and obviously is terrific but also just having a good big opened up a lot.

It speaks to Nick Nurse never taking advantage of, or even knowing how to take advantage and play smallball. Starting with rarely putting the opposing big in the PNR. There's a reason Koloko looks like such a standout above, and its not his play.

[YogurtProducer]

Yet again another example of this board's lack of knowledge about big men and their role on a team. Even though this stat appears to be wrong anyways, to compare Koloko's impact to Yak's impact on the floor is a complete undermining of what Jakob means to this squad.

It more speaks to what this board was yelling about since Gasol left and that's having a good center makes a world of difference. Even the teams that can go small Warriors/Bucks/Lakers/Grizz have guys like Jaren, Draymond, AD, and Giannis playing beside a bigger body for stretches because just how tough the position can be. Koloko just being a decent center defensively raised the teams level of play. And Yak slid in and obviously is terrific but also just having a good big opened up a lot.

It speaks to Nick Nurse never taking advantage of, or even knowing how to take advantage and play smallball. Starting with rarely putting the opposing big in the PNR. There's a reason Koloko looks like such a standout above, and its not his play.

Smallball only really works when you can stretch the hell out of the other team. We played small ball with guys who cannot shoot and therefore teams did not get exposed for having slower footed centers.

[Johnny Bball]

It more speaks to what this board was yelling about since Gasol left and that's having a good center makes a world of difference. Even the teams that can go small Warriors/Bucks/Lakers/Grizz have guys like Jaren, Draymond, AD, and Giannis playing beside a bigger body for stretches because just how tough the position can be. Koloko just being a decent center defensively raised the teams level of play. And Yak slid in and obviously is terrific but also just having a good big opened up a lot.

It speaks to Nick Nurse never taking advantage of, or even knowing how to take advantage and play smallball. Starting with rarely putting the opposing big in the PNR. There's a reason Koloko looks like such a standout above, and its not his play.

Smallball only really works when you can stretch the hell out of the other team. We played small ball with guys who cannot shoot and therefore teams did not get exposed for having slower footed centers.

When you put OG, Siakam, Barnes out there with two guards, they were guarded. Opposing Cs weren't aren't standing 10-15 feet off them and saying shoot. Whether you want to beleive it or not. But that's hardly using the play that exposes them most, the PNR. I'm not even going to talk about how bad his defensive decisions were playing small usually.

Honestly, nobody can beleive koloko makes that big of an impact as arookie without something else being wrong.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

"doesn't really matter that it was Yak, could have been any decent centre and the raps would have been better" = I still don't believe we should have traded a draft pick for him.

[HumbleRen]

Not only did Masai completely misread what direction the league was going in, he completely misunderstood what makes small ball so effective.

Take away the Warriors and these are the recent champions. Warriors success with small ball is the anomaly, not where the rest of the league was going in.

Denver - huge team.
Bucks - huge team.
Lakers - huge team.
Raptors - huge team.
Cavs - relatively big team.
Spurs - huge team.
Miami Heat - smallball team