Official RJ Barrett Thread Part 2

Thaddy · Post #581 » by **Thaddy** » Sat Feb 22, 2025 6:42 am

We have a very strong line up with Poeltl Barnes Ingram Barrett and Quickley. Barrett will probably be the elite 3rd option behind IQ and Ingram. Barnes is going to be a 4th option.

A elite 3rd option that scores 20 efficiently, passes a bit, but can't play defense or space the floor is really meh. I would rather have a 2 way combo guard in that position. But if Barrett can develop better defense and shooting or average 25 on great efficiency I would want him back here on a new deal.

mihaic · Post #582 » by **mihaic** » Sat Feb 22, 2025 7:11 am

Thaddy wrote:We have a very strong line up with Poeltl Barnes Ingram Barrett and Quickley. Barrett will probably be the elite 3rd option behind IQ and Ingram. Barnes is going to be a 4th option.

A elite 3rd option that scores 20 efficiently, passes a bit, but can't play defense or space the floor is really meh. I would rather have a 2 way combo guard in that position. But if Barrett can develop better defense and shooting or average 25 on great efficiency I would want him back here on a new deal.

Barret is a better scorer than Quickley, he can penetrate which contributes more to the attack. I guess it depends on the teammates which of the 2 is more valuable but in my view I see Barret slightly ahead of Quick. Cause he's from GTA.

Edit: As Matt and Jack say: RJ can get you a bucket, he can get to the rim. And his shots at the rim are rarely blocked, he is fast.

Basketball_Jones · Post #583 » by **Basketball_Jones** » Sat Feb 22, 2025 7:18 am

He’s shooting 35 percent from deep on 5 attempts. That’s pretty workable. Obviously it craters when he’s a first option and I don’t think that’s happening long as we’re healthy. Again, I really can’t complain much about him at all.

Kingsway_fan · Post #584 » by **Kingsway_fan** » Sat Feb 22, 2025 9:33 am

Barett and Ingram likely 1 and 2 scorers on the team...

LoveMyRaps · Post #585 » by **LoveMyRaps** » Sat Feb 22, 2025 10:16 am

https://youtu.be/3tkmp_MpH1o?si=MLB7dvfp0cg7UMMb

Tonight may have been his best game in a Raps uniform. Which says a lot about Mr. Consistent.

Near flawless performance by StarJ.

RoteSchroder · Post #586 » by **RoteSchroder** » Sat Feb 22, 2025 11:02 am

RJ’s the 2nd most talented scorer on the team after Ingram

RaptorLakerJay · Post #587 » by **RaptorLakerJay** » Sat Feb 22, 2025 1:58 pm

Three straight games with multiple steals. Has anyone noticed that his defense has improved recently?

mihaic · Post #588 » by **mihaic** » Sat Feb 22, 2025 5:50 pm

RaptorLakerJay wrote:Three straight games with multiple steals. Has anyone noticed that his defense has improved recently?

Yes, after new year's he's had a lot of games where he did ok. Not a specialized defender, but adequate.

youngRAPZ · Post #589 » by **youngRAPZ** » Sat Feb 22, 2025 6:28 pm

RaptorLakerJay wrote:Three straight games with multiple steals. Has anyone noticed that his defense has improved recently?

Positivity is not allowed here sir.

RJ has been great he’s improving game by game!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

LoveMyRaps · Post #590 » by **LoveMyRaps** » Sat Feb 22, 2025 6:55 pm

RaptorLakerJay wrote:Three straight games with multiple steals. Has anyone noticed that his defense has improved recently?

Has improved a lot.

Airmiess · Post #591 » by **Airmiess** » Sat Feb 22, 2025 7:54 pm

LoveMyRaps wrote:
RaptorLakerJay wrote:Three straight games with multiple steals. Has anyone noticed that his defense has improved recently?

Has improved a lot.

That defense narrative was put to bed after the Clipper game. If you structure the defense and create a gameplan then he can contain his assignments, if it's just everybody for themselves with no communication then he'll look worse,of course.

Ell Curry · Post #592 » by **Ell Curry** » Sat Feb 22, 2025 9:33 pm

RaptorLakerJay wrote:Three straight games with multiple steals. Has anyone noticed that his defense has improved recently?

It's more that I'm not noticing him much on D, which is a serious improvement. For the first 40 or so games of the year, I felt like Grady had the absolute worst 3 or 4 moments on D every game (mostly just being tossed around) but then RJ was comfortably leading everyone else in defensive work that made me mad, and lately he's had whole halves where he doesn't get beat by a straight line drive or fail to close out or other basic issues I was seeing a lot of.

LoveMyRaps · Post #593 » by **LoveMyRaps** » Sat Feb 22, 2025 9:42 pm

Ell Curry wrote:
RaptorLakerJay wrote:Three straight games with multiple steals. Has anyone noticed that his defense has improved recently?

It's more that I'm not noticing him much on D, which is a serious improvement. For the first 40 or so games of the year, I felt like Grady had the absolute worst 3 or 4 moments on D every game (mostly just being tossed around) but then RJ was comfortably leading everyone else in defensive work that made me mad, and lately he's had whole halves where he doesn't get beat by a straight line drive or fail to close out or other basic issues I was seeing a lot of.

RJ's defensive effort was nothing to write home about when he played those games without IQ and Scottie.
He was exerting himself so much more on the offensive end, that he would seem to take a backseat on the defensive end.

When he's playing with Scottie and IQ, he plays off-ball a lot more which allows him to be more effective on the defensive end.

Ell Curry · Post #594 » by **Ell Curry** » Sat Feb 22, 2025 10:07 pm

LoveMyRaps wrote:
Ell Curry wrote:
RaptorLakerJay wrote:Three straight games with multiple steals. Has anyone noticed that his defense has improved recently?

It's more that I'm not noticing him much on D, which is a serious improvement. For the first 40 or so games of the year, I felt like Grady had the absolute worst 3 or 4 moments on D every game (mostly just being tossed around) but then RJ was comfortably leading everyone else in defensive work that made me mad, and lately he's had whole halves where he doesn't get beat by a straight line drive or fail to close out or other basic issues I was seeing a lot of.

RJ's defensive effort was nothing to write home about when he played those games without IQ and Scottie.
He was exerting himself so much more on the offensive end, that he would seem to take a backseat on the defensive end.

When he's playing with Scottie and IQ, he plays off-ball a lot more which allows him to be more effective on the defensive end.

Definitely possible. Siakam's energy and attention dropped off hard when he went from 21 USG on the title team to the 26-28 area as a leading man type.

I've been kinda low on the upside of the Quickley-RJ-Ingram-Barnes-Poeltl 5, but maybe Ingram and RJ can jump up a level defensively to average in RJ's case and pretty good in Ingram's with their USG dropping like 3-4 points on the offensive end as we throw out a really balanced attack.

Thaddy · Post #595 » by **Thaddy** » Sat Feb 22, 2025 10:16 pm

The steal numbers don't matter. GTJ increased his by gambling more. We need to see RJ get more deflections 3+ a game would make him 90th percentile in the league. The problem is that he doesn't have a lot of functional athleticism.

TeamDisgruntled · Post #596 » by **TeamDisgruntled** » Sun Feb 23, 2025 1:18 am

Dfg% isn’t the end all be all when determining if someone is a good defender or not but his numbers reflect the improvement. Last 10 games 41% vs 46% over the 33 games prior to that.

LoveMyRaps · Post #597 » by **LoveMyRaps** » Sun Mar 9, 2025 10:37 pm

RJ's first 82 games as a Toronto Raptor are in the books.

In only 33mpg - he averaged 22/6/5 while shooting 50% from the field and 37% from deep. [58% TS]

An awesome addition to the team.

Post #598 » by **tsherkin** » Sun Mar 9, 2025 11:40 pm

LoveMyRaps wrote:An awesome addition to the team.

So his efficiency has been pretty rough this season, at 55.7% TS. December was good; March has started out pretty well, but he's been so bad at the line that he's really struggling to be efficient a lot of the time (especially in January). If he can get back north of 70%, then that should actually solve a lot of his problem. And he's been killing it from the corner again. Working on a career-high 3P% from the corner, actually, as it happens. So that has been nice to see.

His D looks better. His passing looks considerably better. Lots to be happy about with RJ. Much more with RJ than with Scottie, actually.

dballislife · Post #599 » by **dballislife** » Mon Mar 10, 2025 2:15 am

i really didn't think rj could hit the long ball at 36.5% on 5.3 attempts...and also dropping 5.6 dimes...hes one of best players in nba at attacking and driving, if he can continue doing these 3 things, he will always be a consistent professional offensive threat

the best thing is imo from this to last season, he has improved especially on defense, so theres still hope he can continue to polish things up and be even slightly better at only 24-25 years old

Vampirate · Post #600 » by **Vampirate** » Mon Mar 10, 2025 2:40 am

tsherkin wrote:
LoveMyRaps wrote:An awesome addition to the team.

So his efficiency has been pretty rough this season, at 55.7% TS. December was good; March has started out pretty well, but he's been so bad at the line that he's really struggling to be efficient a lot of the time (especially in January). If he can get back north of 70%, then that should actually solve a lot of his problem. And he's been killing it from the corner again. Working on a career-high 3P% from the corner, actually, as it happens. So that has been nice to see.

His D looks better. His passing looks considerably better. Lots to be happy about with RJ. Much more with RJ than with Scottie, actually.

He's at 21.7 PPG 47.5% FG/ 36.5% 3P/ 65.5% FT with a positive A/TO ratio this season and this year 46% of his 2P are asssisted.

Like we all thought we were getting NY RJ, even me, but RJ's performance is now really making me question if IQ should be the one dealt instead. (and yes RJ won't ever become a good defender, but his numbers overall have been impressive for what we all thought we were getting)

To put it into perspective his highest FG% in NY was 44.1% in his sophomore year.

RJ, Gradey, IQ there's a difficult decision to make coming up, and it's not as easy as when we first traded for RJ+IQ at that time imo. Either RJ or IQ will likely be gone eventually because of contracts.