Official Scottie Barnes Thread - Part 6

[DemHeavyHands]

Forget Ross, the Sonny Weems over Demar crowd was wiiiiiild

[Tha Cynic]

"Higher peak potential" sounds a lot like "13 game Bargnani." It gets funny with prospects as we place a lot on their shoulders. Terence Ross was once one of the youngest players to score over 50 in a game, but like hell we should have built around him at the time. Last year Scottie improved in some areas and regressed in others. The regression parts made it challenging to give him the ball more often.

Ah, is this what your analysis tells you? That Barnes and Bargnani are similar and all the underlying stats and work on the court show you Bargnani? Or are you just making crazy statements to fit a narrative?

I mean I hated that guy and could tell from season 1 that he was going to have issues, so I'm curious if that's the sense you get from watching Barnes and the way you analyze the game of basketball.

[Spates]

Am I to understand that shooting efficiency is the only metric to assess a player?

[Tha Cynic]

Am I to understand that shooting efficiency is the only metric to assess a player?

Yes. In fact it's the best metric to assess a player who we knew would be raw offensively.

[TheAlchemist23]

Am I to understand that shooting efficiency is the only metric to assess a player?

Shooting efficiency while pigeon holed to play as a 6'8 center

[Tha Cynic]

I think we're all just bored. Maybe the excel crew who does all their analysis based on today, without taking progress and personalities and situations into account will be right and Barnes will be a bust. Who knows. I'm just glad we're going to check this year to see which way we need to go.

[tsherkin]

Am I to understand that shooting efficiency is the only metric to assess a player?

Yes. In fact it's the best metric to assess a player who we knew would be raw offensively.

There are other components to it, but if he doesn't fix that aspect of his game, then there will be a very specific cap to his utility and the range of roles he can fill for us. Most especially with anything like our current roster. Barnes has intriguing potential, enough that he's worth waiting a little while... being critical of him in a given season doesn't have to mean doom-saying over his final form, but it doesn't make sense to ignore stuff. Yeah, we knew he was going to be raw, but ineffectual at one of the critical components of the game is still a problem which requires attention. Can't wait for the season to start, though, because if he plays better for a couple months, a lot of that talk can go away. Even improvement to league average would be nice, because we know we aren't going to task him as our focal scorer and it would represent a step forward.

[Vampirate]

A player’s first few years in the league is where they see rapid improvements. We saw it with Norm, Pascal, Fred and OG. Scottie regressing in year 2 isn’t out of the ordinary. You can argue a few players from his draft class had disappointing sophomore years. It’s only a concern if Scottie repeats what he did last year and frankly, I don’t see that happening. We need to see improvements though. He has to be much better than what he showed last year. If not, this team is going to struggle.

Norm didn't get into triple digits in scoring until his 5th year, and wasn't the uber effecient player he is until then.

Siakam really didn't improve his 2nd year, he just took more shots. OG actually declined in efficiency his 2nd year, don't let the PPG fool you.

FVV was legit bad his first year.

Here's my take, it easy to say they improved year to year when their PPG goes up, but honestly look at things closer, none of those players were hitting double digits in scoring until their third year, some actually declined in efficiency despite the higher PPG (because they took more shots) while others maintained effeciency.

It's easy to look like your progressing much faster when your first year are scoring 4 PPG and the 2nd year you are scoring 7 PPG.

A jump from 15 PPG to 23 PPG is much harder than a jump from 4 PPG to 15 PPG.

[tsherkin]

A jump from 15 PPG to 23 PPG is much harder than a jump from 4 PPG to 15 PPG.

Also, I don't think (m)any of us are expecting 20+ ppg from Scottie, certainly not this season. I don't think that's an important marker for him, and we definitely don't need to be handing him that level of usage at this point.

[Tha Cynic]

Am I to understand that shooting efficiency is the only metric to assess a player?

Yes. In fact it's the best metric to assess a player who we knew would be raw offensively.

There are other components to it, but if he doesn't fix that aspect of his game, then there will be a very specific cap to his utility and the range of roles he can fill for us. Most especially with anything like our current roster. Barnes has intriguing potential, enough that he's worth waiting a little while... being critical of him in a given season doesn't have to mean doom-saying over his final form, but it doesn't make sense to ignore stuff. Yeah, we knew he was going to be raw, but ineffectual at one of the critical components of the game is still a problem which requires attention. Can't wait for the season to start, though, because if he plays better for a couple months, a lot of that talk can go away. Even improvement to league average would be nice, because we know we aren't going to task him as our focal scorer and it would represent a step forward.

Oh agreed, but Barnes also has age on his side and players have shown they can become better offensive players over time. What's different is the situation each player is in and how quickly they progress. The Raptors drafted a player who they knew was very raw in terms of offensive skill but could see that he had a high basketball IQ. In these situations, pulling TS% and projecting his numbers, based on a season where he played PG at one point, was setting screens at another, and then playing on the perimeter off ball in the next isn't giving you much of an analysis. Barnes hasn't been in any sort of comfort zone and all that impacts what he does going forward because Nurse used him as the interchangeable guy to make everyone one else for their position.

Barnes has a difficult path ahead of him to refine his offensive shooting, but to write him off based on season 2 or 3 is a bit premature, especially when he has shows he can be amongst his class and at the top of that class without much of an offensive repertoire. This is the first year of a different opportunity. I look at his draft class and no one stands out, but Barnes to me has given glimpses of how he can dominated the game in multiple ways if he can do it consistently. This ain't a guy who had spurts for a month like FVV. This was a guy who has shown he can pick his spots and take over consistently throughout the year. Let's see how that stamina holds up this year.

[Vampirate]

A jump from 15 PPG to 23 PPG is much harder than a jump from 4 PPG to 15 PPG.

Also, I don't think (m)any of us are expecting 20+ ppg from Scottie, certainly not this season. I don't think that's an important marker for him, and we definitely don't need to be handing him that level of usage at this point.

Tbh it kind of is, if 15 PPG is basically the floor and i'm assuming his shot attempts will be up, and so should his free throw attempts , 17 ish PPG should be required, 20 PPG should be a sign though that he actually can be built around (an actual jump in efficiency along with higher FGA).

His physical tools are just so overwhelming, even if he doesn't have great burst.

[tsherkin]

Oh agreed, but Barnes also has age on his side and players have shown they can become better offensive players over time.

Yeah. His age is an advantage. It's tough to develop shooting once you're in your NBA career, aside from corner 3pt shooting, but we'll see. He's certainly worth waiting a bit and not being too premature. 90% of me running my mouth in this thread is mostly trying to get people to agree that it's okay to acknowledge that he looked pretty garbage as a scorer last year (though again, hardly alone in that regard), and that's still okay because we saw some other things and he's still like basically an infant in the NBA. We need to see how he develops, we just need not to ignore things.

In these situations, pulling TS% and projecting his numbers, based on a season where he played PG at one point, was setting screens at another, and then playing on the perimeter off ball in the next isn't giving you much of an analysis.

No, the broader problem is that he has an increasing distance to go to become a league average scorer as the league context evolves, right? League average was 56.6% in 22 and 58.1% in 2023. It will likely stabilize around there over the next few years, as it often does, but it opens a gap where scoring possessions at 55% and less are really damaging. He needs to figure out his competitive advantage to make himself worth touches, or he'll end up having a more fixed ceiling as an offensive player, which was my driving point. A single season doesn't determine his whole future, of course, and he surely wasn't working in a best-case team environment either, but he also wasn't being asked to float big volume, so he didn't have the volume-efficiency inverse relationship to contend with and he did have loads of transition offense bolstering his scoring.

Barnes has a difficult path ahead of him to refine his offensive shooting, but to write him off based on season 2 or 3 is a bit premature,

Sure, but I don't think too many are really trying to write him off so much as "be able to acknowledge negatives without pushback from an entire corps of the fanbase that wants it to be all roses," you know? He didn't do anything special in year 2 and it's okay to acknowledge that. He isn't progressing fast, and that's also okay to acknowledge. Doesn't mean "trade him now, for pennies on the dollar," it just means we should keep an eye out and see how things progress.

Barnes to me has given glimpses of how he can dominated the game in multiple ways if he can do it consistently.

There are areas of his game which are very interesting, yes. And if he's able to make some relatively minor improvements in some places, it'll have wider-reaching impact on his offensive development, for sure. Right now, a reliable FT line pull-up and him going hard at the rim more often and drawing more fouls would be a huge deal. And at least in the preseason, driving hasn't seemed to be a huge issue. He doesn't have a killer first step but size matters and if he can get smaller defenders on his hip, that's a great start. And he certainly isn't without a handle, I think he just needs to handle more with purpose and stop making so many jump passes.

This ain't a guy who had spurts for a month like FVV. This was a guy who has shown he can pick his spots and take over consistently throughout the year. Let's see how that stamina holds up this year.

I don't know about "take over," that seems pretty aggressive given his overall performance. But he's shown that he's pretty comfortable with those hooks. Even in a down year, he shot well enough from 3-10 feet and shot specifically well on hooks. That's something to build on, no question. Hopefully, Darko will figure out how to best support Scottie going forward. There's no harm in him not being a superstar, but we can also get more juice from him if we don't solely rely on him figuring it out, and instead put him in some more advantageous positions. Even if that means taking him away from perimeter ball-handling a bit in order to do it.

[Vampirate]

Yes. In fact it's the best metric to assess a player who we knew would be raw offensively.

There are other components to it, but if he doesn't fix that aspect of his game, then there will be a very specific cap to his utility and the range of roles he can fill for us. Most especially with anything like our current roster. Barnes has intriguing potential, enough that he's worth waiting a little while... being critical of him in a given season doesn't have to mean doom-saying over his final form, but it doesn't make sense to ignore stuff. Yeah, we knew he was going to be raw, but ineffectual at one of the critical components of the game is still a problem which requires attention. Can't wait for the season to start, though, because if he plays better for a couple months, a lot of that talk can go away. Even improvement to league average would be nice, because we know we aren't going to task him as our focal scorer and it would represent a step forward.

Oh agreed, but Barnes also has age on his side and players have shown they can become better offensive players over time. What's different is the situation each player is in and how quickly they progress. The Raptors drafted a player who they knew was very raw in terms of offensive skill but could see that he had a high basketball IQ. In these situations, pulling TS% and projecting his numbers, based on a season where he played PG at one point, was setting screens at another, and then playing on the perimeter off ball in the next isn't giving you much of an analysis. Barnes hasn't been in any sort of comfort zone and all that impacts what he does going forward because Nurse used him as the interchangeable guy to make everyone one else for their position.

Barnes has a difficult path ahead of him to refine his offensive shooting, but to write him off based on season 2 or 3 is a bit premature, especially when he has shows he can be amongst his class and at the top of that class without much of an offensive repertoire. This is the first year of a different opportunity. I look at his draft class and no one stands out, but Barnes to me has given glimpses of how he can dominated the game in multiple ways if he can do it consistently. This ain't a guy who had spurts for a month like FVV. This was a guy who has shown he can pick his spots and take over consistently throughout the year. Let's see how that stamina holds up this year.

If Barnes develops in the same way Derozan did, he's basically going to be borderline unstoppable.

The thing was Derozan just didn't have an overwhelming athletic advantage to exploit when the game's mattered. yeah, he has more burst and hops than Barnes does, but that was easily nullified in the playoffs.

Derozan was very athletic, but not overwhelmingly so, Barnes is different in this regard. Also, I think Derozan started off more raw than Barnes did if i'm not mistaken.

[tsherkin]

Tbh it kind of is, if 15 PPG is basically the floor and i'm assuming his shot attempts will be up, and so should his free throw attempts , 17 ish PPG should be required, 20 PPG should be a sign though that he actually can be built around (an actual jump in efficiency along with higher FGA).

His physical tools are just so overwhelming, even if he doesn't have great burst.

I don't think looking at him and expecting 20 ppg is a good approach, is what I'm saying. With enough volume, he could get there, sure. Right now, that'd be horrible for our offense and I don't think it makes a ton of sense to really push volume on him at the moment. We should be looking to find his best sets and see how well we can leverage his passing and stuff. We don't need a second 20 ppg scorer who can't hit league average efficiency. What we need is a bunch of guys behind Pascal who can start bringing up our abysmal team shooting numbers, and maybe do that by finding higher efficiency in our lower-volume guys more across the board. And maybe if we can get some Scottie-to-OG connections on a more regular basis, we can start leveraging that passing of his while encouraging him a little to drive more and see how that goes for us.

20 ppg would be nice, but only if it comes with reasonable shooting/efficiency. Otherwise, we're just shifting deck chairs on our garbage shot-making. So a more incremental approach seems a little more appropriate to me.

[tsherkin]

If Barnes develops in the same way Derozan did, he's basically going to be borderline unstoppable.

A decade from now

The thing was Derozan just didn't have an overwhelming athletic advantage to exploit when the game's mattered. yeah, he has more burst and hops than Barnes does, but that was easily nullified in the playoffs.

Some of that came from him being easily cowed into shooting middies against better defenses, to be fair. He'd even go away from what was a reasonably effective post game, too.

Derozan was very athletic, but not overwhelmingly so, Barnes is different in this regard. Also, I think Derozan started off more raw than Barnes did if i'm not mistaken.

Oh he was raw as hell. A stringbean with hops and reasonable quicks. It took him years to turn into what he has evolved into, and the best part of that whole situation was trading him for Kawhi.

[Vampirate]

Tbh it kind of is, if 15 PPG is basically the floor and i'm assuming his shot attempts will be up, and so should his free throw attempts , 17 ish PPG should be required, 20 PPG should be a sign though that he actually can be built around (an actual jump in efficiency along with higher FGA).

His physical tools are just so overwhelming, even if he doesn't have great burst.

I don't think looking at him and expecting 20 ppg is a good approach, is what I'm saying. With enough volume, he could get there, sure. Right now, that'd be horrible for our offense and I don't think it makes a ton of sense to really push volume on him at the moment. We should be looking to find his best sets and see how well we can leverage his passing and stuff. We don't need a second 20 ppg scorer who can't hit league average efficiency. What we need is a bunch of guys behind Pascal who can start bringing up our abysmal team shooting numbers, and maybe do that by finding higher efficiency in our lower-volume guys more across the board. And maybe if we can get some Scottie-to-OG connections on a more regular basis, we can start leveraging that passing of his while encouraging him a little to drive more and see how that goes for us.

20 ppg would be nice, but only if it comes with reasonable shooting/efficiency. Otherwise, we're just shifting deck chairs on our garbage shot-making. So a more incremental approach seems a little more appropriate to me.

I think if his midrange shooting across the board gets better (not counting the 3 point shot) which is doable for him, he'll probably get there.

This one can go either way as it's hard to make of his shooting 10-16 feet, this season should tell which season was the fluke and which wasn't.

I'm on team trade Siakam btw, I want Barnes to see that he is the best scoring option on the team, and thus needs to take the game in his hands.

If that results in more losses, so be it.

[TheGeneral99]

There are other components to it, but if he doesn't fix that aspect of his game, then there will be a very specific cap to his utility and the range of roles he can fill for us. Most especially with anything like our current roster. Barnes has intriguing potential, enough that he's worth waiting a little while... being critical of him in a given season doesn't have to mean doom-saying over his final form, but it doesn't make sense to ignore stuff. Yeah, we knew he was going to be raw, but ineffectual at one of the critical components of the game is still a problem which requires attention. Can't wait for the season to start, though, because if he plays better for a couple months, a lot of that talk can go away. Even improvement to league average would be nice, because we know we aren't going to task him as our focal scorer and it would represent a step forward.

Oh agreed, but Barnes also has age on his side and players have shown they can become better offensive players over time. What's different is the situation each player is in and how quickly they progress. The Raptors drafted a player who they knew was very raw in terms of offensive skill but could see that he had a high basketball IQ. In these situations, pulling TS% and projecting his numbers, based on a season where he played PG at one point, was setting screens at another, and then playing on the perimeter off ball in the next isn't giving you much of an analysis. Barnes hasn't been in any sort of comfort zone and all that impacts what he does going forward because Nurse used him as the interchangeable guy to make everyone one else for their position.

Barnes has a difficult path ahead of him to refine his offensive shooting, but to write him off based on season 2 or 3 is a bit premature, especially when he has shows he can be amongst his class and at the top of that class without much of an offensive repertoire. This is the first year of a different opportunity. I look at his draft class and no one stands out, but Barnes to me has given glimpses of how he can dominated the game in multiple ways if he can do it consistently. This ain't a guy who had spurts for a month like FVV. This was a guy who has shown he can pick his spots and take over consistently throughout the year. Let's see how that stamina holds up this year.

If Barnes develops in the same way Derozan did, he's basically going to be borderline unstoppable.

The thing was Derozan just didn't have an overwhelming athletic advantage to exploit when the game's mattered. yeah, he has more burst and hops than Barnes does, but that was easily nullified in the playoffs.

Derozan was very athletic, but not overwhelmingly so, Barnes is different in this regard. Also, I think Derozan started off more raw than Barnes did if i'm not mistaken.

It took Derozan 6 years to become an all-star level player with a high skill level. It took him about 10 years to develop into a good facilitator who could dissect defenses. It took Derozan 11 years to develop into a more efficient player.

Derozan was explosive and had excellent body control, but his lateral movement/quickness was below average which in my opinion was the reason he struggled against long/bigger defenders and wasn't great defensively.

[tsherkin]

I think if his midrange shooting across the board gets better (not counting the 3 point shot) which is doable for him, he'll probably get there.

That is quite possible if he improves his shooting, yes.

This one can go either way as it's hard to make of his shooting 10-16 feet, this season should tell which season was the fluke and which wasn't.

Honestly, I don't think either of them were that telling. We know he isn't a strong shooter, but he didn't shoot enough to really give us a relevant sample as to which season was important. We're talking about 1.1 to 1.4 FGA/g from 10-16 and from 16-3P ranges across his first two seasons. Shooting percentages weren't meaningfully different from 16+ feet, and I doubt he's a sub-30% shooter from 10-16 as his regular sample. Most players are accidentally better than that, and he's a 77% free throw shooter, you know?

In many ways, it's more about confidence, consistency and then building from there. At 1.1 FGA/g, if that was 3pt shooting, no one would gaf about the percentage because it's so noisy with bail-outs and heaves and so forth, right? Well, it isn't a LOT different in the mid-range. A little, sure, but still. That's why we need this upcoming season for him to increase his volume there a little so we can see where he's at with more usage.

I'm on team trade Siakam btw, I want Barnes to see that he is the best scoring option on the team, and thus needs to take the game in his hands.

If that results in more losses, so be it.

I do not want to do that right now. I'd rather see if there are ways we can roll back Pascal's volume a little and see if we can't get him closer to the efficiency he showed earlier on in his career. I'd like to see a more distributed approach with this roster and some more sets where we try to use their advantages instead of playing into their weaknesses. We need to see what Pascal's value is as we push towards the deadline before really considering that move.

If he's able to improve at all, then we have the potential for a rolling rebuild instead of blowing it up and praying for an infusion of talent. And I don't personally think Siakam nets us the focal guy we need, so that'd leave us tanking, which isn't a reliable option.

[tsherkin]

Derozan was explosive and had excellent body control, but his lateral movement/quickness was below average which in my opinion was the reason he struggled against long/bigger defenders and wasn't great defensively.

I'd say it was more his commitment to moving away from the things he developed specifically to address those issues. Lateral quickness issues can be mitigated with effective use of screens. Scoring efficiency can be enhanced by getting off-ball, hitting the corner 3 and cutting in and around the basket as a secondary around someone else's action. It's not like he didn't have Lowry with him. Screens to get mismatches on smaller players in the post, etc, etc, etc. There is a litany of time-honored moves to deal with this stuff.

He just resorted to bad habits under pressure.

[ATLTimekeeper]

"Higher peak potential" sounds a lot like "13 game Bargnani." It gets funny with prospects as we place a lot on their shoulders. Terence Ross was once one of the youngest players to score over 50 in a game, but like hell we should have built around him at the time. Last year Scottie improved in some areas and regressed in others. The regression parts made it challenging to give him the ball more often.

Ah, is this what your analysis tells you? That Barnes and Bargnani are similar and all the underlying stats and work on the court show you Bargnani? Or are you just making crazy statements to fit a narrative?

I mean I hated that guy and could tell from season 1 that he was going to have issues, so I'm curious if that's the sense you get from watching Barnes and the way you analyze the game of basketball.

Nah, if you bothered reading the thread you would have known that's not the direct comparison I was making, nor was I comparing him to Terrence Ross. Using a young players best games to predict the future is wrong, whereas using larger samples will give you more accurate information to base decisions off of. What narrative am I working on? That Scottie regressed as a scorer last year? Is that a tough pill to swallow?