Bill Simmons ranked Barnes as the No. 6 player in the 2021 draft class

[MiamiSPX]

At this point he’s just doing it to for the raptor fan engagement. Best to just ignore him.

Bingo. As one of the guys who gets credited for the explosion of podcasts, he is extremely media savvy. He and Russillo know exactly what they're doing when they casually slight Raptors fans.

Loved him when he was The Sports Guy on ESPN, and when he ran Grantland.

[visionquest]

Intentionally Provocative list...

[OakleyDokely]

Since Banchero went out, the Magic are 0-4 and Suggs has shooting splits of 46 fg / 21 3pt. It's a lot easier being an efficient 3+D role player playing off a great player like Paolo than being one of the key guys like Barnes or Cade are asked to be every night. Franz's efficiency has gone to **** as well without Paolo.

[kalel123]

Do we really care what this guy says? He's not relevant beyond Celtics stuff because he's clearly a fanboy of that team.

To me, Barnes was clear #1 from that class last year. Not gonna change much from that less than 10 games in and he's been out with injury for much of it.

[ItsDanger]

Some of these people who've been around a while now, don't actually put the time in as much to watch the day to day action. They rely on their reputations to garner attention and hence revenues. Don't be fooled.

[OakleyDokely]

My rankings:

Tier 1 (potential multiple time allstars)
Barnes, Cade, Mobley

Tier 2 (potential borderline allstars)
Franz, Sengun, Johnson

Tier 3 (good starters, elite role players)
Murphy III, H Jones, Suggs

Tier 4 (the underachievers, unknowns)
Green, Kuminga, Giddey

[tsherkin]

Bill Simmons isn’t very good at analyzing basketball

Good historian, bad at the present. Common enough in other fields.

Bill Simmons isn't an analyst, he's a fan with a podium. Which is fine, and often very entertaining, but he isn't the guy you go to if you're after actual examination.

[tsherkin]

My rankings:

Tier 1 (potential multiple time allstars)
Barnes, Cade, Mobley

Lots of positivity for Cade, which I find interesting. Though I suppose if he can one day actually score efficiently, maybe the same could be true for Barnes. SOmething to watch, I suppose.

[Morris_Shatford]

Suggs...

Did Bill just based this off a 2021 mock draft he looked at?

[OakleyDokely]

My rankings:

Tier 1 (potential multiple time allstars)
Barnes, Cade, Mobley

Lots of positivity for Cade, which I find interesting. Though I suppose if he can one day actually score efficiently, maybe the same could be true for Barnes. SOmething to watch, I suppose.

With guys like Cade, Scottie, because they can do other things well and they contribute in many different ways, I can live with a little less efficiency. With higher volume, scoring centric players, I think efficiency is a lot more important.

[Pointgod]

Only ROTY

Only All Star

Resume speaks for itself

Yeah another reason why Simmons is an idiot and shouldn’t be listened to.

[TeamDisgruntled]

If you listened to his most recent team rankings it’s clear he hasn’t watched any raptors. If you listen to his analysis basically he just knows they are bottom feeders and has zero knowledge of how competitive many of the games have been while developing a team full of rookies and young guys. This while simultaneously having our best players injured.

He can’t watch every team so it is what it is. Generally I like Simmons but yeah, uninformed opinion for sure.

One thing he mentioned was poeltl as a trade later in the year. My opinion is that if we start winning too many games, as good as he is, we could move him for value and also Tank our season - landing us bottom 5 and with a great chance to land one of the big Fish in this years draft.

[tsherkin]

My rankings:

Tier 1 (potential multiple time allstars)
Barnes, Cade, Mobley

Lots of positivity for Cade, which I find interesting. Though I suppose if he can one day actually score efficiently, maybe the same could be true for Barnes. SOmething to watch, I suppose.

With guys like Cade, Scottie, because they can do other things well and they contribute in many different ways, I can live with a little less efficiency. With higher volume, scoring centric players, I think efficiency is a lot more important.

If you're a 20+ ppg scorer, it matters. Cade's offensive impact is reasonably low. He's a 19 FGA/g player who produces below-average efficiency. That... isn't good. He's a decent playmaker but nothing staggering. Kind of like Barnes.

We'll see. Maybe they'll both DeRozan themselves over time.

[kalel123]

My rankings:

Tier 1 (potential multiple time allstars)
Barnes, Cade, Mobley

Lots of positivity for Cade, which I find interesting. Though I suppose if he can one day actually score efficiently, maybe the same could be true for Barnes. SOmething to watch, I suppose.

Still early enough that you get some points for potential. He passes the eye test when he manages to be healthy the few times I looked at him. Just that he's been injured too often to build on anything. So he's still empty promises for the most part.

[tsherkin]

My rankings:

Tier 1 (potential multiple time allstars)
Barnes, Cade, Mobley

Lots of positivity for Cade, which I find interesting. Though I suppose if he can one day actually score efficiently, maybe the same could be true for Barnes. SOmething to watch, I suppose.

Still early enough that you get some points for potential. He passes the eye test when he manages to be healthy the few times I looked at him. Just that he's been injured too often to build on anything. So he's still empty promises for the most part.

He has been injured, that's true. Like Scottie. He has a jumper, even if his 3 is kind of tepid. He's not been particularly adept at getting to the rim or finishing when he does, nor at drawing fouls, all of which have heavily affected his ability to score efficiently. But there's size and reasonable athleticism, sound playmaking at that shot. He certainly has potential. And yeah, he's 23. So we'll see. He's been disappointing so far, very much not your instant-success pathway, but there's time.

[dagger]

Sengun off to a slow start, Udoka was benching him for fourth quarters. That will change, but the Raptors do not bench Scottie for fourth quarters. Mobley looks great, but also has a top group to work with. I don't know how he would be doing if he was on a bad team, and opponents could just dare his teammates to shoot ad collapse on him. Suggs has better teammates, but with Banchero out, the Magic aren't winning.

[Tripod]

I just always thought this draft was one where different guys would have the "best" year and people would flip who they thought was the best.

I am just happy that our "furthest away from reaching upside" guy, has had 2/3 years already where he could be deemed the best.

And I fully expect others to have great years ahead. But so far Barnes has exceeded early expectations and still has so many things he can improve on to keep getting better. That's the part we should be excited about seeing the next 5 years.

[OakleyDokely]

Lots of positivity for Cade, which I find interesting. Though I suppose if he can one day actually score efficiently, maybe the same could be true for Barnes. SOmething to watch, I suppose.

With guys like Cade, Scottie, because they can do other things well and they contribute in many different ways, I can live with a little less efficiency. With higher volume, scoring centric players, I think efficiency is a lot more important.

If you're a 20+ ppg scorer, it matters. Cade's offensive impact is reasonably low. He's a 19 FGA/g player who produces below-average efficiency. That... isn't good. He's a decent playmaker but nothing staggering. Kind of like Barnes.

We'll see. Maybe they'll both DeRozan themselves over time.

It matters, but if you're also putting up triple double like stat lines a lot of nights, I'd say it matters a little less.

[TOStateofMind]

He hasn’t watched a single second of raps basketball in years so a horrible list like this checks out.

[Chandan]

It just depends on who hits their peak. They are all very valuable players of their own architypes.

People still underlay suggs. But he legit has the highest accolade of his rookie class so far. AND he is winning.