Jamaaliver wrote:ESPN InsiderDick finding role on rebuilding Raptors
The Raptors are dealing with an early wave of injuries and have seen stars Scottie Barnes, Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett miss games, already vacating a ton of offensive opportunities in the interim. But that hasn't stopped Gradey Dick, who's averaging 21 points per game and has shown real flashes as a dynamic perimeter shooter in his second season.
His emergence as a contributor, despite a 2-6 start, is an important development for the Raptors, who are in the process of assembling winning parts for the future and need their draft picks to pan out. Dick, in particular, has the type of skillset that's critical to putting the right level of spacing around Barnes. He's a very good shooter on the move and has expanded his shot selection to include more above-the-break 3s, averaging six attempts per game with a 59.1 effective percentage, per Second Spectrum. His 37.3% mark from long range should feasibly improve over time and with more talent on the floor around him. Dick is establishing himself as someone defenses can't afford to leave open.
These early performances are of a bounce-back for Dick, who didn't light it up as a 20-year-old rookie nor shoot particularly well in 11 games in the G League last season. Given that shooting was viewed as Dick's best skill coming out of Kansas, his play raised some level of concern from observers around the league as to whether Toronto had overdrafted him with the No. 13 pick, with players like Keyonte George, Jaime Jaquez, Jr., and Brandin Podziemski coming off the board after him. Dick started to fare a bit better down the final stretch of last season, amid a lot of Raptors losing.
There's still a lot of room for improvement here, particularly on the defensive end, but his confidence and improvement have shown some early-season promise in Toronto.
It's wild that articles still only talk about him like he's some 3pt specialist. The most impressive part of his game this season has been everything BUT his 3, his layup package has been looking like prime VC which is just absurd. Granted that doesn't bode well for his FTr.
