Official Scottie All Star Barnes Thread 8

[HumbleRen]

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He was putting up these numbers before the ankle injury. Hoping he can get back to form as he continues to heal up. Still not happy with his lack of rim attempts but that mid range shot is looking pure.

Pretty much all of this is due to him no longer being the lead ballhandler trying to initiate from the perimeter. He's just as good as Siakam scoring from midrange. You just have to hope he eventually starts putting more pressure at the rim which he seems to have stopped since his most recent injury.

Slow and steady with him on offensive improvements and I prefer the mastering of midrange before expanding outside approach better. He plays on a team where no one else attracts much attention and that includes RJ and Quickley who are both very one dimensional scorers and don't pressure the defense much.

I think there's definite offensive improvements people are missing due to the poor perimeter shooting. He was never going to come in as some prolific scorer.

He needs to remember his bread and butter from his rookie season.

Do some off ball movement stuff again, offball cutting, offensive rebounding, etc etc. He’s been getting back to it since IQ got back so that’s good.

[tdotrep2]

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He was putting up these numbers before the ankle injury. Hoping he can get back to form as he continues to heal up. Still not happy with his lack of rim attempts but that mid range shot is looking pure.

Pretty much all of this is due to him no longer being the lead ballhandler trying to initiate from the perimeter. He's just as good as Siakam scoring from midrange. You just have to hope he eventually starts putting more pressure at the rim which he seems to have stopped since his most recent injury.

Slow and steady with him on offensive improvements and I prefer the mastering of midrange before expanding outside approach better. He plays on a team where no one else attracts much attention and that includes RJ and Quickley who are both very one dimensional scorers and don't pressure the defense much.

I think there's definite offensive improvements people are missing due to the poor perimeter shooting. He was never going to come in as some prolific scorer.

He needs to remember his bread and butter from his rookie season.

Do some off ball movement stuff again, offball cutting, offensive rebounding, etc etc. He’s been getting back to it since IQ got back so that’s good.

It will come together, he's a smart dude. Right now it's obvious he is trying to break out of his comfort zone and develop things he's not accustom to doing.

[tsherkin]

3-8
2-12
2-5
3-8
3-7

Averaging 2.6 makes and 8 attempts, 32.5%

5 games, that raw percentage means only so much. Especially when he shot 37.5% twice, 42.5% and 40% in 4 of the 5 games, and that raw percentage is coming from literally one bad game.

Not the hottest way to evaluate his performance over that stretch.

[YogurtProducer]

Allen's a decent young C who didn't cost a lottery pick - does Toronto have one of those?
How about All Stars who weren't injury replacements - does Toronto have one of those?

Cleveland traded for Mitchell with 3 years left on his contract, he could have easily been moved at any point for a good return. They were already battling for the playoffs before they got him, they risked very little.

Your initial point was that it was not a gamble. Trading the guy you drafted in 2022 (Agbaji), Lauri Markkanen, along with every first rounder until 2030 for a guy with only 3 years on his deal for a team that was the 8 seed was 100% a gamble. Don't even try to re-write history and suggest otherwise.

I said/implied it was not a big gamble. They would have easily gotten assets back if Mitchell didn't work out. OK, let's say absolute worst case scenario and Mitchell leaves for nothing. They gave up Markkanen, Sexton, Agbaji, 2025 & 2027 & 2029 FRP and 2 swaps in 2026/2028 that look unlikely to convey. They still have Allen, Mobley, Garland, Okoro, Levert as their core - that's not any worse than what Toronto has right now.

Alright bud.

You are 100% right. Trading a guy that became an all-star in Lauri, a lottery pick in Agbaji, and every first rounder for 7 years is totally not a gamble. There was zero chance that could have turned out bad. It was actually risk free

[brownbobcat]

Getting back on topic, I'd like to see him incorporate/refine the power pivot - use that force to put defenders on their heels in the same way that Kawhi uses the face-up pushoff. He doesn't seem to have the flexibility to pull off a lot of counter-pivots like Kobe or Jokic, but his stride length should allow for a lot of separation on just the one move. Over the right, over the left, fakes in both directions.

[Scase]

Getting back on topic, I'd like to see him incorporate/refine the power pivot - use that force to put defenders on their heels in the same way that Kawhi uses the face-up pushoff. He doesn't seem to have the flexibility to pull off a lot of counter-pivots like Kobe or Jokic, but his stride length should allow for a lot of separation on just the one move. Over the right, over the left, fakes in both directions.

That fake out on Mobley had him out of his shoes. We need to send this kid to Hakeems big man camp.

[brownbobcat]

Alright bud.

You are 100% right. Trading a guy that became an all-star in Lauri, a lottery pick in Agbaji, and every first rounder for 7 years is totally not a gamble. There was zero chance that could have turned out bad. It was actually risk free

You keep going back to these strawmen hoping no one will notice. "Not a big gamble" does not mean risk-free. They could've gotten every single one of those picks back if they had to trade Mitchell again. No one thought that highly of Markkanen and he likely never becomes an All Star in Cleveland as the third wheel in their big man rotation with the emergence of Mobley. A solid player, but you make that swap 10/10 times. Nobody ever profiled Agbaji as anything other than 3&D rotation player.

[LoveMyRaps]

He's been playing like an All-Star again.

Doesn't mean much on a bottom 5 team but it's a silver lining to a dreadful season.

[720]

He’s comparable to SGA from the middy.

[LoveMyRaps]

ya he just needs to bring down those 3pt attempts and do a lot more damage from inside the arc.

The last 5 games, he's been playing exceptionally well and part of the reason is because he's only averaging 3.4 attempts per game (shooting 40%). The 16 games prior to that he was averaging ~7 3pt attempts per game, which is WAYYY too high for him. All those bricks are gonna throw you off your game.

[links135]

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He was putting up these numbers before the ankle injury. Hoping he can get back to form as he continues to heal up. Still not happy with his lack of rim attempts but that mid range shot is looking pure.

Pretty much all of this is due to him no longer being the lead ballhandler trying to initiate from the perimeter. He's just as good as Siakam scoring from midrange. You just have to hope he eventually starts putting more pressure at the rim which he seems to have stopped since his most recent injury.

Slow and steady with him on offensive improvements and I prefer the mastering of midrange before expanding outside approach better. He plays on a team where no one else attracts much attention and that includes RJ and Quickley who are both very one dimensional scorers and don't pressure the defense much.

I think there's definite offensive improvements people are missing due to the poor perimeter shooting. He was never going to come in as some prolific scorer.

Huh? He's shooting slightly more at the rim since coming back from injury on the 19th, and he's shooting 80% there.

The other difference is that well, turns out Detroit with Cade, the 5 healthy guys from NO, Miami twice and Indiana are far different than Boston, NY, Bucks, NY, Cleveland. Go figure.

We have the easiest schedule from here on out, right now our sos is 2nd by .001, just in time to be healthy, so I wouldn't be surprised if his numbers explode a bit, especially when you consider since he has been back, the average record of teams we faced was like .595.

[brownbobcat]

Pretty much all of this is due to him no longer being the lead ballhandler trying to initiate from the perimeter. He's just as good as Siakam scoring from midrange. You just have to hope he eventually starts putting more pressure at the rim which he seems to have stopped since his most recent injury.

Right now, Barnes is like that NFL fullback with speed once he gets moving, but can't juke guys from a standstill. He has strength, but not a low center of gravity. He can spot the holes once the defense is moving around, but he can't make them move on his own.

[Vampirate]

3-8
2-12
2-5
3-8
3-7

Averaging 2.6 makes and 8 attempts, 32.5%

5 games, that raw percentage means only so much. Especially when he shot 37.5% twice, 42.5% and 40% in 4 of the 5 games, and that raw percentage is coming from literally one bad game.

Not the hottest way to evaluate his performance over that stretch.

There's definitely going to be variance, however if Barnes insists on now only shooting under 4 three point attempts a game, it's going to hinder his scoring output, just like shooting over 50% of his shots on 3s will as well.

Imo, he's yet to find a proper balance.

Also worrying is his declining FTr.

It's possible he's still in a experimental phase, and hopefully his shooting from 10-16 feet keeps holding up, if it can, then next step would be bending the defenses with it in getting teammates easy dunks and also getting defenders to bite for easy free throws.

Time will tell.

[YogurtProducer]

Alright bud.

You are 100% right. Trading a guy that became an all-star in Lauri, a lottery pick in Agbaji, and every first rounder for 7 years is totally not a gamble. There was zero chance that could have turned out bad. It was actually risk free

You keep going back to these strawmen hoping no one will notice. "Not a big gamble" does not mean risk-free. They could've gotten every single one of those picks back if they had to trade Mitchell again. No one thought that highly of Markkanen and he likely never becomes an All Star in Cleveland as the third wheel in their big man rotation with the emergence of Mobley. A solid player, but you make that swap 10/10 times. Nobody ever profiled Agbaji as anything other than 3&D rotation player.

0% chance they could have traded Mitchell later and received back everything they gave up. 7 firsts, a guy just drafted at #14, and a solid piece in Markkanen?

Who is giving them all that right now if Mitchelle didn't re-up? NO ONE is the answer.

Definition of a gamble.

[links135]

ya he just needs to bring down those 3pt attempts and do a lot more damage from inside the arc.

The last 5 games, he's been playing exceptionally well and part of the reason is because he's only averaging 3.4 attempts per game (shooting 40%). The 16 games prior to that he was averaging ~7 3pt attempts per game, which is WAYYY too high for him. All those bricks are gonna throw you off your game.

I mean some games he had Dick, Walter and Mogbo starting. Barrett was often sick, or playing sick, IQ still wasn't there, Mitchell was even hurt some games, Poeltl was even out a few games.

Before he was hurt he also had a good stretch of 3 point shooting, and before that stretch were 2 4-game samples split between a month because of his eye injury.

And can't emphasize enough, that bad stretch after coming back was also really short handed against a bunch of really good teams.

[Vampirate]

ya he just needs to bring down those 3pt attempts and do a lot more damage from inside the arc.

The last 5 games, he's been playing exceptionally well and part of the reason is because he's only averaging 3.4 attempts per game (shooting 40%). The 16 games prior to that he was averaging ~7 3pt attempts per game, which is WAYYY too high for him. All those bricks are gonna throw you off your game.

And 3.4 threes a game is WAAAAY to low for him.

[tsherkin]

There's definitely going to be variance, however if Barnes insists on now only shooting under 4 three point attempts a game, it's going to hinder his scoring output, just like shooting over 50% of his shots on 3s will as well.

Imo, he's yet to find a proper balance.

I dunno, man. He took 5, 7, 8, 8 and 12 3PA. I don't really see an issue with that volume outside of a single game.

Also worrying is his declining FTr.

Yeah, but not unexpected. He's doubled his proportion of shots from 10-16 feet, he's matching his proportion from 3 from last year, and he's down about 7% on shots in the RA (which is roughly the difference in 10-16 footers). It isn't surprising his already-unremarkable FTr was going to drop when he started taking more jumpers. We can't have everything from him.

He's doing more of what we have been asking for; these are consequences of what he's asking for, because he also doesn't have the athleticism to just burst his way to the rim and (at least on the season) he's not hitting from 3 and shooting a career-low when he does get FTAs.

We'll have to wait and see.

[Vampirate]

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He was putting up these numbers before the ankle injury. Hoping he can get back to form as he continues to heal up. Still not happy with his lack of rim attempts but that mid range shot is looking pure.

Pretty much all of this is due to him no longer being the lead ballhandler trying to initiate from the perimeter. He's just as good as Siakam scoring from midrange. You just have to hope he eventually starts putting more pressure at the rim which he seems to have stopped since his most recent injury.

Using the Statmuse shot chart out of the 128 mid range shots thus far, Barnes has made 63 of them which is a 49.2% mark.

Assuming Barnes keeps it above 50% and focuses on his apparent new hot spot, he'd have a better mid range shooting season than Siakam ever had.

Yes, Barnes is shooting 28.6% from 16-3P, however he's only taken a small sample size of his shots from deep mid range.

Don't get me wrong, it's difficult to expect him to keep up an above 50% from mid range (10-16 feet) , but it's been damn impressive thus far.

[Vampirate]

Getting back on topic, I'd like to see him incorporate/refine the power pivot - use that force to put defenders on their heels in the same way that Kawhi uses the face-up pushoff. He doesn't seem to have the flexibility to pull off a lot of counter-pivots like Kobe or Jokic, but his stride length should allow for a lot of separation on just the one move. Over the right, over the left, fakes in both directions.

That fake out on Mobley had him out of his shoes. We need to send this kid to Hakeems big man camp.

One of my criticisms on Barnes is I think he takes a bit too long dribbling/backdown then gets in his turnaround jumper.

He needs to get to the point where it's almost instant the moment he touches the ball, don't give the defense time to react.

Also he's also going to need a counter to this move as well as it's probably going to become predictable the more he uses it, essentially fake the pivot, or pivot the opposite way.

[tsherkin]

One of my criticisms on Barnes is I think he takes a bit too long dribbling/backdown then gets in his turnaround jumper.

He needs to get to the point where it's almost instant the moment he touches the ball, don't give the defense time to react.

Jordan was always excellent about that. Very little extended dribbling except when he was burning clock or out in transition. Quick moves.

Also he's also going to need a counter to this move as well as it's probably going to become predictable the more he uses it, essentially fake the pivot, or pivot the opposite way.

If he's smooth with it, there isn't a lot they can do about it. But yeah, a reverse pivot, the up fake, an up-and-under, those are all natural progressions with time.