Scottie isn't going to be a #1 option superstar in this league

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

I have my doubts.

*this alone is enough to invalidate his contract.

IDK, that's kinda funny. The pearl necklace to me was worse. You gotta win the game when you show up dressed like that!

If he breaks his wrist doing this, it' a wrap for the season. It's dumb, that's not what you want for a franchise guy.

If his game's not growing, you have to wonder why.

[bballsparkin]

^^You think only Scottie does risky stuff? What about riding a motorbike?

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

^^You think only Scottie does risky stuff? What about riding a motorbike?

I know they have clauses for this stuff in their contracts. They still do it. Oubre Jr broke something last year, they later found out he was Mountain biking on trails. It's like John wall "slipping in the shower" and tearing his ACL.

[bballsparkin]

^^You think only Scottie does risky stuff? What about riding a motorbike?

I know they have clauses for this stuff in their contracts. They still do it. Oubre Jr broke something last year, they later found out he was Mountain biking on trails. It's like John wall "slipping in the shower" and tearing his ACL.

Yeah perhaps. I don't know. That's on Scottie if so. I'm not worried about it though. Dude is massive. No way he plans on falling on roller skates it would be bad. I see your point though.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

^^You think only Scottie does risky stuff? What about riding a motorbike?

I know they have clauses for this stuff in their contracts. They still do it. Oubre Jr broke something last year, they later found out he was Mountain biking on trails. It's like John wall "slipping in the shower" and tearing his ACL.

Yeah perhaps. I don't know. That's on Scottie if so. I'm not worried about it though. Dude is massive. No way he plans on falling on roller skates it would be bad. I see your point though.

I see cars. Just saying. It's just dumb af.

[Basketball_Jones]

I think Scottie rollerblading is more weird that he thought he’d do it probably unrecognized lol. And he did it at night going across the street not really on some bike path.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

I think Scottie rollerblading is more weird that he thought he’d do it probably unrecognized lol. And he did it at night going across the street not really on some bike path.

Things I can't tell from the video, the time of night or sobriety. He's 24 though, I get it.

[CPT]

If RJ's bad, comp that contract to Scotties. Like, if Giddy can't get 30M and we can't find a buyer for RJ at 27M.

Even worse if he goes "pass first" this year and his stats drop.

I’m not actually sure I understand this post, but based on what I think it’s saying…

If Scottie’s contract was voided today (for rollerskating, let’s say), he’s getting a max or close to it tomorrow. Teams would figure it out, despite the tight market.

He’s not good enough to “deserve” a max contract, but he’s too good to not give one. It is what it is.

[HangTime]

I have my doubts.

*this alone is enough to invalidate his contract.

IDK, that's kinda funny. The pearl necklace to me was worse. You gotta win the game when you show up dressed like that!

If he breaks his wrist doing this, it' a wrap for the season. It's dumb, that's not what you want for a franchise guy.

If his game's not growing, you have to wonder why.

This can help with his overall balance.

Also, the mind games are great. The less serious you think he is (from a video like this), the better it is.

[Tacoma]

IDK, that's kinda funny. The pearl necklace to me was worse. You gotta win the game when you show up dressed like that!

If he breaks his wrist doing this, it' a wrap for the season. It's dumb, that's not what you want for a franchise guy.

If his game's not growing, you have to wonder why.

This can help with his overall balance.

Also, the mind games are great. The less serious you think he is (from a video like this), the better it is.

Then to really help his balance, he should walk a tightrope across Niagara Falls.

I don't know if you're kidding or not but balancing on rollerblades is very different than on shoes, so it's not helping at all. As for mind games, he's been viewed as being slightly immature at times and not taking things seriously enough, so reinforcing this reputation by rollerblading on an open road doesn't add to anything in terms of mind games.

If he really wanted to play mind games, he should look to guys like Kobe and DeRozan work excellent work ethic, work on his weaknesses like his life depended on it with goal to win the MIP award this year. That'll blow the minds off everybody (in a good way). Rollerblading ain't it.

[tsherkin]

In summation, Fox > RJ, but not by as much as some people might think. And I'm not a fan of De'Aaron Fox at all. Both are inefficient high USG players and defensive liabilities. They better hope a change in scenery improves their game, on both ends of the court.

While I don't necessarily agree with the conclusion, I can appreciate and agree with the idea that the difference certainly isn't very large. Regardless, I have effectively derailed the thread away from Scottie too long, which is my bad. That whole conversation should have been in the RJ thread, sorry.

Speaking back on the subject of Scottie, I'm cautiously optimistic that we will deploy him in a more sensible manner this year, and that he'll have a bit of an easier time with certain things as long as Quick and BI are clicking from 3. And maybe again, Gradey, Walter, etc. Any changes in spacing might help Scottie's below-the-arc game to one degree or another, which would be nice. We know he's quite weak at certain things, but he can get shots from 3-10 feet quite reliably, had made some headway on a couple of shots from there, and he's a pretty good transition playmaker. Those are all positive things, and with less need to lean on him for volume, maybe he'll look better in that reduced-volume role.

[DreamTeam09]

Watch on YouTube

Plenty of assist from Scottie Barnes to GD operating out of the PNR where Scottie is the PNR ball handler and GD is either one pass away, where the help defender can't cheat, or GD coming off a pin down, or GD in the corner and SB moves the defense with his eyes so the low man can't tag early and there's more space.
So yeah even Scottie would look better with more spacing unlike last yr when we were playing rookies n 10 days for like 75% of the szn

[Basketball_Jones]

Holy crap those first 12 games Gradey was a star lol

[deck]

Holy crap those first 12 games Gradey was a star lol

Yep. Super small sample size, but watching Gradey play those games, you could see the offensive potential.

I also maintain that Gradey has gotten a really tough whistle for the first two seasons. I think his finishing is better than the stats suggest.

[YogurtProducer]

Holy crap those first 12 games Gradey was a star lol

Averaging a whopping 19/1/1

[Merit]

IDK, that's kinda funny. The pearl necklace to me was worse. You gotta win the game when you show up dressed like that!

If he breaks his wrist doing this, it' a wrap for the season. It's dumb, that's not what you want for a franchise guy.

If his game's not growing, you have to wonder why.

This can help with his overall balance.

Also, the mind games are great. The less serious you think he is (from a video like this), the better it is.

I wonder what people would say if he was say skating on the Rideau canal…

Hint: not a whole lot other than he’s “a good Canadian boy”.

[bballsparkin]

I wonder what people would say if he was say skating on the Rideau canal…

Hint: not a whole lot other than he’s “a good Canadian boy”.

Well to be fair he was looking pretty awkward.

[bballsparkin]

While I don't necessarily agree with the conclusion, I can appreciate and agree with the idea that the difference certainly isn't very large. Regardless, I have effectively derailed the thread away from Scottie too long, which is my bad. That whole conversation should have been in the RJ thread, sorry.

Speaking back on the subject of Scottie, I'm cautiously optimistic that we will deploy him in a more sensible manner this year, and that he'll have a bit of an easier time with certain things as long as Quick and BI are clicking from 3. And maybe again, Gradey, Walter, etc. Any changes in spacing might help Scottie's below-the-arc game to one degree or another, which would be nice. We know he's quite weak at certain things, but he can get shots from 3-10 feet quite reliably, had made some headway on a couple of shots from there, and he's a pretty good transition playmaker. Those are all positive things, and with less need to lean on him for volume, maybe he'll look better in that reduced-volume role.

I'm a little disappointed tsherkin. I thought you would address JR's stats on Aaron Gordon defensively. I personally always considered him a good defender so was hoping you would. Nonetheless AG is good I think that we can all agree. And since I'm giving feedback I'll give you props. I've been following the music threads on here for awhile. Pretty sure you are the first to play White Lion. Or at least in a long time.

[Merit]

I mean if we can't even agree that Scottie Barnes is a better offensive player AG then who has never cracked 18ppg or 4ast a game

Raw volume means only so much. Barnes' highest-scoring seasons come on comparable efficiency, but higher shooting volume. And his season this past year was one of the worst seasons at volume this century. Not sure you want to stand on volume to author a pro-Scottie's offense type of argument.

I for one value facilitators, offensive initiators, offensive hubs over efficient play finishers because it is drastically more important & difficult to do one than the other. My goodness, AG is better than Scottie barnes now, absolute madness, S/o to AG too, one of my fav players

I value facilitators and offensive initiators, but their value is heavily mitigated if they are dreadful scoring threats like Scottie. Especially when the nature of what he does to create for others is highly replaceable by more contemporary playmakers.

AG is better than Scottie because he's a better fit in his current role. He's a very good complementary player. He's got tools and a mindset which help him exceed Scottie in that regard.

I believe Scottie has the potential to look better in a more complementary role, we just need to see it happen. Because it didn't over his first two seasons, when he was 5th on the team in FGA/g (both years). He has basically a hot December 2023 going for him as the primary argument as to why he has future potential, shooting at a rate no one being realistic thinks is any sort of sustainable (especially at that volume) for him given his performance outside of that month. He's a career 30% shooter who has shot 29% from 3 outside of December 2023, but people keep talking about the 23-24 season as if it was some meaningful indicator of shooting improvement for some reason.

So yeah. AG isn't any BETTER-positioned than Scottie to be a #1 option, but that's because it's a dumb idea to feature EITHER of them in that role. Right at the moment, AG is a better offensive player because he has tools, an approach and a context which allow him to play to a complementary role. Scottie, who most likely WOULD shoot better from 3 than he does now if he was shooting a lot more from the corner, still isn't a particularly impressive off-ball guy, isn't a good screener (it's a major criticism of his game at the moment) and isn't the athlete Gordon is, would clearly not be as effective in a similar role.

Meantime, volume stats are only so meaningful in this context, particularly in a season like 24-25 when Scottie was 61st out of 61 guys scoring 19+ ppg in scoring efficiency. He shot a lot, so he scored a lot, and he did a horrendous job of it, which isn't a selling point. We've seen seasons like that all across NBA history, and they aren't worthy of mention.

Any argument about the players in a broader context has to be authored around Scottie's defensive potential. He has All-D potential. AG is a good defender, but he isn't that kind of guy. Scottie has that potential, but not while he's shooting way too much for his tools. He definitely isn't the guy you want as a first or second option.

As a third option, if he can show value in the corners (he's actually about 3% worse than league average from the corners, though obviously AG was worse for his first 4 or 5 seasons as well), there's some discussion that at 10-12 FGA/g, there's utility to throwing him more than just transition possessions to leverage his playmaking... but at that stage, who do you have ahead of him?

In Toronto, he isn't a meaningfully superior playmaker to BI, and he isn't a lot better than 2025 RJ, either (though RJ wasn't a hugely superior scoring force). And then with Quick coming back, that's three different guys to whom we can distribute playmaking, rendering the need for Scottie's playmaking somewhat moot.

TLDR: Gordon is better in his role, Scottie is a better defender. Scottie is also less athletic than AG and a better passer. As I continue to state, Scottie with a 3 changes the dynamic of this team completely. Also, this is a case where 1+1 can equal 3. It appears that every single starter on the Raptors (IQ/RJ/BI/Scottie/Jak) is capable of averaging 5 assists per game. I’m looking to see more fast breaks, more connective passing and better spacing for everyone with BI and IQ both playing together. The idea is that BBIQ (and our own version BBBJIQ) plays up and makes us more difficult to guard. It’s the one skill that isn’t easily quantifiable.

[DreamTeam09]