zeebneeb wrote:Man, if I'm the Raptors, im getting concerned about Barnes. Outside shot still looks busted. Doesn't seem to have any real moves to get to where he wants, and all around looks wholly unimpressive. I mean he's picking up stats, 8/9/2/2 in 16 minutes, but does not look like a max type of player.
Looks like more of a utility type of player, than a 1a, or 2b type. I know its preseason, but its noticeable.
To be fair, he posted a +22, my stream was so **** that I couldn't see stuff happening, so it was hard to track how his defense looked. I think it's getting clear that he does not have a very high offensive ceiling, but has to go for the Draymond Green archetype of player, which is still very much so useful. The only problem there is that the advanced stats think he is a positive defender, but not anything special from last season. So idk, I need to watch him play without the worst stream of all time. Maybe I'll watch the replay, looking at his shot diet the fact that he took more threes than rim shots last season shows he is a stupid/delusional offensive player. He was actually elite finishing at the rim in 23-24, yet he still took more threes and kept doing it worse in 24-25. Clearly a coaching and stupid player combination here. Someone said he is struggling with a jumpers knee as well...
The fact that they got Ingram makes this situation better, since he no longer has to be the 1st option which he just doesn't seem to have the capacity to be in any way whatsoever. He probably shouldn't be the 2nd option either though, Barrett is their best bet there but he has a pretty awkward offensive game with his subpar athleticism and inconsistent shooting.
I think Quickley is pretty overrated as well, he was just put in to be a playmaker that he really had no experience or skillset showing he could do that before. He also has pretty terrible mechanics for getting to the rim, jumping etc, very poor vertical athlete and poor at getting to the rim = lower % shots, thus he is very reliant on his three pointer going to produce effective offense. I did a lot of analysis on him in the Quickley threads when he signed because the stats looked good, but I was not sold because of how his game looked. In 23-24 he got 102 shots at the rim, and mind you this is probably a lot from fastbreaks, because he is fast, and compare it to 433 attempts from three and you see how he is too reliant on his outside shot going. He does not either have an elite long mid range, or short mid range game to fall back on either, making him a very unreliable scorer. Compare his shot diet to someone like Shai, who is at 545 threes attempted compared to 426 shots at the rim, and the balance of effective shots is much better because Shai is just so much more refined, not necessarily just because he is bigger and longer, but because he has much better skill and movement mechanics to set himself up.
So yeah, idk. Raptors better hope Ingram doesn't get injured again if they want to make the playoffs, because their offensive players except him are just unreliable and inconsistent.