Raps in 4 wrote:vulture wrote:Really great article from the Stepien.
https://www.thestepien.com/2021/08/26/scottie-barnes-skeleton-key/Although Jalen Suggs may have been a more seamless fit, or perhaps one that requires less creativity to imagine, Scottie Barnes is an extremely gifted prospect who has many developmental avenues to becoming a high level contributor on very good teams. Scottie has real creation potential with ball in hand for his size, and impressive defensive versatility. He makes good decisions as a passer, but he needs to work on his shooting and flexibility to maximize the utility of those tools and skills in half court settings.
I generally bet on higher feel prospects, especially those with lots of experience, translating well to the NBA and Barnes is no exception. He has the outlines of a real dribble/pass/shoot skill set in a forward sized body, and if he can improve in the necessary areas, Scottie will be a context-portable weapon on both ends of the floor. Due to his across-the-board contributions and experience fulfilling a variety of roles, he could unlock an increased amount of flexibility for the Raptors to fill out the rest of their roster as the rebuild (or reconfigure) continues. For a team without a clear direction right now, I think the pick is a great one if a little surprising, and I’m excited to watch Scottie’s career unfold.
That was a really good read. One is the most detailed analyses of him I've seen.
Yes it's a great article and this nugget caught my eye. Fixing this flexibility issue will allow him to become a much more fluid athlete.
Scottie already doesn’t have the flexibility (especially lower body) required to explode yet; he moves quickly but it takes him a while to get to top speed. As a ball handler, this limits his ability to turn the corner and blow by defenders. He’s shown some comfortability with varying his pace of play to throw off defenders, but he can still improve here. Making better use of his strength to out-muscle defenders would go a long way to improving the results of his attacks off the dribble.