TORONTO – There’s a cautionary tale that Serge Ibaka used to tell his former Toronto Raptors teammates.
Ibaka was 22 and in his third NBA season when he made it all the way to the NBA Finals with the Oklahoma City Thunder. That team was loaded with young talent and led by Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and James Harden – all of them under the age of 24. They would ultimately lose to LeBron James and the Miami Heat, but no matter, the Congolese big man figured that group was only just getting started. Surely, they would make it back, he thought, but they never did.
He was older and wiser when he finally returned to basketball’s biggest stage, seven years later with Toronto, and by that point he had learned a valuable lesson: appreciate every moment and take nothing for granted because you never know when – or even if – you’ll get to experience it again.
Scottie Barnes can attest.
Barnes got his first taste of playoff basketball as a 20-year-old rookie – a rarity in and of itself, as most top-five picks are drafted to losing teams. Similarly, the future looked bright for a Raptors team that included Barnes, Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet, and OG Anunoby. Instead, it was the beginning of the end for that core in Toronto. They came up short in the play-in tournament the following season and was dismantled the next, with the organization opting to rebuild around Barnes.
He hasn’t made it back to playoffs since, until now.
“I’m forever grateful,” Barnes said ahead of his team’s first-round series against the Cavaliers, which kicks off in Cleveland on Saturday afternoon. “It’s hard to win basketball games in the NBA, so you can’t take none of that for granted. Every win, we work super hard for. Just gotta appreciate it. We’re blessed to be in this position. So, I’m just super happy we’re here. Now, we’ve gotta go out there and win.”
At least a few things needed to go right for a team to improve its win total by 16 games and earn the fifth seed in its conference. Brandon Ingram stayed healthy and reestablished himself as an All-Star. Collin Murray-Boyles flashed elite defensive potential as a rookie. Ja’Kobe Walter and Jamal Shead made meaningful strides as sophomores, and Sandro Mamukelashvili turned out to be a great find in free agency. But none of this would be possible without Barnes going from very good player to great player, and maybe All-NBA player (depending on how the votes shake out).
The 24-year-old is coming off of a brilliant fifth campaign. He was one of only two players in the league to average at least 18 points, seven rebounds, five assists, one steal and one block (the other was the Houston Rockets’ Alperen Sengun). He did it while shooting 51 per cent from the field and playing 80 games, both career bests.
When it comes to his impact, particularly on the defensive end, those numbers barely scratch the surface. He finished third in the league in defensive win shares behind Victor Wembanyama of the San Antonio Spurs and the Thunder’s Chet Holmgren and ranked 10th in value over replacement player (VORP). The Raptors were 300 points better with him on the floor than they were with him off of it. It would be shocking, inexplicable even, if he wasn’t among the 10 players selected to an NBA All-Defensive Team.
“I feel like I’ve been great defensively but, for sure, I think I’ve taken it to another level [this season],” Barnes said. “We’re winning, and, like I said at the beginning of the season, once we’re winning, I feel like my name is going to be in the [mix for those awards], and it is. I feel like I’m great defensively, I help our team a lot, and I’m one of the best defenders in the NBA. I take pride in that.”
Barnes has levelled up, no doubt, but now he’ll need to do it again. Playoff basketball isn’t for the faint of heart. It has a way of making or breaking the game’s most talented players. Some stars shine even brighter. Others can’t overcome the physicality, scrutiny, and pressure of the moment.
How will Barnes fare? It’s hard to glean much from his initial experience, when he was the team’s fourth option, at best, and limited by an ankle injury he suffered in the first game of that series against the Philadelphia 76ers.
“I think the way Scottie’s competing, the way Scottie is contributing to the team at so many levels, it’s built for a playoff series,” head coach Darko Rajakovic said. “It’s a stage he’s going to be shining [on]. He just needs to be himself and do what he does, and I think that’s more than enough.”
Barnes wears many hats for this team. It’s one of the things that’s made his season so impressive, and there’s going to be a lot on his plate in this series.
In the three regular season meetings with Cleveland, Barnes was the primary defender on Evan Mobley – his former roommate with the USA Basketball junior team and a player he’ll forever be linked to after being selected back-to-back in the 2021 NBA Draft. However, all three of those games came before the Cavs acquired Harden and paired the future Hall of Famer with Donovan Mitchell in one of the league’s most lethal backcourts. The expectation is that Barnes will draw one of those guards, probably Harden, but will likely see time on both. With their elite ability to score the ball and draw fouls, he’ll have his hands full defensively.
The job doesn’t get any easier on offence. The status of Immanuel Quickley remains up in the air, with hamstring and foot injuries keeping him out of practice this week. If he’s unable to play on Saturday, one option would be to start Shead in his place. The other option, which Rajakovic seemed to prefer when Quickley missed time late in the season, is to start Walter for floor spacing and use Barnes as the de facto point guard. Even if Quickley is out there, he’ll undoubtedly be limited and likely cede some of the playmaking duties to Barnes, regardless.
Barnes is a gifted passer, who plays at the pace the Raptors want to play at and can initiate the offence. But what the past month or so has shown is that the added responsibilities can come at the expense of the other things they need him to do, namely scoring. In the eight games that Quickley missed with plantar fasciitis, Barnes averaged 10.6 assists, but his point production (14.3 points) dropped and he struggled with his efficiency. Like another Raptors great, Kyle Lowry, he’s able to put his stamp on a game without scoring 20 points or even shooting the ball well; it’s what makes him a special player. But it’s still a work in progress.
“That’s not an easy balance to find,” Rajakovic said. “He’s capable of doing multiple things. It’s just finding the right measure of that in every game. Each game is going to be different. There are going to be moments that he will need to be more aggressive and look to score more. There are going to be moments when the defence will be focusing on him and he needs to [make plays]. I think it’s going to be game to game. It’s going to be quarter to quarter. It’s going to depend on the matchups and who we have on the court with him. Scottie is doing everything that is affecting winning. He does a good job of finding that balance in games.”
This is an opportunity to elevate his game even further and prove that he is, in fact, one of the sport’s marquee stars. It’s his chance to showcase himself and turn heads around the league, to turn his breakout season into a playoff coming-out party. It’s hard to imagine the Raptors having a real shot in this series without Barnes taking another leap forward.
Is he ready for it?
“We’ll have to wait and see,” he said.
