How Scottie Barnes is using his voice to raise Raptors’ ceiling

TORONTO — The moment before the ball goes up in an NBA game features a thunderstorm’s worth of lights and sound. Things are exploding. Music is blaring. Lights are flashing. It’s not a time or place that lends itself to focus or precision. But Scottie Barnes does his best. In the spare seconds after the Toronto Raptors’ starting lineups are announced and before the teams are whistled onto the floor for the opening tip, the fifth-year star gathers his teammates around for a final word.

And in those moments, the 24-year-old who broke into the NBA as a teenaged bundle of loose-limbed, hard-to-categorize talent pulls close what five short years later has very much become his team. There are instructions given. Reminders made. Goals set. It’s not a hype-up session. It’s 30 seconds or so where Barnes tells his team what is going to be required for them to have the best chance to win the given contest they are about to enter.

“He brings us together, and it’s not just rah, rah stuff,” says Garrett Temple, the 16-year veteran who is in his third season on the Raptors with Barnes. “Scottie’s taken the onus of using that time to speak up and make sure everybody knows exactly what our game plan is. He talks about stuff, maybe, that even the coaches haven’t brought up, and everything is very specific. It’s not a general, ‘come on, guys, let’s win.’ It’s very specific for whatever we need to do to win the game we’re playing.”

And then, on most nights, Barnes goes out on the floor and turns his words into actions. It’s why he will be leading the Raptors contingent at all-star weekend in Los Angeles.

The Raptors’ return to competitive relevance has hinged on many factors. The addition of Brandon Ingram — added to the all-star roster as an injury replacement on Tuesday — has boosted the team’s talent profile and given their halfcourt offence a focus that was lacking. Rookie Collin Murray-Boyles, who will represent the team at the Rising Stars event along with Raptors 905 star Alijah Martin, has injected an unexpected dose of rebounding and defence that has been instrumental in the Raptors surviving the extended injury absence of Jakob Poeltl. Sandro Mamukelashvili has provided floor spacing the lineup desperately needed off the bench, and Jamal Shead has given the Raptors a defensive spark. Darko Rajaković, who will coach the world team Sunday, seems more settled in his third year on the job than ever.

But it’s been Barnes who has made the Raptors go, which made him an obvious choice to be selected to this weekend’s All-Star Game after a vote by the coaches.

His statistical case is certainly impressive: as of Feb. 10, Barnes was averaging 19.4 points per game on career-best 50.6 per cent shooting and was the only player in the NBA in the top 25 in total rebounds (11th), assists (22nd), steals (25th) and blocks (fifth).

But Barnes’ night-in and night-out performances so far this season only serve to animate the ‘know it when you see it’ idea that how he plays — numbers aside — directly contributes to winning.

The Raptors are 13-5 when he scores 23 points or more, 18-9 when he has seven assists or more, 15-6 when he has two blocks or more and 7-2 when he has at least two blocks and two steals in the same game, something he’s done more than any other player in the league so far this season.

He’s played in 54 out of a possible 55 games heading into all-star weekend and ranks fifth in the NBA in minutes played.

Barnes is not prone to give long and animated dissections about the nuances of his game, but he is resolutely confident in his ability: “I always have that same mindset,” said Barnes. “I go out there and try to dominate, make an impact on the floor and win basketball games. That’s where my focus is at all times. Whatever the game demands, it demands.”

And if he doesn’t profile as the typical all-star or all-NBA candidate — awards that can often accrue to ball-dominant scorers — his relatively unique style lends itself to leading the Raptors to a level of success that is greater than what the on-paper version of the roster would have predicted.

Oddsmakers in Las Vegas tabbed the over/under for Raptors wins at 39.5 in October, a number which the Raptors are on pace to surpass sometime in early March. Doubtless, those projections would have been considerably lower had the calculations factored in Poeltl missing 33 of the Raptors’ first 54 games, or RJ Barrett missing 24. Betting that the Raptors would have the NBA’s sixth-best defence heading into the all-star break or the eighth-most road wins with 16 (after having five at the same point last season) would also have provided long odds.

But the Raptors have benefited because Barnes’ leadership has come from the front.

He’s not a high-usage shot taker requiring the team to revolve around his needs. He’s the opposite: a utility knife with a light touch that puts everyone else first. Of the 27 players who have received all-star recognition — either the 24 who were voted in or the three injury replacement players — Barnes ranks 25th in usage rate, a calculation of how many of his team’s offensive possessions end in him taking a shot, free throw or committing a turnover. Barnes is affecting games like never before, but he’s doing it with a usage rate (24 per cent) that is his lowest since his rookie season.

If touching the basketball is oxygen in the NBA ecosystem, Barnes is the equivalent of an Amazonian rainforest, cleansing the atmosphere with fast-brain passes in tight spaces or lasers fired to teammates cross-court on the break. He sparks transition chances with blocks and steals and wrestles bigger beasts on the glass for second-chance opportunities that he kicks out to his waiting teammates.

In Barnes’ world, others eat first.

“There are so many situations in the game that sometimes I call the play for him to get him involved and he’s like, ‘No, no, no. Coach, BI has got it, RJ has got it, Quick, he’s got it,’” says Rajaković. “There are moments there in a game and he does not care, like ‘Oh, I need to get the ball. I need to get involved again.’ He only cares that things are working well for the team. He’s completely fine. And the way he affects us on defensive end, and how hard he plays, just makes everybody else like to buy in that much more easily.”

It’s always been his trademark. Barnes willingly came off the bench at Florida State even though he arrived in Tallahassee as a McDonald’s All-American and fifth-ranked high school player in his recruiting class. He was a star as a rookie because he seamlessly fit in as an elite role player alongside the likes of Fred VanVleet, Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby.

But what has made Barnes’ impact even more outsized this season is that in Year 5 he’s stepped comfortably into his role as the team’s acknowledged leader, a combination stemming from the inevitable progression that comes with his on-court growth, but also his settling into the demands of being a franchise player; the person who an entire organization expects can chart a path towards winning.

It’s not just that Barnes has almost single-handedly won his share of games this season: his epic third quarter against the Indiana Pacers, his two-way flurry in the final minutes against Oklahoma City, or his for-the-ages 23-point, 25-rebound, 10-assist takeover against Golden State are all easy, top-of-mind examples.

It’s also that Barnes always shows up to play. There is a catch-all measure called ‘game score’ created by John Hollinger (and inspired by baseball statistician Bill James) that crunches together a bunch of box score categories into a single number to compare overall productivity. Any game score over 40 is considered rare — there have been only 20 of them so far this season — and 10 is average. Barnes’ average game score is a robust 17.5 (his monster triple-double against the Warriors was 32.3), but perhaps more importantly, he’s only had six games this season with a game score of less than 10 (if you round up one that was 9.7). Not surprisingly, the Raptors are 0-6 in those games and also lost the only game he missed this season due to injury.

Barnes is coming to appreciate not only the outsized influence he has on his team’s performance but also on its collective belief. It’s the walk from basketball innocence to experience, the self-knowledge that how he plays, talks, and carries himself resonates in ways that can occasionally be burdensome, but are unavoidable, given his job description and pay packet.

“I think the thing for me with Scott is probably just (him) setting the on-court tone on a consistent basis, right?” says Raptors general manager Bobby Webster. “And I think you can sort of see that pretty clearly from the jump (this season). You know he’s gonna play hard, you know, he’s gonna play defence, and he’s gonna sort of set that tone.

“And I think that for this group, they follow that. When he’s locked in, and he has high energy and good activity and is running things on both ends of the court, this group follows him. And we’ve seen that more on a more consistent basis. You see that sort of night in and night out.”

His teammates are seeing it, and more importantly, are starting to believe it.

The reason Rajaković can credibly speak Barnes’ future greatness into existence — just the other day, the Raptors head coach declared Barnes as the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year, future Finals MVP and League MVP (a triumvirate of awards achieved only by Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon and Giannis Antetokounmpo) — is that Barnes’ teammates don’t think their coach’s passion is misplaced.

“Absolutely (he can),” says Ingram of Barnes. “I think any team he’s on or anywhere he’s at, he’s going to be effective at winning. He does things that contribute to winning. Blocking shots, making plays on the offensive end, hitting (the ball) ahead. With his IQ on offence and defence, the sky’s the limit for him. Especially with him so young, he’s going to continue to get better because he really, really cares about the game of basketball.”

“He’s a vocal leader,” adds Ingram. “But when you have the actions that go along with the words, people are going to listen.”

Barnes has smoothed out his delivery, too. Where before there was the tendency to get frustrated or emotional in the moment, he’s a steadier presence now.

“Another thing that he’s done (this year) is he really understands how much his energy affects the team, positive and negative,” says Temple. “So he’s understood how to be a little more even keel. It’s not his nature to continue to be positive when negative things happen and continue to be aggressive emotionally when positive things happen. But I think he’s stepped up.”

Even the team’s younger crowd can feel it.

“I mean, even just the jump from my first year to now, I feel like he’s communicating more,” says second-year wing Ja’Kobe Walter. “He’s really showing how smart he is and how much he really understands the game. And you can tell how much he wants to win.

“He understands that a lot of eyes are on him and a lot of the weight is going to be put on him, so he’s always giving his all. He’s always doing whatever he can offensively, defensively, to make sure we’re locked in, make sure we’re giving effort, putting us in the right spots … his leadership is huge for us, and it’s gonna take us a long way.”

Rajaković ascribes a good measure of Barnes’ growth to the typical curve young men take from their late teens to their mid-20s. The NBA spotlight is more of a strobe, capturing development in distinct moments, punctuated by highlights. The reality is that a player of Barnes’ calibre achieves his potential as the focus of a long-form documentary unfolding over months and years.

The coach has seen Barnes walk that path in real time since they began working together in the summer of 2023. At the time, Rajaković was a rookie NBA head coach whose chances of success were inevitably tied to a fun-loving 21-year-old who had been pegged — fairly or not — as the player who was supposed to bridge the Raptors’ championship past to an as-yet-undetermined future.

“What jumped out how then was how genuine and young he was and how immature he was at the time, you know, but in a good way,” says Rajaković. “But in those three years he became a father — that changed him a lot like it changes every man — there is a lot of maturity there. He is an unbelievable father. He is very always focused on his family and spending time with them. He has amazing, has great heart, and that was always there, like, being (a) good human being. And now he’s learning that, you know, the world isn’t just about him. It’s his family and his teammates and the organization.”

“It’s not easy when you become a franchise player at the age of 21 or 22 and you need to learn how to carry a lot of load on the court, and how to talk to media and how to support your teammates, and how to work with a new coach who is a pain in the ass,” says Rajaković.

“There is a lot going on there that he was really able to improve on. And one thing that’s very, very special with Scottie is that he (knows) he’s not perfect, and he’s gonna make mistakes. But he’s gonna acknowledge mistakes every time, and (when) we address whatever needs to be addressed on the court, he always rises to the opportunity there. So it’s amazing to see him growing in front of our eyes and becoming … the type of leader he is.”

Where Barnes can ultimately lead the Raptors is an open question. It’s clear, as he heads to all-star weekend for the second time, that with the help of a respectable group of teammates, he can be the focal point of a winning team. But the Raptors aren’t a finished product. Webster said as much when he chose not to chase short-term or high-cost fixes at the trade deadline that might compromise future moves. Rajaković likes to remind everyone that this is just the second year of a rebuild (though those scoring at home might argue it’s Year 3).

But what Barnes is in the midst of proving this season is that the perceived ceiling of a team he’s on can keep being pressed higher. It’s why his All-Star Game nod was widely seen as a sure thing, and why if he doesn’t become the first Raptor in franchise history to win the Defensive Player of the Year Award, he’ll almost certainly be the first to earn first-team all-defence recognition. An All-NBA berth is possible, too.

Barnes is confident. He believes he’s worthy of the accolades he’s getting and will continue to earn. But in his view, he’s one of several voices that deserve to be heard.

“I feel like I do a great job at setting the tone,” he told me. “But I feel like these other guys, I feel like they deserve some credit too. We got a lot of guys that come over here and step up every single day, being able to receive constructive criticism while we’re out there on the floor, just on the fly. I think … we got a lot of guys that are just able to go out there on the floor and use their voice.”

But when the ball goes up, it’s Barnes’ voice that brings them together.