The Realest: R.J. Barrett And The Toronto Raptors

RJ Barrett has lived a life of mosts. The son of the most powerful man in Canadian basketball, he became the country’s most celebrated youth prospect of his generation. During his one year at Duke, he teamed up with Zion Williamson to form the most exciting college basketball team in decades. And once the Knicks drafted him with the third pick in 2019, he became the most scrutinized player on the league’s most scrutinized team. 

Now, Barrett is mostly forgotten. Despite preparing for—and then embracing—the spotlight since adolescence, last year’s trade to his hometown Toronto Raptors jettisoned him to relative obscurity. In Toronto, the former can’t-miss prospect has become hard to find; life is hard and life is busy and life doesn’t necessarily have a whole lot of time for a Raptors’ team not expected to even make the play-in. Toiling away as the doomed leader of a 4-12 team isn’t the most glamorous gig, but it represents Barrett’s best and maybe final chance at achieving the stardom that once seemed his birthright. 

Although Barrett has long been buffeted about by the winds of hype, he’s never demonstrated the on-court polish or flash that his pedigree would suggest. His nickname, the Maple Mamba, is somewhat of a misnomer. While Kobe Bryant was lionized for his precision, Barrett is a blunter, simpler player, defined by strength, not grace. At his best, Barrett is more likely to barrel through defenders than frolic around them. Sadly, Maple Maggette doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.  

During his time in New York, Barrett’s position as would-be franchise savior was usurped, first by Julius Randle and then by Jalen Brunson. No longer able to conjure the effortless dominance he had as an amateur, Barrett was merely and frustratingly adequate: he was good enough to warrant touches and shots and not good enough to spin opportunity into utility. Even as he reliably averaged around 20 points per game, his usage was informed by a lack of imagination, the basketball equivalent of rewatching The Office because you can’t be bothered to scour Netflix for something better.

In the immediate aftermath of the trade, Barrett seemed liberated by the lack of pressure, his aggression no longer haunted by the opportunity cost of siphoning shots away from Brunson and Randle. During this 32 game honeymoon, Barrett played the best ball of his career, averaging 21.8 points per game on 61.5 percent True Shooting; for reference, Barrett never cracked 53.5 percent True Shooting as a Knick. To wit, he meaningfully leveled up as a playmaker, signaling a shift in process as well as results. 

If his time in Toronto last year showcased an idealized version of who Barrett could be, this year has painted a stark portrait of where he currently stands. With Scottie Barnes and Immanual Quickley sidelined, Barrett has functioned as the Raptors’ undisputed, unchecked leading man. Through 13 games, Barrett is breaking new ground as a creator, scoring 23.8 points per game and dishing out 6.5 assists. More, his 31.1 percent usage rate isn’t just the highest of his career, it’s one of the highest marks in the league, putting him above ball-dominant All-NBAers like Anthony Edwards and Nikola Jokic. 

Still, there’s a difference between playing like a star and actually being one; Barrett’s good games are countervailed by cruddy ones. Under the strain of carrying an undermanned team, his shooting percentages have regressed back towards the bottom of the league—of the league’s 21 highest usage players, Barrett is the second least efficient. 

No matter how poorly suited he is to be a star, he has the exact constellation of skills to be a high-impact role player. He’s a little heavy-footed to create advantages on his own, but he’s strong and decisive enough to pry open cracks against tilted defenses and a capable passer who can find open teammates on the move. His shot chart reflects a player more at ease with the simple than the spectacular; Barrett is a career 37 percent shooter on corner threes and just 33 percent from above the break. 

As such, a lifetime of training and high expectations has given Barrett all the tools to be a very good player, but has also blinded him as to how they should be deployed. Like a sleep schedule or formal evening wear, Barrett needs structure, an organizing force that can keep his worst impulses in check. Tellingly, Barrett’s best stretches with the Knicks—his breakout second season, his 2023 playoff run—came when the team had a strict hierarchy that reined in the scope of his ambition. 

Now in his sixth season, Barrett probably just is who he is. If he were ever going to become an explosive athlete or knockdown shooter, it would’ve happened by now. And yet, he remains one of the most intriguing players in the league because his short-term success has come uncoupled from his long-term outlook. On this Raptors team, Barrett deserves to be the centerpiece; he’s their best perimeter weapon by several orders of magnitude.

But this version of Barrett is incompatible with the team that the rebuilding Raptors hope to one day become; he will be part of Toronto’s future, but not in his current form. No serious team would let Barrett rock out as their first option because a serious team would, definitionally, have two players who are better than him. For Toronto and Barrett, great has become the enemy of good. 

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