Basketball puberty? The Raptors’ growing pains and breakouts through the road trip

Teenage life is complicated, and while we’re in the 2020s, it seems that the Toronto Raptors are going through an awkward phase right now. With a big brother (Kawhi) out of the house for college (injury treatment), they’re having to find themselves in a big and scary high school (Eastern Conference) as they’re trying to develop an identity for themselves in an unforgiving world (the National Basketball Association).

More threes, and a Kawhi Leonard and Scottie Barnes centred offence, would have both been logical progressions from last year’s Raptors’ squad. But, Leonard out and some streaky shooting has meant that the Raptors are looking like quite a different beast entirely. Tonight, the Raptors are matching up with the Grizzlies, a familiar foe from the Vancouver days, with the possibility to have three starters out, due to Leonard’s injury management and some issues exhibited from Scottie Barnes and Immanuel Quickley.

Barnes and Quickley are both focal parts of the Raptors’ offence, but didn’t play in the team’s last game, a victory against the Milwaukee Bucks. Across the four game road trip, the Raps went two and two, picking up wins against two really, really bad teams (Clippers and Bucks) and losing to a great team and a fine team (Lakers and Nuggets). Not super heartening, but again, the first major road trip, and all of those games were played with at least one starter down.

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The road trip continued to showcase Scottie Barnes’ development into a type of player that we only saw glimpses of during the last playoffs. Barnes, this season, has transformed himself into a rebounding, midrange shooting, volume scorer as opposed to the pass-first point forward that he had developed a reputation as.

As of time of writing, Scottie is second in the league for midranges attempted, and third in the league for midranges made. This is, quite frankly, bananas, considering that Barnes was never known to be a primary scorer; it seems that one summer with Kawhi Leonard has rubbed off a lot on the younger player. Barnes has never been more fun to watch, while still maintaining his responsibilities on the defensive…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/basketball-puberty-raptors-growing-pains-170400346.html

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Publish date : 2026-11-09 17:04:00

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