Barrett's injury presents big challenge for Raptors

The pre-season is supposed to be all about optimism. Every team is undefeated (in real games, at least) and every player is coming into to the year after a great summer of development where they added muscle and developed skill.

The Toronto Raptors are testing that maxim.

Even after a pre-season win over the Washington Wizards that checked every box – starters played well, key rotation players looked sharp, youngsters showed promise – the looming challenge got a little bit bigger on Tuesday when the team announced that RJ Barrett would miss all of the four remaining exhibition games with an injury to his right shoulder.

The timing from there gets murky. The team said he would be re-evaluated at the end of the pre-season – the Raptors' final exhibition game is against the Brooklyn Nets on Oct. 18.

That means, at minimum, Barrett will have been unable to participate in contact drills for nearly two weeks. Even if he’s cleared on the Oct. 18, there’s no guarantee he’d be ramped up in time for the Raptors' season opener on Oct. 23 when they host Cleveland.

The schedule crackles after that too, as Toronto plays three times in four nights to start the season, and four times in the first six.

It’s a tough blow for Barrett, who played the best basketball of his career in his 32 games as a Raptor last season, carried that production over in the summer with the Canadian Olympic team and was the best player on the floor for either team against Washington, as he put up 17 points on 10 shots and dished a pair of assists in just 14 minutes.

But Barrett isn’t the only important player who will have missed significant time when the regular season rolls around. Point guard Immanuel Quickley (left thumb sprain) has yet to participate in full contact drills, though Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic said he does expect him to be available for some portion of the exhibition schedule. The Raptors play next on Friday in Washington and then on Sunday in Boston.

As well, Bruce Brown (knee) isn’t expected to return until late November and rookie first-round pick Ja’Kobe Walter (shoulder) has yet to practise and won’t be re-evaluated until the end of the exhibition season, which likely rules him out for the first couple of weeks of the regular season as well.

Franchise cornerstone Scottie Barnes missed all but one day of training camp for a personal matter and was held out of the Raptors' win Sunday night, but is expected to be available for the next game.

It’s never wise to get too excited about the how things go in training camp and the exhibition season – the Raptors were a perfect 4-0 in pre-season play last year, with three blowout victories on their way to a 25-57 season – but having two starters and three members of your projected rotation along with your top rookie prospect never play a minute together before the season starts is less than ideal.

“I mean, it's always good when guys are playing, because you still got to build that connection, that cohesiveness, especially for a unit like ours who hasn't played a lot together,” said Raptors veteran centre Kelly Olynyk. “Those are important moments and times. Hopefully, obviously, RJ isn’t too bad, and hopefully we get Quick back here pretty soon. But yeah, I mean, these are just days and games to keep building on.”

As is his nature, Rajakovic views the glass as being half full. Having key players out means more opportunities for more of the team’s large collection of young and unproven talent trying to work their way into the rotation or higher up on the depth chart.

“I always look from the side of potential,” Rajakovic said. “I think it's very important for those young guys to get opportunities. Practice is extremely important for us as a young team, and it really makes the difference. And then once those guys [in] any opportunity they have, they can get on the court and play in the regular-season games, it's just opportunity for great growth. So I'm just trying to look at it from a positive side and from learning side and that's my approach."

A perfect example was the impressive showing by rookie point guard Jamal Shead, who had 10 points, four assists, three steals and drew a pair of offensive fouls in a very productive 17 minutes Sunday. It’s possible that had Quickley been healthy, Shead’s minutes would have been limited and likely come later in the game with and against other young players. With Quickley out, Shead was running the second unit and looked impressive doing it. Similarly, Davion Mitchell – new to the Raptors after an off-season trade – got valuable minutes starting and showed that he’s a capable point guard in any capacity.

But the regular season comes quickly, and the Raptors' schedule is far from easy as they start the year playing four teams that were in the playoffs last year and 12 of their first 20 games on the road.

Details will matter.

“I'm really looking at game by game,” said Rajakovic. “I'm really focusing on the process, and for us, it's very important that all the players are available and healthy. But when [injury] situations like that happen, you gotta look on what are the silver linings, and what are some things that players can do meanwhile to address that otherwise they will not be able to address? Is that strength wise, is that conditioning? Is that watching more film? Is that adding another skill, you know?

“So I always try to look at it from the positive side. Obviously, in [a] perfect world, we would like all the guys always to be healthy and always available, but that's just not reality. We got to deal with it.”