Fit Matters: Barrett looking right at home with Raptors

The last time they played on the same court in the Toronto area, they were kids and teammates and roommates at Duke University.

Zion Williamson and RJ Barrett were the two most hyped freshmen in college basketball in the summer of 2018 and kicked off their one-and-done careers with a three-game Canadian tour, taking on Toronto Metropolitan University and the University of Toronto at Paramount Fine Foods Centre in Mississauga before heading to Montreal for a game against McGill University.

Unsurprisingly, the Blue Devils went undefeated.

That Barrett and Williamson were back on an NBA floor together Tuesday wasn’t all that surprising either, given Williamson went first overall in the 2019 draft and Barrett went third.

But their trajectories have been a bit unpredictable. Williamson has lived up to the hype when he’s played for the New Orleans Pelicans, but also has shown why concerns about his durability — could someone who was that big, fast and explosive stay healthy? — have followed him since his one year at Duke when he cut so hard, he blew out his sneaker, injured his knee and briefly looked like he was done for the season (he returned after sitting out five).

But as a pro, Williamson missed 144 of a possible 308 games through his first four seasons, which is why Tuesday night was his first game in Toronto against the Raptors.

With Toronto having acquired Barrett from the New York Knicks in a trade on Dec. 30, it set up a Canadian on-court reunion.

“He was my roommate, we basically had every class together, we were just always together, “ said Barrett. “Car rides, listening to music … we were always together.”

They were together Tuesday night too as Barrett drew the unenviable task of guarding the six-foot-seven, 290-pound Williamson, who has morphed into the biggest, strongest and most explosive point guard in NBA history.

It didn’t go very well.

Then again nothing went well for the Raptors, who are without Scottie Barnes (recovering from hand surgery) and Jakob Poeltl (recovering from finger surgery) and feature just two rotation players – Gary Trent Jr. and rookie Gradey Dick – who were with the team in training camp.

It showed. New Orleans – the fifth seed in the deep Western Conference – blew the Raptors out for the second time in a month, swamping Toronto 139-98 to follow up the 38-point beatdown they gave the Raptors in Louisiana on Feb. 5.  They are the Raptors' two worst losses of the season, and the latest was Toronto's worst home loss in franchise history.

Williamson was able to get into the paint with ease and if he didn’t score, the Raptors collapsing defence left Pelican shooters wide open around the arc. He finished with 16 points, eight rebounds and nine assists in 26 minutes. The beneficiary often as not was Trey Murphy III, who came off the bench to make 10 threes on 14 attempts to lead all scorers with 34. The Pelicans were 22-of-41 from deep before the benches were emptied.

New Orleans used a 22-5 run midway through the first quarter to open up a gap on the Raptors before taking a 68-45 lead into halftime. The Raptors were never a threat after that and fell to 23-39 before leaving on a four-game road trip starting in Phoenix on Thursday.

It was not Barrett’s finest outing as a Raptor – he finished with 15 points, six rebounds and just one assist – but nights like that have been few and far between for the Mississauga native, who has been both very good and very consistent offensively since joining the Raptors.

Even as his team struggled, Barrett remained true to the identity he’s shown consistently since coming over from the Knicks: he was relatively efficient, going 7-of-14 from the floor. 

It’s a page out of his old friend Williamson’s book. The Pelicans star has shot 59.6 per cent from the floor for his career so far. When he starts barrelling to the rim, no one is stopping him.

But that hasn’t been Barrett’s trademark until recently.

Heading into this season, his true shooting percentage — which accounts for the value of two and three-point field goals as well as free throws and is a useful proxy for individual offensive efficiency — was 51.7 per cent. 

Among 29 players with at least 4,000 field goal attempts from Barrett’s rookie year in  2019-20 through to his fourth season in 2022-23, Barrett ranked last, a fraction behind Russell Westbrook.  For reference, the average true shooting percentage last season was 58.1, and Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic had the best true shooting percentage over the past four seasons at 65.4. The most efficient perimeter player was another likely hall-of-famer, Damian Lillard, who came in at 62.1.

For Barrett, things weren’t much different during his first 26 games with the Knicks this season. 

Barrett started all of them and averaged 18.2 points a game, but he was still below average in terms of efficiency as his true shooting percentage was 53.6. That was better than his career mark but still below the average mark this season, which is 58.1 again. 

But as a Raptor, Barrett is playing the most productive basketball of his career. 

Prior to Tuesday, Barrett was averaging 20.8 points (making him the Raptors' leading scorer post-trade), shooting 60.9 per cent on two-point attempts and 41.5 per cent on three-point attempts, both of which would be career highs over an entire season. 

Meanwhile, Barrett’s true shooting mark as a Raptor is 62 per cent, the same as Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry.

It would be even higher if not for Barrett’s strange slump at the free-throw line, his one area of regression since the trade. As a Knick, he was shooting 83.1 per cent from the line, which would have been a career best. He was at 59 per cent as a Raptor before going 1-for-5 on Tuesday.

But even while leaving some easy points on the table, Barrett is excelling in all other areas. For him, there is no secret as to why.

The Knicks play a style where Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle tend to dominate the ball and Barrett often found himself stationary on the perimeter or in the corner waiting for kickouts, a role which hardly played to his strengths and in some ways emphasized his traditional weaknesses. As well, the Knicks ranked last in the NBA in pace during Barrett's time there, meaning less cutting and off-ball motion, which are additional tools that the Canadian has in his toolbox. Finally, the Raptors get out in transition more than every team in the NBA but one (the Oklahoma City Thunder), which gives Barrett more chances on the break than he ever got with the Knicks. 

Fit matters, it turns out. 

“The team, the system that we have, we're very unselfish. We're moving, cutting, getting out in transition,” said Barrett. “Everybody's running. It just fits my game very well. And I'm thankful I have the opportunity to kind of show that here.”

Barrett has both been a beneficiary and a source of Toronto's unselfishness. Since joining the Raptors — who are third in the NBA in assists per game — Barrett has seen his assist total jump from 2.4 per game as a Knick to 3.9 per game with Toronto. It’s a trend that continues to uptick. Since the all-star break, Barrett was averaging 5.4 assists per game before Tuesday.

The reads he’s making from his paint touches and the willingness he’s shown to make the extra pass on the perimeter are much appreciated. 

“He's amazing. Just the player that he is you never know what he's gonna do with the ball because he can score it, he can shoot it, he can make passes,” said Dick. “You always got to have your head on a swivel, especially you know for players like me running around the arc and trying to find an open lane because you know, he's driving, bringing in (extra) attention where he's either gonna score the ball or make an open pass. So it's great playing with him.” 

It’s what coach Darko Rajakovic wanted Barrett to show he could do from the moment the Raptors acquired him. 

“He’s not forcing things. He’s getting to the rim quite a bit, but at the same time his playmaking is constantly getting better and improving,” said Rajakovic. “There’s that fine balance when he needs to be aggressive, to look to score and then to understand when the defence is putting two or three players on him and being able to make good decisions and find his teammates."

Not only has Barrett been happy to come home, but he’s also found a home in the Raptors' style of play. 

“It's way easier to play like that when you know that when it's your turn, that you're going to get that pass as well,” he said. “So just our team as a whole, we play very well together when we move the ball. 

“It's very fun to do.”

It would have been more fun if he’d been able to help the Raptors to a win over his old friend Williamson, but big picture, Barrett’s jump in efficiency and play-making chops have been one of the most encouraging developments in an otherwise difficult Raptors season.