Gradey Dick's offensive versatility at forefront of early breakout for Raptors

The change feels like it’s happened as quickly as a no-dip catch-and-shoot three from the wing, moving swiftly to avoid a closeout. It’s been as unlikely as a soft finger roll on a baseline reverse. And it’s been as emphatic as a put-back dunk, subverting the expectation of a finished possession.

A lot has changed for Gradey Dick through the first seven games of his sophomore season.

Less than a year ago, Dick was on his way to Mississauga, Ont., to play for Raptors 905. While that’s been a useful developmental tool for a lot of successful Raptors, Dick looked lost down there at first, answering questions about whether his mechanics had changed and struggling to find his place in a G League offence. It ultimately required an in-season break from play for a reconditioning stint, eventually building to a solid, if unspectacular, end to his rookie year.

Now, Dick has made the 905 stint look like it’s years behind him. He is bigger, stronger, faster, and more decisive. Always projected to be, at worst, a shooting specialist, Dick has layered on level after level to his offensive game, before defences have even had a chance to adjust to the prior layer. He is leading all second-year players in scoring, and doing so on a difficult diet of shots that blends a suboptimal (for now) team context, all four levels of the offensive zone, and heavy defensive attention.

It’s enough that a much-too-early straw poll would have him near the top of the Most Improved Player voting. More importantly, even seven games have been enough to show proof of concept on what the Raptors saw in a young, sweet-shooting teenager out of Kansas 17 months ago: This isn’t just a spot-up shooter, this is a dynamic talent who shifts the boundaries of what a Toronto Raptors offence can look like.

There are a few notable elements about Dick’s start to the year.

One, somewhat paradoxically, might be that he’s “only” shooting 37.3 per cent on three-point attempts, a good-not-elite mark. As the NBA’s spacing revolution has continued, though, it’s become necessary to look beyond a raw three-point percentage.

To wit, Dick has only taken eight of his 50 three-point attempts from the corners. League-wide three-point percentage is usually a few percentage points higher from the corners, despite that being more the territory of role players. Corner three-point attempts are closer to the rim and almost always assisted; those shooters are crucial to creating space for a team’s initiators and to punishing opponents for helping away from them, but in the NBA’s spacing revolution, corner three-point shooting is table stakes, not something that will dramatically shift defences that have a solid idea of how to handle the court’s east-to-west geometry.

Why has league three-point percentage barely changed over the years despite more and more volume? Some of that is due to a presumed cap on human capability to shoot, but it’s also because of examples like Dick — truly great shooters are being asked to lift out of the corners with greater frequency, use their shooting gravity to pull defenders across more space, and stretch defences north-south out beyond the free-throw line extended and, ideally, beyond the break at the top of the three-point arc entirely.

A year ago, Dick was a very good corner shooter, hitting 46.8 per cent of those attempts. If that’s all Dick ever became, he’d be a very useful offensive space-creator, someone teams would hesitate to help off of and someone head coach Darko Rajakovic could funnel action toward to make sure his ball-handlers faced less help (or had an elite spot-up option one pass away). Dick struggled on the move and above the break, hitting 30.6 per cent on his non-corner attempts.

This year, Dick’s not bound by the court’s dictated geometry. Over 80 per cent of his three-point attempts have been those longer above-the-break attempts, and while some of those are smooth catch-and-shoot attempts on the wing, he’s also shooting off of movement a ton. You could argue (and I would) that hitting 38.1 per cent on those three-point attempts is more valuable than being a 40-plus per cent shooter stationary in the corners, given what it does to defences.

Those defences have responded dramatically, chasing Dick over screens or overplaying him before he can catch and opening up cutting opportunities. Sometimes, that gravity results in an easy paint look for Dick himself. Sometimes it frees a ball-handler to attack one-on-one with help pulled away. Other times, it can free Jakob Poeltl for a roll without a tagger, as Rajakovic has used Dick heavily in actions with Poeltl and a ball-handler, in “short” actions or screen-the-screener actions where all three players — playmaker, Poeltl, and Dick — have option reads depending on how a defence plays the initial actions.

Outside of those initial sets, Dick doesn’t stop. Based on NBA’s tracking data, Dick ranks 31st in average distance travelled on offence each game, and Corey Kispert is the only player in the league covering more distance in fewer minutes. Based on additional data provided to Sportsnet, Dick has made off-ball cuts with greater frequency than any other player in the NBA so far, even though he’s rarely finished possessions off of those cuts. Dick cuts hard, and with intent, carrying the threat of his shot with him around the court and freeing teammates for sneaky cuts when Dick draws a defender’s attention away.

The Raptors being a good offensive team so far doesn’t make a ton of sense, on paper. They shoot fewer threes than anyone other than Denver, and they shoot that efficient corner three the least of any team in the league, and they’re a shade below average hitting those shots. They turn the ball over a lot. And their three best players — Scottie Barnes, RJ Barrett, and Immanuel Quickley — have played nine games in total, and none together.

Dick is a huge reason why, ranking in the 88th percentile in terms of on-off impact on the offensive end and the 97th percentile in impact on his team’s effective field-goal percentage (field-goal percentage that adjusts for the value of threes). That’s not just Dick’s shotmaking, it’s what he opens up for others with the attention he commands. Even with his ability to create space for himself off of screens, his shots are generally well-contested, and his shot-making against contests is near the top of the league.

Those factors would all still be there if Dick were a really good three-point shooter off of movement, and that was the end of it. What’s made his start so compelling, though, is that he’s able to turn the defence’s desire to run him off the three-point line into offence inside the arc.

On Saturday, he scored a clutch bucket against Sacramento driving past a cheating defender and into traffic for a floater, a range where he’s shooting 60 per cent on moderate volume. He’s stepped into long twos with frequency and effectiveness, too, and while that area of the floor is mostly the domain of stars in 2024, Dick has the freedom to come off of a pindown or cross-screen with a single dribble into a smooth mid-range release. He hasn’t finished at the rim incredibly well overall, but the soft touch on a handful of flashy finish types stands out and suggests even better paint finishing ahead.

There are more layers ahead for Dick, too. He’s tallied 13 assists in seven games and has the potential for far more, as he makes good reads on the catch or when attacking, reading the defence's next reaction and what will open up in a moment. He needs to get better at executing those passes cleanly, and the Raptors need him to be aggressive as a scorer right now, but he has that in him. Dick’s also been challenged by Rajakovic to guard across four different positions, with earlier pick-up points and less “hiding” him (something the team doesn’t have enough defenders to do right now, anyway). That’s been hit or miss, with Saturday’s Kings game standing out as a high-water mark for his defence.

Most importantly, everything Dick is doing becomes even more valuable when Barnes, Barrett and Quickley can see the court together. Dick’s usage will almost certainly go down in terms of shooting volume when everyone’s healthy, but the amount of sets he’s involved in and the amount of off-ball work he’s doing should continue. That makes life easier for the three play-initiators, drawing attention and providing them space and giving them a high-yield kick-out option. Dick’s percentages could improve, too, with defences less able to overload onto him with better players around him.

Seven games is not a massive sample. Defences will be given the chance to respond to what Dick’s showing, tweaking schemes or personnel to take away the areas where he’s succeeding. He’ll be challenged to grow as a passer, as a finisher, and as a defender. The MIP award is not locked up yet. Necessary caveats noted, it’s hard to overstate how dramatically different — better, stronger, smarter, more comfortable, and supremely confident — Dick looks right now compared to this time last year.