Raptors Ask for Patience as Scottie Barnes Takes Center Stage vs. Bulls

The Toronto Raptors are asking for patience as Scottie Barnes develops into the kind of player he showed he can be in Thursday's loss to the Chicago Bulls

Please be patient.

That’s the message from Masai Ujiri and the Toronto Raptors. After years of toiling in the middle, trying to assess this roster, Toronto finally made a decision. This team hasn’t been good enough.

With time running out on Pascal Siakam’s contract, it was time to pivot. He and Scottie Barnes hadn’t been good enough together and the Raptors decided to move on from the former franchise cornerstone, shipping him to the Indiana Pacers for three first-round picks and what was essentially matching salary.

But now it’s time to turn the page.

Toronto is moving in a new direction. Call it a rebuild, a retool, a reconfiguration, or whatever you want, it’s clear the Raptors are ready to make this Scottie Barnes’ team. The championship era has come and gone and now Toronto is looking to regroup around a younger, new core.

“A normal rebuild with other teams takes 5-6 years. Do we have the patience for that?” Ujiri asked. “Do we have the patience for 3-5 years building of our team? Someway, somehow we are going to have to have patience.”

The road ahead is going to be turbulent. Ujiri acknowledged that too.

There are going to be nights when the future looks as bright as ever. Take Wednesday’s blowout victory over the Miami Heat, for example. Or Barnes’ fourth-quarter performance against the Chicago Bulls that was only marred by a costly turnover in Toronto's 116-110 loss Thursday.

In typical Barnes fashion, he took over in the clutch. He swatted away a pair of Alex Caruso layup attempts and forced a crucial turnover from DeMar DeRozan that allowed Toronto to pull ahead early in the fourth. He nailed a pull-up floater over Nikola Vucevic and went right by Vucevic moments later to give Toronto a one-point lead.

"It sees the beauty of being (the) number one guy," Darko Rajaković said post-game. "That’s the beauty of learning how to play, how to handle those situations."

Ironically, though, it was Toronto's former lead man that proved just a little too much. DeRozan got Immanuel Quickley to bite on his pump fake and gave the Bulls just enough room and Coby White nailed a floater to ice the game.

In moments, Barnes looks every bit as good as anyone else this franchise has had. He nailed a pull-up three-pointer in isolation over Andre Drummond and beat Vucevic whose overaggressive closeout led to a ferocious Barnes dunk in the first half.

After falling behind by 14, Barnes willed Toronto back into the game in the third. He beat Vucevic off the dribble again for a floater in the paint then drove again at Drummond, finishing through contact for the and-1. Of his 31 points, 18 came in the second half, as he finished the night with 7 rebounds and six assists.

“Scottie is a dog. He's a top-tier superstar in this league," said Bruce Brown Jr. who Toronto acquired from the Pacers in the Siakam deal. "Last year he didn't shoot the ball well. This year, you got to respect it. And he gets anywhere he wants. He can guard one through five. I think he's a superstar in this league, for sure.”

Without Siakam here to take some of that offensive load, things are going to get tougher for Barnes. He’s now the definitive focus of opposing defensive gameplans and he’s going to struggle at times. When defenses get tougher, his offense is going to be more inconsistent.

“I don’t know if he is ready for that responsibility, but we have to put him in position,” Ujiri said of Barnes. “That’s our jobs. We have to put him in position to at least grow and start to see dividends of the work he is putting in, yeah, to become that kind of player.”

But there are going to be times too when the future looks bleak, and hope dwindles.

An 0-for-9 start from the three-point line against the Bulls showed that too. As did the 11-4 run Chicago went on in the final minutes of the fourth quarter with Toronto’s defense sputtering. 

Will it work? Will Barnes be the player Toronto hopes he can become? Will he be as good as Siakam was, let alone Kawhi Leonard, or this franchise’s other all-time greats?

“Time is going to tell,” Raptors coach Darko Rajaković said pre-game. “I think it's the right decision. I think he's the face of the franchise. But at the same time, he's 22. The learning curve is not going to be just uphill. It's going to be ups and downs.”

“The goal is to help Scottie improve and get better every single day, every single night as a leader, as a franchise player, and to build the roster around him that's going to help him to grow together,” Rajaković continues. “I think it's the best thing that can happen to Scottie. I don't expect any miracles overnight. I have a very, very, strong belief in him.”

Up Next: New York Knicks

The Raptors will hit the road to see another friendly face on Saturday when they head to New York to take on OG Anunoby and the Knicks at 7:30 p.m. ET.