Raptors’ Barnes playing through discomfort important for big picture

TORONTO — Scottie Barnes is the last player you could accuse of playing for stats.

He gathers more than his share, filling the box score with points, rebounds, assists, blocks and steals like few players in the NBA, but he’s always come across as a player genuinely interested in whether or not it all adds up to a win or not.

But Barnes can’t feel good about the story his numbers are telling as the Raptors season winds down. After going two-of-eight from the floor and zero-of-two from three in the Raptors 112-103 loss to the visiting Portland Trail Blazers, he is now shooting 14.3 per cent from three over his last six games and 33.3 per cent from the floor.

Barnes should be commended. It would be easy for the Toronto Raptors‘ fourth-year star to take the night off, or even the rest of the season — there are only five games left, after all.

The Raptors listed Barnes as questionable on the injury report with a right-hand MCP joint contusion (it’s the point where his outside two fingers meet the knuckle on his right hand), but he played anyway.

Even as teammates have routinely been resting, Barnes played for the 36th time through the Raptors’ last 38 starts. And yes, his hand has been an issue.

“It (bothers me) a lot when I’m shooting, it hurts at times, and then in games it gets hit, it hurts more than it usually hurts, but, you know, it’s a pretty daily thing,” said Barnes after the game in the hallway outside the Raptors locker room. “It’s not a risk of hurting it more, nothing crazy, but when it gets hit, it takes a minute or two to calm it down.

“(But) the legs work perfectly fine, so I’m ready to go on out there.”

Barnes has played 63 of the Toronto’s 77 games, missing 11 games in November with a fractured orbital bone and two more with an ankle injury in December that looked like it was going to keep him out much longer. He missed the final 22 games of the previous season after fracturing his left hand.

There are arguments against playing, especially now that the Raptors have been officially eliminated from contention for the play-in tournament. Frankly, the team is better off losing games to improve its draft lottery odds. With the loss on Thursday, Toronto is 28-49 and effectively locked into the seventh spot with a four-game cushion over San Antonio in the eighth spot

And while playing 65 games would make Barnes eligible for a number of post-season awards — and an additional $45 million on his contract extension if he were to be voted on to an all-NBA team — the likelihood of Barnes getting that kind of honour is slim to none at this stage.

According to the 23-year-old, he’s playing because he wants to:

“Why would I not go out there?” he said. “Nothing’s stopping me. You know, I want to play every single game. I love playing basketball. I missed some games last year, I missed some games this year. You know, it’s just a blessing to be on that court. You know, every time I step on the floor, just trying to help the team win.”

From the Raptors’ point of view, getting Barnes the mileage he’s going to need if he’s ever going to lead Toronto on a post-season run is another good reason to keep him in the lineup.

“He’s in the mindset where he’s really trying to play through as many games and to be available and to find the rhythm and really to build that capacity, if you want to put it that way, that can help us for the future,” said Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic. “Obviously, the summer is the key for building that capacity, but it’s good to go through as many games as possible in an 82-game season and prepare for what’s coming in April, May and hopefully June.”

And while from the outside the value of playing games with an ever-changing lineup against questionable competition may be slim, that’s not how Barnes sees it.

“Every game is useful. Keep learning and keep getting better. Keep playing with different teammates, different rotations,” he said. “Right now, this is going to help for the future. You just got to keep learning how to play with each other, how to grow, talk, communicate. When there’s struggles, it’s great for that, when there’s some struggles going on, when there’s bad things happening, how are we going to communicate? How are we going to stay together as a team? How are we going to try to figure this, this thing out?”

Barnes needs to figure out his shooting for next season, there’s no question of that. He said he can’t recall exactly when he injured his hand, only that it’s been bothering him for a “chunk of the season.” It first appeared on the injury report a month ago and Rajakovic said it’s been hampering Barnes for two months.

“Obviously, he’s been struggling with that hand for some time now, all that he needs is he needs rest for that hand in order to heal it and to be okay,” the Raptors bench boss explained. “If you’re trying to shoot the ball with three fingers, it definitely changes your shot, the mechanics and all of that. That’s a big part of it. And when you’re dealing with that, you can’t really go out there and get 1,000 shots a day. Everything starts there, but definitely we need to heal that hand and use the off-season (to improve).”

It would be nice if there was a direct line between Barnes’ injury and his shooting struggles — the primary blip on what has otherwise been a year of positive growth, especially defensively. His three-point shooting has been sub-par all year as he’s been under 29 per cent every month this season and is at 26.3 for the year after shooting a career-best 34.1 last year.

But Barnes’ willingness to play through discomfort in the big picture is likely more important than how he’s shooting the ball down the stretch in an otherwise meaningless point of the season. It’s hard to be the cornerstone of a franchise — which the Raptors very much want Barnes to be — if you’re not available or only willing to play when it’s comfortable.

And Barnes is passing that test.

Grange for three

One for the record books: There was a little bit of Canadian basketball history made at Scotiabank Arena on Thursday night as Shaedon Sharpe, the third-year Blazers wing from London, Ont. finished the night with the record for the most points ever scored by a Canadian against the Raptors.

Sharpe set the mark when he knocked down his free throws with 3:39 left in the fourth quarter for his 35th and 36th points. Those moved him past Montreal’s Bennedict Mathurin who had 34 points against the Raptors on Feb. 28, 2024, for the Pacers in Indiana. The most points scored by a Canadian against the Raptors at Scotiabank Arena was previously 32, which Hamilton’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander set on Dec. 29, 2019. Sharpe also tied his career high.

Perhaps inspired by the birthday cake-flavoured Timbits and the iced cappuccino that greeted him in his stall in the visitor’s locker room, Sharpe had 20 points at halftime and 29 at the end of the third quarter before finishing the job in the fourth. He finished 14-of-23 from the field and four-of-10 from three. 

The record-setting night was news to him until his walk-off interview post-game.

“That’s crazy, to make history in the city I grew up in,” he said.

Sharpe has been coming on strong of late, averaging 23.7 points, 6.7 rebounds and 1.3 steals over his previous six games. He’s very much a work in progress, given his final high school season was interrupted by the pandemic and — while he enrolled at Kentucky — didn’t end up playing there and opted to put his name in the draft, ending up as the sixth overall pick.

“I came straight from high school, so I had a lot to learn,” said Sharpe. “Looking back at the film from my first year and even last year, I feel like I’ve learned a lot and I’ve grown as a player. It’s crazy how fast it’s gone.”

But progress is being made. “He’s learned a ton and like you see him right now, and he’s playing as good as he’s played all year,” said Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups. “He’s putting it together night in and night out, really great performances, all-around performances … I say it all the time. I think he’s gonna be a real star in this league.”

And perhaps for the Canadian national team, too: 

“I think playing for Canada is a dream for up-and-coming basketball players,” said Sharpe. “I’d like to be part of that.”

Agbaji a keeper: The third-year wing the Raptors acquired at the trade deadline last season has turned into a nice find for Toronto. Agbaji finished with 15 points off the bench and shot three-of-five from three, bringing him to a career-best 39.4 per cent from distance on nearly four attempts a game. “I think he proved to everybody this year that he can be a very good, valuable two-way player,” said Rajakovic. “You just see him playing with a lot of force. He’s improving defensively. He’s improving his rebounding. His three-point shooting is real. So there are a lot of reasons for us to be optimistic about his future.”

Portland’s rookie is huge: The only player in the 2024 draft even remotely as big as Toronto’s Zach Edey — the 7-foot-4, 300-pound centre who went ninth overall to Memphis — was Donovan Clingan who matched up with Edey in the NCAA Finals last year and stands 7-foot-2 and is listed at 280 but seems bigger. He was taken seventh by Portland and has had a nice rookie season, especially on the defensive end. He was a big reason the Raptors shot 61.6 per cent at the rim, or about five per cent below league average on Thursday. Clingan had three blocked shots and several challenges. He also made Raptors starting centre Orlando Robinson — who stands 6-foot-10 — seem small. I asked Robinson if he’s played against anyone bigger. Turns out he has with 7-foot-6 Tacko Fall, who played briefly with Boston and Cleveland.

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