How Impressive were RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley? | Raptors Today

How Impressive were RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley? | Raptors Today

Happy New Year Raptors fans a keil Austine coming to you from the belly of the Beast that is scoa arena in the brand new year that is 2024 and so much newness the Raptors made a trade we made a trade we sent out Sherm we got Eric

Smith we got him on a good deal but we first and foremost welcome first time Eric Smith the show thank you for joining us I appreciate you having me I love the place this is beautiful all right you’re welcome to Raptor’s Paradise uh someone you all know and love yeah

That’s what I’m calling calling this Raptor Paradise just soaking in okay it’s got a little tropical flavor over there uh the host of Raptors tonight but he’s on Raptors today Randy Urban how you doing big dog I’m good thank you for having me happy New Year guys Happ Year

All right so before Randy derails the show let’s talk about the most that like a usual thing yeah yeah you’ll come on and talk about reality TV or something completely off the wall producer Jake can’t stand it so I’m got to control him right now but let’s talk about the trade

Um Raptors said shock waves through the NBA Randy hasn’t heard yet so we’re going get his uh I know I watched his show last night you could tell but here it is the youth movement has begun much props to OG adobi in his Seven Seasons with Toronto Raptors and

Precious tuua plus Malachi Flynn they are on their way out on their way in you got the kid from Canada RJ Barrett Emanuel quickley and we don’t know who will be selected but we think it’ll be a really early probably 3132 pick coming from the Detroit Pistons who are as bad

As they are they did take out the Raptors I’ll refrain from talking about that but Eric Smith initial reactions to the trade you know I you you you just hit on it a little bit akille when you mentioned OG and and certainly you know shout out to OG and the years that he

Put in and the service that he did with his team I think he was as good a guy off the floor as he was player on the floor having said all that I like the trade in the sense that I think it brings more balance to the Raptors overall by you’re essentially trading

Two for one like we weren’t sure if both guys were going going to start we assume they were and then of course we then saw it in that first game against the Cavs two starters for one that’s a good deal that’s that’s a good deal right off the

Bat and again as I talk about the balance the way it’s going to spread and space the floor a little bit more I just think it fits Toronto a little bit better and that’s not to say that OG wasn’t a good fit heck he’s top five Defender maybe top three defender in the

League in a league where defense is kind of being pushed to the back seat so you want a little more offense and you want to get a little bit more more Dynamic and and I’m going to go into host mode for a second I would ask the two of you

Okay well his first show he’s taking control I like it when was the last time the Raptors had a guard that had at least the potential to be as dynamic as quickly we don’t know if he’s going to turn out to be but when you think about

His speed his quickness his shot making the distance that he can shoot it from as well I don’t know if we’ve seen a guard like this like I asked somebody yesterday well I’ll tell I’ll say it was Alvin Williams he said he goes I don’t know Damon yeah yeah the ability to

Stretch and to finish around the not that they haven’t had good point guards but that kind answer cuz this is not you know the skill set of a Fred Van or a Kyle lry it’s a little bit more no he he’s a different type of player and everybody’s

Floating around the the name Tyrese Maxi as a comparison and I think his brother from Kentucky they trained together came up together yeah and I think that’s a really good comparison they have similar body types obviously the same similar quickness the ability to shoot the ball like I’m watching this guy this kid

Quickly shoot in warm-ups and it’s like bang bang bang and it looks good the release is nice and in the game you see that he’s shooting it set he’s not rushing it he’s just he’s like I’m open I’m going to shoot it I’m going

To make it and I look you know I watch him during the season and most of the time you’re just looking at box scores and it’s efficient that’s the thing that I’m excited about it’s efficient from he’s almost 40% from three he gets his points in a short amount of time so

Whether he’s coming off the bench or starting I think he should start which was the right call uh you know he’s going to be able to get points in in a hurry and the game felt different yesterday and I was trying to figure out why and it was because you have two

Different types of shot creators where whereas OG could create his own shot you know but not in the way that these two new guys can do it like quickly can with the off the bounce yeah off the bounce pick and roll and and you create the kind of space that Quickly’s able to

Create you know just with that speed the help has to come sooner it has to come further therefore that guy’s going to be open there’s just so many different things that open up when you have a guy that can get to the the basket at the

Level that he can and then RJ Barrett is just like so people say hunt shots or whatever like he’s going to go in there and try and score yeah and how many times want yeah how many times have we’ve been watching this team and and

The the the the lull on offense sets in and nobody scored for like four or five minutes and you just want somebody to put their head down and go get it yeah he’s learned from Julius Randall yeah he’s gonna be able to go get it and and

I just saw I just I like the trade on all levels and I think you got a glimpse of it in the game yesterday I like you didn’t get the full what I think could be here yeah okay so quickly when you talk quickly when you talk about quickly

Before we dig into RJ Barrett further uh do you see future starting point guard potent All-Star potential in this young man Randy I’ll start with you or should we temp for our expectations knowing that we’re salivating for someone at that point guard SP no no no this is the

Guy this is this to me this is the the guy that makes the trade in a lot of ways obviously RJ Barrett is a great player we know look you say youth movement these guys are both 23 the guy going out of out out of the Raptors were

Pretty young too so it’s but it’s just a different type of youth movement yeah I think quickly is a is a combo guard that will pair perfectly with Scotty right both of them can handle the ball both of them can break down defenses both of

Them can work the pck and roll both of them can score so you have two guys like that so it doesn’t really matter who’s the you know the deao one or who’s the deao 2 both of them can do it and and I think that opens up a lot so a lot of

Opportunities so is he a point guard is he a shooting guard he’s both and that’s great I’ll I I’ll Echo everything you just said in the sense that I think that as much as we all are excited and fan base is excited about the Canadian coming home and everything else does not meant

As any disrespect at all I think the trade was made as much for quickly if not more than it was for RJ I think the Raptors don’t make this deal if quickly isn’t in this because they want this guy they have visions of I think locking him

Up long term and they see you know Randy alre threw the name out of a Tyrese Maxi can he be that I think he can he certainly got the potential to be and in today NBA and you guys know this doesn’t matter really who the it doesn’t matter

Who the one is there are no position no position positions and this offense as long as the Raptors continue to play this way I think coach Darko wants that as well I want my four to be able to rack up seven eight assists if need be because I want that ball whipping around

So who cares who’s if it’s quickly bringing up the ball this time and it’s Scotty on the next possession or I’m interchanging pulling now I think the other thing too we haven’t mentioned is the way that assuming quickly continues to start which I think he should as well

As Randy mentioned the second unit is much better now way better with schruder with Trent with bu whether Porter still seen some in or not of course gry dick is he ever going to be back in the in the you know in the rotation it’ll come but for now to have

Those three guys especially in in in shuder and Trent and bue coming off the bench interchange with a couple or mixed in with a couple of the starters still I think that as I said off the top more balance to this team and it just seems

To kind of fit and make more sense now all right and another starter that can be paired with the bench unit because you only really had one of them or two at a time so listen I’m happy with the trade but right now let’s check in with

The new guys RJ and quickley someone of a worldwind day how did you uh how do you feel you came through it all man pass past two days been past two three days been crazy um but no today was a lot of fun man getting a you know

Getting a win um and just the way we started the game lots of energy uh carried us out you know throughout the game they made a push they made a run and and we able to to to stay strong and get the dub so that was that was very

Important what was going through your mind when you got introduced in the ovasion people standing and cheering how how did that make you feel and what did that do man meant a lot you know meant a lot uh I said I’m the home I’m the hometown kid and just coming in and and

Like I said trying to trying to get win for the fans I’m trying to win for the country so it felt great GL to uh get that one over with and all theemotion of the last 48 hours yeah it’s crazy man crazy uh glad I got the win so that’s

The most important part um the guys on the team coaching staff made it unbelievably easy for me uh to come out here and play today so uh had a lot of fun how was it to get out there and play at very fast pace with a bunch of guys

You never played with before is it hard harder to do it when you’re playing quick and trying to read guys on the Fly uh yeah it’s almost like playing pickup a little bit uh but like I say all the time playing with great players is is it

Just makes your job a lot easier so uh credit to the guys on this team uh they made it really easy for Me

Akil Augustine, Randy Urban, and Eric Smith are in studio to break down the debuts of the two newest Raptors – RJ Barrett, and Immanuel Quickley.

0:00 Introduction
0:45 The Trade
2:30 Quickley
4:20 RJ Barrett
7:38 Barrett Post Game
8:30 Quickley Post Game
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