Toronto Raptors Media Availability | January 6, 2024

Toronto Raptors Media Availability | January 6, 2024

Person how big a fan are you of Steph Curry uh as a basketball person I I love him uh as as a coach I hate playing against him uh he’s just like amazing in every single aspect uh uh actually couple of years ago I had first CH the

Chance to watch Steph Curry play in the World Cup under 18 in Serbia yes and they ended up being second Serbia won in the finals that yeah I’m just just saying uh but uh uh even at that time like he was outstanding I I was in

Contact with his coach with Bob mck kilb from from college and uh a couple years ago he sent me an email saying like oh like look at this what you said about Steph Curry I completely forgot about it but I was raving about him and talent

And shooting and whatnot I did not see this type of career coming obviously but uh but he was always talented always capable to shoot the ball always capable to to change the game game uh with with all everything he does and I really don’t know where the motor is coming

From like I see all the skill but like to every single night teams are trying to best the best defenders and best coverages and to make it really hard and he always finds the way to be efficient and then and uh you know to contribute I

Was to say sorry D did you not find there’s almost like it seems like every second team has not Steph Curry but some version of Steph Curry like in terms of a point guard who can stretch a defense can punish you because of their range and their ability to put itre Michael

That’s that’s what’s going on literally like Steph Curry the style of the play and them being pretty much unguardable for a long time affected other teams to go and look for the next guy who is that next guy that can do that and uh it’s not necessarily uh the size it’s not

Necessarily uh physical attributes it’s really shooting ability and skill ability and that’s where where the league has changed the last seven eight 10 years in their ability to multiple players to be amazing Shooters of the dribble of the move uh great scale finishing at The Rim that’s that’s where

The league is going now you see young kids trying to be like sta like back 15 years ago no one wanted to No One thought to shoot from 35 ft now teenagers are all firing up from out there a good I’ll I’ll correct you on that one because when I played 20

Something years ago I try I tried to be St I tried to shoot a deep range shots and whatnot I did not make mine and I was on the bench quite a bit because of that um uh yes definitely like um and it’s interesting that that in this league uh

Who’s going to really Inspire kids and and young players is is guards you know because they’re going to identify like you have much more kids they’re going to be 6 feet tall and 6’2 then you have seven Footers out there so so they’re going to look at at Steph CES of the

World as their examples and Role Models this is a team that can still obviously have the three be a threat um what revealed itself to you as you guys were looking at film today um it’s just like a Relentless pursuit of those guys and and uh of ball movements and uh the way

They using screens they’re not running complicated plays but they run with lot of efficiency with lot of force with lot of uh counters to the play so all you can do in a games like this against players like that is uh try to break their pans and to make it really hard on

Them and uh that’s what we’re hoping to do tomorrow and when they make something tough shots we got to leave with that inbound the ball and go quickly on the other side talk about last night the game has the way the game’s officiated has changed sort of help the guys like

Curry and Thompson out right you can be you can’t be physical with guards anymore does that sort of feed into what they do so well uh that’s part of the reason for sure uh it’s hard to be physical especially in pi rolls any kind of like you know putting hands there

They gotting fou foul calls all both screens still you can have a little bit of Leverage there being a little bit more physical but like pick and rolls and and handoffs are becoming almost unguardable when they coming with that kind of force and skill and pace and

You’re not allowed to do much uh physically uh so we’ll see how he’s going to react today after the the practice we’re hopeful that that he’s going to be available to play tomorrow but we still don’t know Scotty I would just want to ask you a little bit about

Um you know you’ve had three games now with this new kind of lineup and I know it was you know like obviously you miss some of your older teammates or your former teammates but are you kind of enjoying this new for sure uh you know we play hard each and every single game

Play with a lot of energy you know you guys bring a lot of joy to our team um you know we all commerate good really good with each other uh so you know it’s been good and quick in particular what what about his game do you think fits

Well with you um you know he shoots the ball really well um being able to get downhill um draw fouls finish out the cup uh so you know he does a lot of good things on the floor uh you know he’s not you know he can guard as well the and

Like you look around the league there’s so many of these younger point guards who can like it’s almost like just Steph Curry’s uh Offspring kind of thing they all kind of can shoot it they they have a lot of of those kind of attributes it’s probably nice to have one on on

Your on your team as well for sure you know like I said you see he shoots the ball really well you see runs away and know comes back shoots it you know that helps our team you know uh helps us get on a run helps us get a flow uh helps us

Keep that space that we always talking about playing with joy and playing with fun and you just brought up the same word Joy how important is that to a team uh that’s very important uh you know it’s a long season uh sometimes you lose games some guys can get their hair down

Uh but whenn lose uh just being able to bring that joint until the next day that’s something special dark seems to be able to bring that out in players with his personality sort of very supportive always happy is it important to a player to have the coach in that

Kind of mood uh for sure you know he always stays positive no matter what uh and you know I feel like that helps our team the um there’s this time of year there’s a lot of trade rumors you went through a little bit last year you know you’ve

Seen your first teammates get traded how how has it affected you how how have you kind of learned to deal with that element of the business uh I’m really here to trade rumors but uh uh you know I don’t know really know do you just

Kind of tune it out or do you sort of I see it yeah how how do you manage on to see it I just don’t pop up with myself stff yeah say that again sorry just say I’m pop on my feet yeah good feed then

Doing a good job what does pop up when your feed then I don’t know the uh I want to ask you a question though I did see I think on open gym you and quick had a pretty elaborate handshake thing already figured out now we’re trying to figure it out right now

Uh we don’t got nothing yet but we’re trying to figure it out um we said was going to work on after practice actually so when you work on it like like how much like what will you do you kind of know got it’s just got to happen in the

Moment and how many different handshakes do you know for this team nine I only got one with Chris that’s it okay all right but I mean it takes time to master that stuff yes uh you just got to figure out what you know what you

Want to do what you guys both like and that’s how you put it together and just wrap it up yeah

Head Coach Darko Rajakovic and Scottie Barnes speak with the media following Saturday’s practice. #Raptors #torontoraptors

00:00 – Darko Rajakovic
04:22 – Scottie Barnes