Is Barnes leaving bench early something Raptors should look at?
All right here’s our Raptors reporter Josh lenberg from Scotia Bank Arena Josh big night for Victor wanyama countered by a quiet night for Scotty Barnes in this blowout loss uh what did you make first of all of just overall Scotty Barnes game on Monday yeah I mean outside of the end of
That OKC game a few weeks ago this is as disengaged as he’s been all season very quiet in the first half didn’t score very passive and then there were a few plays where he’d commit a bad turnover and out of frustration like not get back on defense and that’s been an ongoing
Issue throughout the early stages of his career where turnover or maybe it’s a foul he disagrees with and he’s arguing with the official and he doesn’t get back so listen you’re not going to play great every night you can’t control whether shots go in necessarily but you
Can control things like your effort and whether you’re leading the right way and setting a good example and I actually thought he did a great job of of those things against Cleveland and the loss to Cleveland a couple nights earlier where I mean regardless of what was going on
On the floor he was on the bench standing up when he was out of the game and directing the defense and cheering on his teammates it was as vocal as I’ve ever seen him so as the number one guy I think that’s the biggest thing here is
That you can’t take Knights off there’s nowhere to hide and he’s going to learn that whether he likes it or not well and he also walks off the bench before the game was over uh his coach not very happy about that post game but Josh are
We making too much of this or or is it an actual issue no I mean like listen there there’s precedent here in the sense that Pascal cakam this was very early in the Tampa season 2020 I believe he fouled out of a game and left the bench with
About 30 seconds to go went straight to the locker room and then they suspended him the following game the team did and the message at the time was this was not acceptable but behavior for a young leader it was tough love so to speak and it didn’t sit especially well with cakam
At the time but listen it certainly got his attention so now we’ll see if they take the same tough love approach with Scotty Barnes and I think they need to for a few reasons I mean first of all I I just think it would set a bad example
If he didn’t sakam already thinks that he was treated unfairly at times and I can tell you there are players that used to play for this team that believe that Barnes has been caught to some degree early in his NBA career but I also just think like these are important learning
Moments for Barnes they didn’t trade their vets and give him the keys because they thought he was ready to be the guy as a 22-year-old that wouldn’t be fair they did all that because they want to get him ready and this is part of it is learning through success and learning
Through failure and I think it’s just as important to uh point out those learning moments and to learn through failure as it is to celebrate the success so we’ll see how they handle this situation rappers back in action on Wednesday night with Pascal cakam and the Pacers in town Josh thanks for this
TSN Raptors reporter Josh Lewenberg joins SC with Jay Onrait to discuss the poor performance from Scottie Barnes in Toronto’s blowout loss to the Spurs on Monday night and if Barnes leaving the bench before the game was over is something the Raptors will punish him for.
3 Comments
Barnes is not an all star.
Remember folks: Pascal wasn't suspended for walking out with 20 something seconds left on the game clock. He was suspended because he had a very aggressive and disrespectful outburst against Nick Nurse "with words beyond standard cursing" in front of everyone at the locker room after the game (source: SN article by Michael Grange). This hit piece by TSN is disingenuous and frankly disheartening to see that our national sports media can slander our all star franchise player so shamelessly. Are there no producers or editors to put this Josh guy on a leash and stop him from lying so often to defame Scottie with the same breath he justifies selfish Fred? Get outta here man. There's clearly some dirty money involved since there's no way an honest person would be so hypocritical. Deplatform Josh.
He’s got some growing up to do. I’m a fan and hope he continues to grow but he’s very immature. His offensive package when it comes to scoring is very limited (post ups for a hook shot as a wing player, hard drives or his set shot when open) and he’s not breaking anyone down with his handles. He doesn’t really have a pull up game or go to moves that are very effective outside of 5 feet of the rim. You never know game to game quarter to quarter what Scottie you’re getting. Passive, scoring, shooting, reluctant to shoot. A lot for him to learn. I’m here for it but I really am against the immaturity.