Scottie Barnes is the only player in the NBA averaging at least 20.1 points, 8.9 rebounds, six assists, 1.5 blocks and 1.5 steals while making at least two three-pointers a game.
Maybe rather than just complaining about Grange every time an article from him gets posted, we can admit that he’s just writing for an entirely different audience than the average reddit raptors’ fan on here who’s already read and digested every quote, who remembers all the nuance about the Orlando games from last year, and who has dug into every facet of Scottie’s stats. There’s such a thing as casual Raptors fans, and that’s not a dig, it just means that there’s an audience for Grange’s style of coverage.
In terms of the actual substance here, I think there’s a point at which you need to start to narrow a developing player’s focus, but it’s less about how many skills and more about how complementary the skills are. I was always a skeptic about Barnes as PG, preferring him as a high-post point-forward offensive hub; but even so, I was fine with the Raptors experimenting with him as PG because all of the skills he needed to work on to become a PG were also skills that would serve him in that offensive hub role. And he’s done much better at some of those PG duties at times than I would have expected.
I honestly don’t even think about the Orlando game this year in relation to last year’s games. Yeah, last year’s was crushing because Orlando was still a really bad team, and losing to them twice sucked and was a real eye-opener that there were serious problems. But this year they’re a quality opponent, and I’m genuinely interested to see how the teams match up now.
Maybe rather than just complaining about Grange every time an article from him gets posted, we can admit that he’s just writing for an entirely different audience than the average reddit raptors’ fan on here who’s already read and digested every quote, who remembers all the nuance about the Orlando games from last year, and who has dug into every facet of Scottie’s stats. There’s such a thing as casual Raptors fans, and that’s not a dig, it just means that there’s an audience for Grange’s style of coverage.
In terms of the actual substance here, I think there’s a point at which you need to start to narrow a developing player’s focus, but it’s less about how many skills and more about how complementary the skills are. I was always a skeptic about Barnes as PG, preferring him as a high-post point-forward offensive hub; but even so, I was fine with the Raptors experimenting with him as PG because all of the skills he needed to work on to become a PG were also skills that would serve him in that offensive hub role. And he’s done much better at some of those PG duties at times than I would have expected.
I honestly don’t even think about the Orlando game this year in relation to last year’s games. Yeah, last year’s was crushing because Orlando was still a really bad team, and losing to them twice sucked and was a real eye-opener that there were serious problems. But this year they’re a quality opponent, and I’m genuinely interested to see how the teams match up now.