RJ Barrett is the opposite of what you thought

For years, RJ Barrett was a poster child of the Empty Stats All Stars. Rightly or wrongly, this narrative came from his days as a member of the New York Knicks. He came into the league a ball-stopping, inefficient, isolating wing player who took almost a third of his shots from the mid-range. He put up points: 14 per game in his rookie year, 17 in his sophomore, then becoming a 20-point-per-game scorer in his third year onward. But those points always came on more shots than would be advised. And the seasons passed, and the promise that shadows third-overall picks slowly dwindled and faded. The eyes of the league drifted to shinier objects. The conversation around Barrett ossified and calcified until it became stale and hard like dinosaur bones.

Except Barrett’s game didn’t. 

Barrett’s game in Toronto has slowly risen from the earth, shaken off the dirt, and started changing before our very eyes. He is a living zombie — the good kind (is there a good kind?!) — a man who has outrun the conversation surrounding him, outrun the chains of expectations, outrun the assumptions tethered to his every footstep on the court. 

This simply has not been acknowledged outside of Toronto. I was listening to the Ringer’s Group Chat the other day, which I honestly love, and I like all those guys a lot, so it’s unfair to pick on them. But I’m only picking on them because I hold them in such high regard. And Rob Mahoney said he finds RJ Barrett confusing and difficult to analyze, linking him to players like Cam Thomas, late-stage Russell Westbrook, and Deandre Ayton among others. He didn’t use the phrase “empty stats.” But the insinuation was (at least to me) clear. Mahoney is only one of many who still considers Barrett more or less the same player that he was as a Knick. While Barrett has shifted, the eyes of the league haven’t shifted back to him.

Barrett has driven winning for the Raptors this season. The team is 7-9 with Barrett out of the lineup and 13-6 with him playing. Or: The Memphis Grizzlies with him injured and the New York Knicks with him playing (by winning percentage). That speaks volumes! 

“He just does a great job of being in the right spots on the court, making it easy for his teammates,” said Darko Rajakovic. “He’s not seeking any attention, but he creates a lot of attention. He’s just an all-around great offensive player, and he’s helping everybody.”

There’s a lot that Barrett does that catalyzes that success. He drives, and he drives deep into the paint in a way that most other Raptors don’t or can’t. He turns the corner, and he duck churns his feet to the baseline or will die (read: get fouled) trying. He’s a willing passer or a willing shooter or a willing driver, but he’s going to do something when he catches the ball. Whatever choice he makes, he’ll do it without turning over the ball, and if he shoots he’s been plenty efficient. He’s a very good cutter and one of the most efficient scorers in the league when cutting. He can handle in transition, or if he doesn’t lead the break he’ll just bury his guy under the rim, catch the ball, and muscle it through the rim. (In fact, he’s seventh in the entire league in transition points per game.)

And those are all good things that more or less weren’t part of his game in New York. The commonalities between all those components is that none of them involve initiating in the half court or commandeering an entire possession.

The thing is — and this doesn’t really exonerate anyone — it’s hard to see the changes in Barrett’s game if you look at the basic numbers. If you just look at Barrett’s box score, very little has changed. Sure, he’s been more efficient from the field. But his points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks look more or less the same as they did when he was a Knick. 

You need to get much deeper to see the changes. 

The team is scoring 1.09 points per possessions when Barrett runs a pick and roll, which is in the 81st percentile leaguewide, and at big volume, too. It’s not just that. He’s setting a career high in efficiency with cuts, handoffs, as a scorer in the half court in general. 

Perhaps one number shows the change best of all: with Barrett playing versus him on the bench, the Raptors score 10.7 points better per 100 half-court possessions (excluding offensive rebounds). The Knicks were consistently worse at first-shot half-court scoring with Barrett playing. The Raptors are far better both at reaching the rim and far more accurate when they get there with Barrett on the court.

And the deeper you go, the more the numbers change from his Knicks’ days. Per Second Spectrum, Barrett is isolating far less than he did as a Knick. In fact, this season’s 2.7 isolations per 100 possessions is a career low. He is dribbling and holding the ball far less than he has at any point in his career. His 2.4 seconds and 1.7 dribbles per touch are a full second and a full dribble down from his career highs set in 2020-21. 

These numbers describe the exact opposite type of player from a no-calorie scorer. He is a malleable wing, a scorer who churns an offence from action to action without missing a beat of the intricate dance. He bends his own usage (which, by the way, is way down this season to a low since he was a sophomore.) to facilitate the performance of his team, rather than hijacking the offence to serve his own numbers.

And in fact, his individual numbers actually sell him short.

He boosts the performances of his teammates, particularly Immanuel Quickley. Quickley is an elite-shooting guard, but he’s not an above-average initiator for a starting point guard. So pairing Quickley with a malleable guard who can cut off ball, initiate from the second side, and turn the corner when he touches it makes life easier for Quickley. And when Quickley plays without Barrett, only 35.3 percent of his 2-pointers are assisted. That jumps to 51.3 percent with Barrett. He’s similarly shooting far better on all his 2-pointers (and triples, for good measure), when Barrett is on the floor. It’s not just Quickley. Every rotation player outside Gradey Dick and Collin Murray-Boyles has either an equivalent true-shooting percentage (just Scottie Barnes) or a far superior one (everyone else) with Barrett on the floor. 

This isn’t what empty scorers do. Their individual scoring and efficiency can lift the team’s overall shooting efficiency by small margins, but there won’t be much of a change in their teammates’ numbers. Instead, Barrett himself is efficient. But his teammates are far more so. That matters. 

“He’s aware that if he gets off the ball, that ball is going to come back to him,” said Rajakovic. “That’s just the way we want to play. That’s the way of trust that you’re building inside this team… And he’s, as I said, he’s elite. Just like being in the right spot on the court, getting the window so his teammates can find him. He’s a great cutter, really good driver to the rim, and he definitely improved his 3-point shooting as well.

I’m just going to repeat a stat I’ve already used because it bears repeating: The team is 7-9 with Barrett out of the lineup and 13-6 with him playing. Or (again): The Memphis Grizzlies with him injured and the New York Knicks with him playing (by winning percentage).

And yet, Barrett is still generally discussed in league-wide circles as a low-calories scorer. In fact, he’s scoring less per game than he did in his final two full seasons as a Knick. The scoring is down. Everything else is up. He is doing so much more (often, by doing less dribbling, less isolating) for a winning team than he’s done before. People see him as rigid, but he has been flexible. People see him as static, but he has been dynamic. People see him as boosting his own numbers, but instead he has been boosting those of his team.

It’s time for the league’s media apparati to acknowledge that.