RJ Barrett Takes Jab at Knicks' Ego

"We need that commitment to team excellence," Barrett continued. "Passing the ball is a huge thing. I’ve been on teams where the ball doesn’t move, and then nothing happens after that. Nobody cares. Everybody's just every man for himself. So it's great to be on a team where we move the ball and we play defense, and we care about each other, honestly. We're all friends, we all hang out, everything's cool ... The way the Raptors do things is the right way, and I think that's why we'll have some success."

Considering the fact that Barrett's NBA career has been exclusively staged in Manhattan and Ontario, it's easy to see how that can be viewed as a jab against the Knicks, who drafted the Duke alum with the third pick in the 2019 draft.

In Barrett's four full seasons as a Knick (2019-23), the team was dead-last in assists per game at 22.1 though it had the 12th-best defensive rating (111.7), that latter number improving once Tom Thibodeau arrived in the head coach's spot in prior to the shortened 2020-21 campaign. The distribution has slightly improved since Barrett's departure, as the Knicks have averaged 25.9 assists per game in these last two years, moving up eight spots to 22nd.

If Barrett truly believes that Toronto's way of doing things is better, he and the current core (featuring fellow former Knick Immanuel Quickley as well as Scottie Barnes and newcomer Brandon Ingram) better start showing results to endure its longevity: Toronto won 30 games last season, its second under head coach Darko Rajakovic and missed the playoffs for the fourth time in the last five years.