Scottie Barnes achieved stardom in the playoffs

From my piece during Barnes’ sophomore season:

“Siakam and VanVleet are both better playmakers than Barnes simply because the rest of their offensive games are more equipped to score and collapse defenses. Barnes is many years their junior, though.

By next season, Barnes could very well be the Raptors best playmaker. This season, and from the moment he was drafted, he’s been their best passer. Nothing is off the table for him, and as far as passing talent alone goes? He’s one of the very best in the NBA. He’s making a killing on the difficult stuff. Imagine what it’ll look like when he starts creating the easier way? He’s sitting just outside the top-50 in the NBA in assists per game, but he’s above the 90th percentile in both assist percentage and assist-to-usage among forwards this season. He’s packing a lot of playmaking into very little time relative to the league’s elite playmakers. There’s a lot of room for growth, for transitioning that passing into added playmaking.”

The maturation process of Barnes’ game as he’s slowly added skills to his repertoire has advanced enough for him to wield and weaponize his truly transcendent passing acumen against his opponents. So, when it came time, Barnes more than doubled his driving frequency from regular season to playoffs, launched himself in to the top 6 in driving volume in the NBA, and crushed defenses with it.

It’s true that Barnes shot 38-percent on prove me triples against the Cavs, and he of course is a DPOY level talent defensively (but we knew that). However, the thing that changed in the playoffs was the volume and next level decision making as an offensive hub. Creating for others, and for himself (his 63% unassisted buckets were the most for a player categorized as a forward in the playoffs).