What do the Raptors need to level up?

From Samson’s piece:

“The thing that makes all of this so funky and opaque: Shead does not shoot well. He is a master of the in-between, ostensibly taking some possessions away from Barnes as a ball handler and cramping his spacing as a shooter. Even still, Shead wins minutes. He wins them in the regular season, he wins them in the playoffs, he wins them. In comparison, Walter loses minutes. In Shead & Walter the Raptors have the polar ends of their on/off swings, and the swings go away from what the theory would suggest.

I don’t say this to suggest that Walter is unimportant to the Raptors, or that he is the sole reason for the on/off swing (Shead isn’t the other way as well). I liked, rather I loved, what Walter did defensively against the Cavaliers, and I think he has a great building block to work from developmentally on both sides of the floor. I say this to remind everyone that team building and how players fit together is pretty tricky. Too often, way too often, the armchair GM suggestion is that spacing would solve everything, and it really doesn’t. You need spacing, of course, but it’s just another thing you need, among many others, to win games.

Evidenced by who has successfully played next to Barnes throughout his career, our conceptions of what works shouldn’t be so rigid. The Raptors and Bobby Webster need to pivot perfectly to maximize these next few years.

The Raptors have a few big salaries on their team. They’ve been searching on the scrap heap of past stars or the table of good-not-great-maybe-they’ll-make-the-leap-let’s-get-him-while-we-can. As of yet, nothing has panned out the way they’ve wanted. If they can manage it, the Raptors should stop trying to tease together two disparate things into tenability. They need to give Barnes a real deal co-star. A player who threatens for All-NBA selections. It’s a hard ask to nab somebody of that caliber, and even harder to make sure that you don’t end up walking out a Mikal Bridges type trade for a Bridges type player.

The heat is on for the Raptors front office. Stack those winning decisions.”