Scottie Barnes might not put up the gaudiest stats, but he does do whatever is asked of him.
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TORONTO — Scottie Barnes entered Sunday having made just 10 of his 35 pull-up 3s this year. If he takes that shot, the opposing defense should be happy. Among semi-realistic possibilities for Toronto Raptors possessions, there aren’t many better results for the defense than a Barnes 3 off the bounce.
His Raptors came into Sunday’s home game against the Orlando Magic, a 139-87 win, without their two most-respected shooters in the starting lineup, Immanuel Quickley and Brandon Ingram. RJ Barrett, the Raptors’ next-best scorer who is left-hand dominant, was playing with a heavy wrap on his left shoulder.
When the Raptors scored just 8 points in their first 10 possessions, the offence looked predictably punchless. So Barnes stepped into his first attempt from deep. Splash. Jalen Suggs, the player picked one selection after Barnes in the 2021 NBA Draft, responded with one of his own. Barnes then took another one. Another splash. He didn’t take another all night. There was no need. It was just Friday night that Raptors coach Darko Rajaković was marveling at Barnes’ malleable utility.
“I’m just waiting for the day Scottie is going to tell me: ‘Coach, this is too much,’” Rajaković said after the Raptors beat the New Orleans Pelicans. “I’ve been asking him to … play (small forward), play (power forward), play point guard, play (center), go guard (the center), go guard point guard. He’s just gonna do everything that he needs to do to help the team and to win the game.”
Scottie Barnes shined in Toronto’s win!
23 PTS (9-14 FGM)
5 REB
15 AST (career-high)
3 STLHis 4th straight game with 10+ AST 👏 pic.twitter.com/griiHNBHKB
— NBA (@NBA) March 30, 2026
In a game in which the Raptors went on a record 31-0 run, some of it with Barnes off the floor, those shots will get lost. If he had clanked them, you wonder whether the Raptors would have had the confidence to do what they did to the Magic. Instead, he had 23 points, five rebounds and a career-high 15 assists in a rout in a game that was crucial to both teams.
Let this be Barnes’ case for a spot on one of the league’s three All-NBA teams, then: He might not put up the gaudiest stats, especially in this high-scoring, high-possession era. All he does is do whatever is asked of him.
“That’s a guy you would love to play with, just off the strength of how he contributes to his team,” Orlando forward Paolo Banchero told The Athletic about Barnes. “He’s not really ever caught up in the scoring. He’s always trying to look to find others, guards at a high level, picks up full court. He’s always been a super impactful player in my eyes in terms of the stuff he does for the team. He’s just a winning player.”
Barnes is averaging 18.6 points, 7.7 rebounds and 5.8 assists per game this season. None of those is a career high. He’s been one of the best defensive players in the league — maybe the best and most important non-center defensively — but his block and steals averages aren’t far beyond his previous numbers. (On Sunday, he did become the first player this season to top both 100 blocks and steals for the season.)
Yet, the Raptors (42-32) are headed toward at least a Play-In spot and maybe better, and Barnes is by far the biggest reason. Before the Orlando game, the Raptors were 8.4 points per 100 possessions better with Barnes on the floor on both ends. No other Raptor comes close to having that sort of impact. Though part of that is a commentary on the Raptors’ depth, it is not as if the other starters have the same impact.
Advanced statistics also present the case for Barnes: He is 25th in win shares, fourth in defensive win shares, 18th in box plus-minus, seventh in defensive box plus-minus and 13th in value over replacement player. None of the stats is perfect, but together they indicate Barnes has an impact on winning at an elite level.
By the way, though nobody would ever confuse him with a pure shooter, he has developed enough in the midrange to post the most efficient scoring season of his career.
“I was looking at one of the games (on film), and it had a graphic up that said, ‘The two Scotties.’ And it was Scottie Pippen and Scottie Barnes,” Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said. “That was pretty interesting. Just the numbers that he’s putting up and the way he’s doing it: He does it in certain moments of the game. He’s either scoring super early in the shot clock or he’s getting shots late in the shot clock. He’s not doing anything where they have to run a play for him.
“He’s just doing all the little intangible things: getting an offensive rebound, pushing the break, getting an early seal, getting the steal to get out in transition. All those small factors that impact winning — that’s all he’s trying to do.”
In a manner, the Raptors’ injuries have conspired to highlight Barnes’ all-around excellence. Ingram missed his second of the past four games with a heel injury against Orlando. Quickley has missed four in a row with plantar fasciitis. The Raptors are already one of the worst shooting teams in the league, and those absences are potential killers for them. Quickley is also the de facto point guard for the Raptors, even if the ballhandling and playmaking load is handled by committee.
Since Quickley has been out of the lineup, Barnes has 49 assists to just 11 turnovers. Against the Magic, he came around a screen like a pure point guard and found Jakob Poeltl. He made the most of the limited spacing available. He had a traditional drive-and-kick assist for a Gradey Dick 3. He also caught the ball in the air in transition and, before he landed, had found A.J. Lawson for an open 3 in the corner. Before Sunday, Barnes and the little-used Lawson had shared the floor for just 72 minutes this season.
Defensively, Poeltl, the starting center, missed much of the first half of the season with a back injury. Barnes essentially stepped into that role. Recently, rookie Collin Murray-Boyles, a human shaped like a granite cube, has missed time, making Barnes the only viable defensive option against scoring forwards. Not every night has been great, as he’s faced some of the best players in the world, but he has competed. He got the majority of the assignment on Banchero on Sunday, and the Magic star went 3-for-14 from the field.
All-NBA is a high bar. Assuming several players reach the 65-game threshold, there are really just two spots left up for grabs. Detroit Pistons big man Jalen Duren has been a force for the East’s best team. The Atlanta Hawks’ Jalen Johnson has led a late-season push and basically averages 23/10/8. Oklahoma City Thunder’s Chet Holmgren is one of the few players who might be more impactful on defence than Barnes on the team with the league’s best record and stingiest defence. The list goes on.
But if voters aren’t at least considering Barnes, they are too beholden to numbers that tell you only so much.
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Eric Koreen is a senior writer covering the Raptors and the NBA. Previously, he has written for the National Post, Canadian Press, Sportsnet and Complex.