Immanuel Quickley's 3s, Gradey Dick's defence and more: What to watch from Raptors

New York Times

25-02-2025

TORONTO — It turns out removing Jakob Poeltl from the Toronto Raptors' lineup is not the perfect recipe for losing.
This weekend, the Raptors played two teams that, although aggressively average, have been much better than them this season. As Poeltl, the Raptors centre, worked his way back from a hip pointer, Toronto had to play the Miami Heat and Phoenix Suns. Going into the weekend, the Raptors had gone 5-37 without Poeltl over the last two years.
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Now it is 6-38, with an overtime loss to Miami and a decisive win over Phoenix.
'I think you can see mini-steps everywhere,' Chris Boucher said of the team's growth. 'But I think, altogether, it's really nice to see.'
For those obsessing about lottery position, we're not doing this again (unless they beat the Celtics on Tuesday, of course). The Raptors (18-39) have the easiest remaining schedule, and with the Philadelphia 76ers (20-36) incentivized to lose to keep their top-six-protected pick, at least one team seems eminently catchable.
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However, when the Raptors came back from the All-Star break, coach Darko Rajaković was very clear, saying he wasn't going to measure the rest of the season by wins and losses but on incremental growth. That would necessitate giving many minutes to lesser-used players.
Scottie Barnes mentioned chasing a Play-In spot as a goal of his, and that isn't impossible. The Raptors are just four games behind the 10th-place Chicago Bulls, and none of the Bulls, Nets and 76ers are going to go all out to lock down that spot. Neither will the Raptors, but some team has to finish 10th. That's math.
On the way to wherever this season ends up, there will be a lot to sort through. Given some of the bizarre lineups we might see, much of it will be meaningless. With that in mind, I thought it would be helpful to create a guide for what matters and what doesn't the rest of the way — standings, reverse or right side up, not included.
Barnes is having a career-worst season from deep, but we shouldn't pretend it's an anomaly. Barnes shot 34.1 percent from 3 last year and is at 27 percent this year. Through four seasons, that has been his band. At his best, he has been a slightly below-average shooter from 3. At worst, he's been a poor one.
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Barnes is young enough for this to change, but it probably isn't going to radically flip in the short term. A 20-game stretch of good shooting to end the season shouldn't stop Barnes and the Raptors from rethinking his shot diet in the offseason. He has hit 17 of his 69 pull-up 3s this year, a career peak if you discount his rookie year, when he attempted just 32 of those shots in 74 games. In a functional offence, Barnes will need to excise those attempts. For now, it's all noise.
Whenever Brandon Ingram begins playing regularly for the Raptors, it should serve to further limit the primary creation duties for Immanuel Quickley. Accordingly, Quickley's play will be even more dependent on his shot-making. That is his best NBA skill.
On Friday against Miami, Quickley attempted 11 3s, the first time he reached double digits in his 17 games this year. (He was on a minutes restriction upon returning from his groin injury earlier this month, making it difficult for him to get to that volume.)
'It's his teammates (finding him), but also it's (him) trusting when he gets off the ball, the ball is going to come back,' Rajaković said. 'It's great to see him take that number of shots.'
Quickley's 3-point accuracy and volume will be huge as the Raptors try to inch toward half-court competence. He's shooting 40.2 percent from deep for the year. Quickley had 9 points and six assists, a plus-19 along with Barnes, in a sensational fourth quarter against the Suns.
Nick Nurse was right, early in Barnes' career, when he pushed him to get to the rim as often as possible. That is where his size and passing make him the most dangerous. While he has improved in the short midrange, he is still most threatening in the paint.
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He is shooting below league average in the deep paint this year. He's fallen from 73.3 percent last year at the rim to 70.2 percent this year. The Raptors' spacing is poor, and that keeps him from getting cleaner looks. The Raptors need to work to get him early post-ups in transition, but he is the player who pushes the pace in transition the most. It's hard for him to get an early opportunity if the rest of his team isn't helping him set the tone.
Similarly, the Raptors should have him work as a screener more often. That is tough to do when Poeltl is on the floor, but Barnes' best role, right now, is as a screener. He will need to do more of that when Ingram is healthy. Get him catching the ball on the move as close to the paint as possible.
The Raptors are 25th in defensive rating, allowing 115.6 points per 100 possessions. Considering how good they were defensively during their stretch of seven wins in eight games, that might be jarring to read.
A huge part of defence is continuity. Several veterans, including the irreplaceable (on this roster) Poeltl, will likely rest often during the last third of the season. Davion Mitchell going to Miami will also hurt the Raptors at the point of attack. The Raptors might trend up defensively just because of the level of their competition down the stretch, but there won't be much to learn in such a broad statistic.
The Raptors force turnovers at the 17th-highest rate in the league, making them average in the pursuit. The Raptors need turnovers to generate more transition offence and limit their half-court offensive possessions, the team's weakness.
Defensive ball pressure isn't applied only to create turnovers, but for the Raptors, that outcome is crucial. With just Poeltl as a true rim protector, the Raptors can't thrive defensively with a conservative style.
More and more, forcing turnovers is correlated with good overall defence, as shot-making improves throughout the league. The Thunder, Clippers, Magic, Grizzlies, Timberwolves, Warriors and Rockets are all top-11 in opponent turnover percentage, and they have top-nine defences.
Given how poor the Raptors' opponents are the rest of the way, they should be able to turn pressure into turnovers more often than they have been this season.
Do you want to be concerned? Look at Gradey Dick's 3-point percentage. He is shooting 35.7 percent for his career, certainly not what the Raptors were expecting when they used a lottery pick on him in 2023.
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If he's not a high-volume, high-percentage 3-point shooter, Dick will struggle to be a rotation-worthy player. That is because he has backslid as a defender. He is not as bad as he was early in his rookie year, but other teams are picking on him.
If you're the Raptors, you have to hope his 3-point pedigree eventually shines through. If he can't continue to grow defensively, however, he will be setting his ceiling at sixth man.
Barrett, averaging 21.9 points per game, will be above the 20 threshold for the third time in four seasons. However, he will get there less efficiently than last year. In 32 games as a Raptor last year, he had a 61.5 percent true shooting, which places extra value on 3-pointers and free-throw attempts. This year, it's at 55.6 percent.
That drop has been almost entirely based on his shooting inside the arc. Barrett has fallen off majorly at the rim and a little bit in his favoured push-shot area, from further out in the paint. However, Barrett's inefficiency is being driven by a career-high usage percentage. His least efficient stretch of the season was in the 11 games Barnes missed with a sprained ankle early in the season (Quickley was out for all but two of those games, too). Barrett's usage pushed 30 percent and his true-shooting percentage was 51.7 percent in those games.
Since then, he is at 58.3 percent true shooting, with his usage at a more manageable 27.3 percent. Some weird lineups could send those numbers down late in the season. Do not overreact.
On a personal level, it's fun to watch a player with a sub-15 usage percentage simply try to make the right basketball play on both ends. Agbaji's commitment to play soundly is laudable.
Agbaji could be one of the most interesting players this offseason for the Raptors. With the Ingram deal, the Raptors will face a salary crunch, and getting off of Agbaji's $6.3 million deal for next year could help them avoid heading into 2025-26 as a tax team. On the other hand, he is young, athletic and defensively versatile. He also doesn't need the ball. There is a case for the Raptors to try to offer him a contract extension as he enters the final year of his rookie deal.
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In the interim, Agbaji closing the season strongly would help the Raptors in either scenario. He has slumped as a shooter since a hot start to the season but is still around league average (on admittedly low volume) in 2025, and 39 percent for the whole season. That skill will determine if he's a rotation staple or a fringe player.
(Photo of Immanuel Quickley: Cole Burston / Getty Images)