F or a Raptors team determined to be heard in a top-heavy conference, it would be nice if Barnes emerged as a no-doubt superstar yesterday. For now, though, hopes are a well-planned off-season has set him up for maximum success as quickly as possible. Brian Macon, Barnes’ long-time mentor and skills trainer, knew that Barnes was serious about building on his rookie year momentum when his young protégé reached out in the days after the Raptors were eliminated by the Philadelphia 76ers in the first-round of the playoffs. Barnes was on triple-double pace in his postseason debut — 15 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists — when he suffered a scary-looking ankle injury early in the fourth quarter after Sixers giant Joel Embiid stepped on the inside of his left foot. That Barnes came back and played effectively in Games 4, 5 and 6 only added to an already sterling rookie resume, and proved his grit runs as deep as his talent.
Coming off that injury and having played five times as many minutes in his first year as a professional than he did in his lone college season, a long break would have been understandable. But Barnes was itching to keep rolling. “I mean, it was great, because at the end of the season, he texted me first, you know?” says Macon, who has known Barnes since the gangly sixth grader followed his older brother to Macon’s basketball camps in Boca Raton, Fla. “Most of the time, it’s me leading him, but it shows his maturity and him transitioning to understanding his game and what he needs to get better and him telling me what he needs to happen. And then it’s my job to come up with the plan on how we’re going to get there.”
Identifying the gaps in Barnes’ game wasn’t rocket science, in part because what Barnes does well is also pretty straightforward. His rookie year was a wonder for many reasons, but maybe mostly in its simple excellence. He was just as good or better in more categories than all of his peers. He played the most minutes among all rookies, he was third in scoring (15.2 points per game), third in rebounding (7.5 per game) and top five in assists and steals. He got better as the season progressed, winning the final two Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month awards, and had knack for putting up big numbers against marquee opponents: In home-and-away games against LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers, Barnes averaged 26 points, 13 rebounds and 5.5 assists. He averaged 20 points, 12 rebounds, four assists and three steals in his three meetings with Kevin Durant, and put up 25 points, eight rebounds and 10 assists in a head-to-head match-up with two-time MVP Nikola Jokic in Denver. In each of those cases, he also had defensive moments when he frustrated the game’s elite.
