Can RJ Barrett be as good next season for Toronto?

So what changed?

Mostly, the simple stuff. He’s taking the space he’s given and not trying to force it when he’s not given space. If he’s overplayed, he’s cutting back the other direction. He is taking by far the highest-of-his-career share of his shots from the rim. (It’s actually been in the 99th percentile for his position as a Raptor — the man is getting to the rim.) But he is also attempting the fewest shots per drive (on just 55.9 percent of them) of his career and passing on the highest rate (23.5 percent). While he is also averaging the highest rate of turnovers per drive, that comes with the territory of shooting less and passing more. It has helped, all taken into consideration. He’s also been significantly more efficient on the actual shots he’s taking, at almost 60 percent on shots taken near the basket after driving, after never before reaching 50 percent in a single season as a Knick. That helps, too. (He’s actually shooting a career-best from basically every area of the floor.)

The Knicks neither facilitated Barrett’s driving, with so much less motion on the offensive end to create those wider lanes, nor did they really need it — New York had plenty of drivers who reach the rim. The Raptors created that space for Barrett and desperately needed him to fill it, as the team employed so few drivers beyond Barrett.

And yet, Barrett’s success can’t be explained entirely by context. The Denver Nuggets had a similarly motion-heavy offense, with few drivers, yet no Nugget was able to drive as frequently as Barrett while also boasting as high a field goal percentage when shooting out of those drives. Plenty of Barrett’s touch shots, the push shots and runners off glass through contact, dropped in Toronto as an unrealistically high rate. He shot 73.1 percent at the rim in Toronto after only ever reaching 65 percent in one season in New York. The context will continue to favour Barrett next season with even more shooters on the squad, hence wider lanes available, and more need for someone to take it all the way to the rim.

Barrett did surpass his shooting in Toronto in his sophomore year, hitting over 40 percent of his triples there. So it’s technically possible that he’ll continue to connect on 39 percent of his 3s. But he’s a career 34.6 percent shooter from deep, and it’s more realistic to expect his shooting to regress by a few percentage points. That’s just the numbers — players do get better at shooting, but I trust the sample of 1430 triples attempted in New York versus 120 in Toronto. Taking 120 shots is not a large enough sample size to say for sure that Barrett is this level of shooter now.

Some of the decision making from Barrett improved in Toronto, too. He passed at a much higher rate and started turning down any shot that wasn’t a good one. He fell in love with live-dribble spray passes on the move, which is a fantastic pass to have in the arsenal, particularly for such a high-frequency driver. And he fell out of love with contested long pull-ups, taking fewer than 1.0 a game.

That’s impossible to know if it will stick around. My guess is that it will, because humans generally are more comfortable with change when it’s backed up by immediate success. But you never know. People change back to old habits all the time.

That’s a lot of ifs. If his driving remains a focal point, if he continues getting so deep in the paint, if his touch shots on the drive keep falling, if his triples remain accurate, if his choices with the ball in his hands stay immaculate, etcetera. Perhaps any of those elements is likely to remain true, in a vacuum, given the beneficial context in Toronto. But all together? That seems unlikely, especially given the historic lack of precedent.

Barrett has room to regress while still remaining a hugely beneficial player. Say his accuracy from deep drops from 39 percent to 37 or even 36. That’s fine. He’ll still draw a relatively similar rate of closeouts, and the driving lanes into which he froths will remain available. Say his finishing at the rim slips a few percentage. Again, that’s fine. He was a top-30 driver in the league last year in Toronto. If that falls to top-50, he’ll still be providing the same high-end option as a possession-finisher.

So what is a reasonable expectation for Barrett’s stat line? I doubt his counting stats drop too much. Perhaps a point or two. Let’s say 19 points, 6 rebounds, and 4 assists per game is reasonable. I think 49 percent from the field and 37 percent from deep is likely within his grasp.

And how many players have done that? Just 13. It will still be a very, very exclusive club. Barret will still be in a beneficial system in Toronto, and he shot significantly better from deep when Scottie Barnes was on the floor (though his 2-point shooting and particularly rim finishing was still sky-high whether or not he played with Barnes). Context ought to help him more this upcoming season, as it’s unlikely Barrett will find himself playing with so much G-League talent as a result of injuries.

So expect Barrett to regress slightly from his outrageous half season with Toronto. But even so, expect him to be phenomenal. He proved that there is much he can do well in Toronto that were not necessarily his strengths in New York. He will continue to be the tip of Toronto’s offensive spear, the player who hammers home points after the advantages created by his teammates, the system. He’ll be the converter.

Barrett did improve in Toronto, sure. But mostly, he found an offensive system ripe for his talents. Unlike any in which he’d played in the NBA previously. Regression likely is coming, but don’t be surprised if in the future fans, analysts, and even teams cite Barrett when claiming that a low-efficiency player might just work when added to their team.