Scottie Barnes injury means Raptors season is over. So what now?

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The schedule might say there are 22 games left, but this Raptors season ended Friday night in Toronto.

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When a grimacing Scottie Barnes headed to the locker room to have his sore left hand examined during the second quarter of a potential loss to the Golden State Warriors, there was still hope of a run for last place Eastern Conference play-in game. . But when imaging showed that the star player and new face of the franchise had suffered a broken finger, it was a wrap.

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The Raptors collapsed without Barnes against the Warriors and the team won’t be able to make up enough ground (4.5 games behind Atlanta before Saturday’s games and 1.5 behind Brooklyn) without its best player and even with the weak chance that Barnes plays again before next October. , he will certainly miss at least the vast majority of the remaining matches this season.

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Fractured metacarpals take time to heal, longer if surgery is necessary (it’s not yet known if Barnes will need surgery), but long enough either way. Plus, why would the Raptors rush Barnes at this point?

Even if the finger heals quickly, by the time he gets back into action, the offseason will pretty much be on the Raptors. It’s best to just shut him up and take the time he needs to prepare for a hard summer of work as he pursues another all-star selection next season.

So, what now for the Raptors?

No, Barnes will mean all the shots Immanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett and Gary Trent can handle. This will likely lead to increased playing time for rookie Gradey Dick, who has made significant progress over the past week.

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This will remove the team’s best facilitator, finisher, and assist defender from the lineup, forcing everyone else to try to fill the gaps. Bruce Brown could well replace Barnes in the starting lineup.

The positive for the Raptors would be that Brown will have a chance to rebuild his value to where it was when he was acquired from Indiana in the Pascal Siakam trade. Brown has a good track record, but struggled greatly as a Raptor.

A bigger role could help the club move him around as they want in the offseason, or it could help him find his game if he has to be a reserve next season.

Head coach Darko Rajakovic talked before Friday’s game about trying to find minutes for rookie guard Javon Freeman-Liberty, one of the best players in the G League this season. Freeman-Liberty’s two-way contract was converted to a standard NBA deal on Friday and DJ Carton’s 10-day contract was converted to a two-way deal on Saturday.

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While the gap between the Raptors and Atlanta likely widens without Barnes, Rajakovic will likely feel more comfortable seeing what youngsters like Freeman-Liberty and Carton can offer and that will help the team determine if they could be options for next season.

It’s never good to lose your best player, but now Toronto finds itself in a really difficult situation.

The odds of playing are low, as are the chances of the Raptors retaining their own first-round pick. The final five teams this season are essentially set in stone in a certain order. It will be virtually impossible to be worse than Washington, Detroit, Portland, San Antonio or Charlotte.

The sixth-worst record (Memphis) is in play, but the Grizzlies aren’t expected to have three of the team’s top five players the rest of the game, so catching them record-wise isn’t a guarantee either. Toronto is expected to end up with one of the top six picks in next summer’s NBA draft after May 12. lottery project in order to keep the pickaxe.

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If the Raptors end up seventh or lower after the lottery, the pick is headed to San Antonio since the Jakob Poeltl trade.

All is not lost, if Toronto has the seventh best odds on lottery day, there is still a 32% chance that the team will climb into the Top 4 (37.2% if it ends up with the sixth-best odds) and even though it is eighth-worst in the NBA, they will still have a 26.3% chance of placing in the top four.

Of course, there’s also a 54.1% chance they fall and lose the pick if they end up with the sixth-worst record in the NBA heading into the lottery and a 68% chance they lose the pick to San Antonio if they stay where they are right now. in the ranking (seventh worst).

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Passing a top-10 pick to the Spurs obviously isn’t ideal, but Poeltl is at least a crucial part of the team and sticking around for the long haul, which is considered a weak draft pick. Keeping next year’s pick, which would go to San Antonio if this one doesn’t pass on (assuming Toronto doesn’t pick next year in the top six either) would be a good thing, considering the expected strength of the potential 2025 crop and the Raptors already. have Indiana’s 2024 first-round pick, so they would have a near-lottery pick even if they lose theirs.

Right now, it would be the 15th pick, following a terrible performance by the Pacers that saw star starter Tyrese Haliburton held scoreless and ex-Raptor Pascal Siakam held to 12 points by the Pelicans. New Orleans.

With Barnes injured, any remaining drama this season is gone. The plot will not resume before the lottery

@WolstatSun

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