Scottie Barnes was never washed, three-point-pilled and broken. The Raptors were never irreparably flawed, doomed to be basement trash forever. Darko Rajaković wasn’t a doofus headed for the unemployment line. And neither an 11-game losing streak nor the worst loss in franchise history were all that representative of this collection of players.
The team just needed its point guard, man.
Immanuel Quickley made a surprise return to the Raptors’ lineup to ring in 2025 as the Raptors took on the Nets on New Years Day, and not-at-all coincidentally, his basketball team made sense once again.
Toronto did its best to get by while Quickley sat for all but two and half of the first 33 games. Scottie Barnes took on the heavy burden of prime initiation, even though it’s been known to anyone with working eyes for a couple years now that he’s not the Magic Johnson-like point guard he may have once fancied himself. He ran the show out of necessity, not because it’s his optimal spot. And for a time, he and the Raptors scraped by.
But as scouting reports hardened and the weight of being everything caught up to Barnes, the need for Quickley’s skillset became increasingly obvious in recent weeks. The Raptors’ racked up a league-worst 11-game losing streak between December 3rd and 31st. Barnes, fighting injury and spread too thin, showed signs of wobble. A week of bludgeonings at the hands of the Grizzlies, Hawks and Celtics laid it bare: this team doesn’t work without a proper guard at the helm.
Most teams don’t.
With 21 points, three triples and 15 assists to just one measly turnover, Quickley displayed just how proper a guard he is as the Raptors took down the Nets on Wednesday. In the process, he helped crystallize the vision for a team that’s always been more potent than its injury-fueled record suggests.
It’s been understandably slept on as he’s missed long swaths of time and played out the string on a miserably sad Raptors squad that no one watched at the tail end of last year, but the single most interesting development in IQ’s game since coming to Toronto has been the Point Guard Shit™ he does. He’s got a finger on the pulse of the action, table-setting instincts, and the vision to turn his paint touches into great looks for others, all the while frightening defenses with the threat of him pulling from deep. As all great point men do, he makes life easier for everyone he plays with.
If you find yourself more on the skeptic’s end of the Quickley Belief Spectrum, my hunch is it’s because you envision him as a high-usage scoring type, resigned to as much or more off-ball duty as he is tasked with steering the ship. And I can understand if you have some pause if that’s his developmental track. His interior scoring leaves plenty to be desired; he hasn’t always made the most of his handle (though that thing looked pretty damn tight last night); he can be a little slow on the trigger — all things the truly elite bucket-getters shake at some point in their development.
But the scoring stuff, though it’s what he became known for in microwave duty as a Knick, isn’t really at the core of what makes IQ tick. If you’re more sold on IQ as a core piece of the next great Raptors team, it’s his mind and skill for running the show that should drive that belief. He’s a ways from joining this company in earnest, but if you, like me, are a child of Steve Nash, Chris Paul and Kyle Lowry, there’s something in Quickley’s game that really touches a nerve.
As it happens, Quickley in pure point mode just might set the stage for others to fill in the scoring gaps he’s less equipped to account for — Scottie Barnes chief among them.
Barnes is a guy whose role has always been a little gooey. At different points in his three-plus years, he’s felt most at home as a jumbo lead guard, a big man and a point forward for spans of time. But what if the guy who’s been called a “future basketball player” and muddied the traditional lines of positionality since entering the league is actually as traditional as they come? In his first full game alongside Quickley since March, Barnes looked like a power forward’s power forward. And maybe that’s exactly the gig that will launch him to the heights the franchise is banking on him hitting.
The from-the-top creation thing just wasn’t working. Toronto targeting Quickley to pair with Barnes suggests the front office agrees and has for some time. But give Barnes a guy who can hit him with deft entry passes on deep seals (FINALLY), deliver him kick outs and room to punish tilted defenes, and provide the off-ball space to let him run unimpeded to the short mid-range area he’s turning into his office, and you get an optimized, powerful wing capable of the efficient 33-13-5 lines he posted Wednesday night without breaking a sweat.
Needing a true pont guard’s support isn’t a blight on Barnes as a player, even if it differs slightly from the initial grand visions for him as a huge lead guard. In a power wing role, he’ll still get all sorts of chances to dazzle with his visionary passing, just from more advantageous starting positions.
Kawhi Leonard needed Lowry and before that Tony Parker. Blake Griffin needed CP3. Hell, even LeBron James’ best years came with Kyrie Irving by his side. Harmonious guard-forward duos are a winning formula as old as basketball itself. With Quickley back and pulling the strings, the future the Raptors paid big money for last summer is taking shape at long last.
It’s amazing what a little point guard play can do.
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Today on the podcast I gushed over the thrilling return of Immanuel Quickley and guessed at the fully healthy Raptors’ rotation patterns. Enjoy the show, and Happy New Year!
