Barnes injury another hit to Raptors’ early-season rebuild efforts

TORONTO – The hits keep coming.

With the season less than a week old, the Raptors have already been forced to play games without five players who projected to be in, or on the cusp of, head coach Darko Rajakovic’s rotation. Now, they’ll add a sixth to that list: their best and most important player.

On Wednesday, the team announced that All-Star forward Scottie Barnes will miss at least three weeks with a right orbital fracture – an injury he sustained when reigning MVP Nikola Jokic inadvertently elbowed him in the face late in regulation of Monday’s overtime loss to Denver – and be re-evaluated from there.

With this timeline, Dr. Ali Rendely, a physical medicine and rehabilitation doctor at Toronto Rehab, suspects that Barnes will require surge maple leafs ry, though that hasn’t been confirmed by the team. Non-surgical treatment would allow for a faster return to play. Surgery is done to repair the muscles, nerves and vessels between broken bones and help with vision changes by repositioning the eye in the socket.

Generally, you can resume normal activity in three weeks – though Barnes would likely have to wear a protective mask upon return – and the average NBA player misses 13 games after underdoing this surgery, per instreetclothes.com.

Even in the best-case scenario, where he avoids surgery and heals on schedule, with ramp-up time factored in, it’s hard to see Barnes missing less than a month.

It’s a tough blow for Barnes, who had his All-Star 2023-24 season cut short due to hand surgery in March. After an uncharacteristically quiet showing on opening night last Wednesday, the 23-year-old has been his typically dominant self to start the year.

Over the past three games, he’s averaged 22.7 points, 8.3 rebounds and 6.3 assists on 53 per cent shooting, including a near triple double (21 points, 12 rebounds, nine assists and a career-high-tying five assists) in 35 minutes against the Nuggets, before getting hurt.

It’s a big loss for the Raptors, who were already navigating the NBA’s hardest early-season schedule. Based on the three-week timeline, Barnes should be out for at least 11 games, nine of which will come against teams that made the postseason last year, and seven of which will come on the road. It would be an uphill climb for one of the league’s youngest teams, even if they were at full strength. As it happens, they’re not even close.

While RJ Barrett just returned from a shoulder injury that cost him the first three games of the season, as well as most of the preseason, starting point guard Immanuel Quickley – who was limited by a sprained thumb in training camp – is listed as doubtful for Wednesday’s game in Charlotte and will likely miss his fourth straight contest with a back ailment. Backup centre Kelly Olynyk remains out, also with a back injury, as do veteran guard Bruce Brown (off-season knee surgery) and rookie first rounder Ja’Kobe Walter (sprained shoulder), who have been sidelined since the start of camp.

This latest injury will be the toughest to overcome. Despite a 1-3 record, Toronto has been competitive in all but one game – a 30-point opening-night loss to Cleveland. From sophomore Gradey Dick to emerging two-way wing Ochai Agbaji to rookies Jamal Shead, Jonathan Mogbo and Jamison Battle, there have been several bright spots to speak of, but Barnes’ continued development was at the forefront of the team’s early-season progress.

In the near term, the silver lining is more opportunity for some of those intriguing young players who may not have gotten the chance to play and learn on the fly otherwise. Mogbo, the 31st-overall pick in this summer’s draft and Barnes’ childhood friend, and undrafted sharpshooter Battle have impressed in spot minutes off the bench. What can they do in expanded roles? How do Barrett and Quickley, once he returns, fare carrying a bigger offensive workload in Barnes’ absence? With their playing time solidified, will Dick and Agbaji continue to make strides?

In the long term, Barnes’ injury might make it either to pivot late in the season, should the opportunity present itself and the Raptors decide it best to prioritize draft positioning over wins. For one, wins should be scarce over the next month or so, allowing them to keep pace with some of the league’s worst teams. And even if Barnes only misses 11 games, the most he could play is 71, making it tougher for him to meet the 65-game requirement to be named to an All-NBA Team at the end of the season, which he needs to trigger supermax status on the contract extension he signed over the summer.

With an All-NBA selection this spring, Barnes’ five-year extension – which kicks in next season – would be worth 30 per cent of the salary cap or upwards of $270 million. Without it, his deal will be worth 25 per cent of the cap, or around $225 million. Given his team’s projected record and the fact that voters tend to reward players on winning teams, All-NBA was always going to be a long shot. But with so much money on the line, it’s not hard to see Barnes pushing to play as many games as possible if he is still eligible.

If he’s not, asking him to take a strategic step back in order for the organization to potentially take a big step forward – pairing him with one of the star prospects in what’s believed to be a strong 2025 draft – could be a lot easier.

Still, even if you can squint and see some blessings in disguise, it would be hard to argue that Barnes missing multiple games this early in a rebuilding season is for the best. More than procuring lottery balls, this season is about evaluating and developing the young core that’s already in place – namely the high-priced trio of Barnes, Quickley and Barrett, who are owed north of $490 million through 2029-30.

In 439 minutes last season, the Raptors outscored opponents by 2.9 points per 100 possessions with those three players on the court. Add starting centre Jakob Poeltl and they outscored teams by 10.8 points per 100 possessions. Those four haven’t played together since Mar. 1 and only logged four minutes with the new fifth starter, Dick, a year ago. Now, they won’t share the court again until late November, at the earliest.

It's hard to see that as a win. But wins may be hard to come by for a while.