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01/28/2025 01:07 AM

TORONTO — Five years ago, Zion Williamson was on his way to becoming an All-Star in just his second season with the New Orleans Pelicans, and a glorious NBA future seemed assured. Scottie Barnes, meanwhile, was coming off the bench for Florida State as a freshman in a season that was shortened and had largely absent crowds because of the pandemic.

Barnes was hardly an unknown quantity, at least not in basketball circles. He won a world championship gold with Team USA at three different age groups as a teenager and was deemed the fourth-best high school player in the county after his senior season at Montverde Academy before choosing Florida State over offers from Kentucky and Oregon, among others. 

But Barnes wasn't being touted as the future of the NBA, a player synonymous with the trajectory of the sport. 

Williamson was. In his second NBA season, the former Duke star and No. 1 pick of the 2019 draft delivered on all the promise his talent suggested, as he averaged 27 points, 7.2 rebounds and nearly four assists while shooting 61.1 per cent from the floor. 

He was a six-foot-six, 285-pound highlight factory, doing things no one of his dimensions had ever done. The Pelicans’ future seemed secure. 

But as the Toronto Raptors hosted the now-struggling Pelicans on Monday night, it was hard not to notice how fortunes have shifted. 

It may only be a local opinion, but the Raptors very much see Barnes as their version of Zion, but not one they would ever trade for the Pelicans star. Barnes is in the midst of some of the best basketball of his career in his fourth season. They feel he's only getting better. 

And Williamson? A question mark who is one more hamstring pull, missed team flight or failed weigh-in away from the answer being: 'He doesn't have it, and may never get it.'

It would be a sad thing if true. At his best, Williamson is as an electrifying talent as has come into the NBA in decades. But he's so rarely at his best, or even on the floor — Monday night was just his 12th game this season, and he's now missed 241 out of a possible 437 games for his career — that it's hard to imagine he'll ever fully tap into his vast potential. 

In contrast, Barnes may be just figuring out the reaches of his own. It's a big reason why the Raptors were able to outlast the Pelicans 113-104 and win their fourth straight game for the first time in nearly two years, while also winning six of their past seven starts, lottery balls be damned. 

On this night, objectively, Williamson was the better of the duelling stars, reminding everyone watching that at anything close to full strength, he's elite. Even with Barnes matching up with him for most of his 28 minutes — Williamson remains on a playing time restriction after missing three months with yet another hamstring strain — the Pels star was able to put up 31 points on 13-of-18 shooting, getting to the rim over and over again even with the Raptors’ entire defence locked in on him. 

But Barnes was excellent as well, especially after he backed away from his penchant for taking threes early in the clock — he was 1-of-6 from deep in the first half — and began doing what Williamson does best: using his overwhelming physical gifts to put defences on their heels, giving Barnes opportunities to score or find teammates that most players can never create. Barnes finished with 21 points, 11 rebounds, eight assists, three steals and a blocked shot. And if the 6-of-21 line from the field (and 1-of-7 from deep) wasn't flattering, that he went 8-of-9 from the free-throw line helped make up for it. 

In all, it was a nice follow-up to Barnes' recognition earlier Monday as the Eastern Conference player of the week, and maybe more evidence that the Raptors’ unshakable confidence in Barnes as the foundation piece of an elite team — with the Raptors at 14-32 on the season, you have to squint hard to see it — is more than just wishful thinking. 

"When you see how much he puts into it every single day, his attention to detail, preparation for scouts, knowing personnel around the league, the way he’s invested in every single game, how he’s trying to improve his game and his team, it just shows me that he wants to be great," said Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic, who never hesitates to sing Barnes praises. "There’s a lot of talented players in this league. Scottie has all the talent in the world, but also he has a desire to be the best."

Rajakovic raised eyebrows when, during a moment of anger last season, and as part of his epic rant about the calls that Barnes wasn't getting, he called Barnes "the future face of the league." 

But a year later, in the calm of the Raptors’ best stretch of basketball in two seasons, he doubled down.

"I think he is who he is. I want Scottie Barnes to be the best version of himself. I don’t want him to be and to compare himself with anybody else. He has such a unique presence in [his] force, the way he’s passing the ball, the way he sees the court, the way he sees the game. I think he has a very, very high basketball IQ," Rajakovic said. "…There is so much that he can offer. So I do think that he is unique, and I stand by my statement that he’s going to be the face of the league."

For all his gifts, no one is saying that about Williamson these days. Not as the Pelicans are 12-35 on the season and headed for the draft lottery. Making plays that leave even NBA players slack-jawed seems to come easily to him. It's all the other things that go into making those plays for 70 or 75 games a season, plus playoffs, year after year, that seems to be the hard part. 

"The thing with Zion is he had to understand that discipline is an everyday thing," said one NBA source. "Sometimes he'll eat great and practise great, and then he'll be late for the plane. It's always something."

But when he's right? He's incredible. It's why he's already been an All-Star twice, even while playing mostly part-time. He showed it against the Raptors, somehow shape-shifting his massive frame to blow past world-class athletes like they're high school kids on his legendary high school mixed tapes. He blew past Barnes on consecutive plays in the opening quarter, using inside-out dribbles, spins and hesitations like a super-sized Allen Iverson. If he ran into resistance in the paint, he seemed to be able to absorb the blow, sending grown men flying while laying the ball up softly. 

"We were talking about it in the locker room [he's got] that mixture of explosiveness and also he's like, almost slippery," said Raptors centre Jakob Poeltl, who was excellent on the night, finishing with 21 points, 14 rebounds, five assists and three blocked shots and was often the Raptors’ last line of defence on Williamson drives.

"Like, you're trying to body him up, and then he just slides past you with that explosive step and first jump. It's really difficult to try and contain him."

The Raptors struggled to do it in the early going, but it almost didn't matter. Williamson was nearly perfect in the first half, with 17 points on 7-of-9 shooting, but the Raptors were on-point defensively elsewhere as they held Pelicans not named Zion to 6-of-31 shooting while forcing 10 turnovers as Toronto led 56-40 going into the break. The defence rested in the third quarter as Williamson got some help from his teammates, and the Raptors helped by turning the ball over and missing all six of their threes as New Orleans took a 75-74 lead into the fourth quarter.

But Barnes helped key a fourth-quarter surge, contributing 10 of his 21 points in the final 12 minutes. The game turned on a 17-6 run to start the fourth quarter, which peaked when Pelicans head coach Willie Green was ejected for arguing that Williamson had been fouled on a drive with 7:22 left in the game. Barnes hit both free throws awarded for the technical, and the Raptors were up 10 and didn't look back. 

In some ways, comparing Barnes and Williamson is like a basketball philosophy test. Williamson deserved all the accolades he got coming into the league, and on many nights — Monday being one of them — he's shown that his talent generates basketball moments that are simply rare to see.

But the light goes dark too often, so much so that it's widely believed the Pelicans would trade Williamson if the opportunity presented itself. 

Barnes is certainly capable of putting together his own mix tape of amazing basketball plays — his remarkable recovery and block on Pelicans guard Dejuante Murray in the third quarter would be one, and his spin dribble against Williamson in the fourth might be another. 

But it's the way Barnes is building out his resume that is most encouraging. He's progressing as a go-to scorer, as his improving shooting percentages from the mid-range area would suggest. His on-ball defence is getting better, even if it wasn't quite good enough to lock up Williamson — no shame in that — on Monday. The passing has always been top-flight, and the intangibles — the leadership and accountability components — are coming along too. 

The Raptors hope that the kind of stardom Barnes is cresting towards — and they badly need him to reach — is the kind that will last.