One of the jobs this season was for the Raptors to coax Scottie Barnes out of his comfort zone, to ask him to do more, to change the impact he has on games, to step back a bit from what he’s historically done best.
It hasn’t gone perfectly but there has been incremental progress and as the NBA season grinds closer to a close, that’s a tiny win for the organization.
Barnes, who burst on the scene as something of a supernova as the NBA’s rookie of the year last season, arrives at the end of his second year with one aspect of the game to work on above all others.