So, what does a 25-year-old multimillionaire that was born to play the sport at the highest level do when he wants to reset?
“I went to Florida, just hung out and kinda got away from everything,” Raptors guard RJ Barrett said. “I was still watching playoff basketball and everything, but kinda just took some time. Just go do some regular people stuff. I don’t know, go to Target or something.”
Toronto’s final game of the 2024-25 campaign came on April 13. By that point, Barrett had basically been playing basketball year-round for 30 months. He spent most of his off-seasons training with and playing for the Canadian national team in the 2023 FIBA World Cup and then at the 2024 Paris Olympics. He was traded for the first time in his NBA career, going from New York to his hometown in the middle of the 2023-24 season. A few months later, he mourned the tragic loss of his younger brother, Nathan.
These were long years, heavy years, both on and off the court, and it showed. The usually jovial kid from Mississauga, Ont. was carrying an awful lot of weight on his broad shoulders. So, that period of rest couldn’t have come at a better time.
“It was weird at first,” Barrett said. “It was weird and it took some time, but throughout the course of the summer I was able to get there and now I feel good. I feel balanced. I’m excited, I’m really excited to get into this season.”
That shows, as well. Barrett was back to his old self on the eve of training camp earlier this week – the big smile, cracking jokes (“I’ve never been a horrible defender,” he quipped, making light of a common critique of his game).
In fact, there was an energy and a joy to him that we haven’t seen in a long time. But there was a fire too.
“I think he’s stronger,” head coach Darko Rajakovic said. “I think he’s in elite shape. He did not play for Canada Basketball this [summer], which gave him more time to work on his game and his body. I think he’s in a great place, to be honest with you, and I think he’s going to [have] a great season.”
It’s not just that he feels refreshed entering the new season, although that has a lot to do with it. Toronto has gone 43-90 since Barrett and Immanuel Quickley were acquired from the Knicks in December of 2023, unofficially launching the organization’s rebuild.
With the addition of Brandon Ingram, the team is ready to take the next step, which means that for the first time in Barrett’s Raptors tenure the goal, above all else, will be to win games.
Barrett figures to be a big part of that mission. He’ll start alongside Ingram, Quickley, Scottie Barnes and Jakob Poeltl – a unit that isn’t lacking for talent or question marks. It feels like yesterday that he came into the league as a hyped prospect and third-overall pick out of Duke, but Barrett is a young vet going into his seventh NBA season and he’s one of just three players on this inexperienced roster that has won a playoff series.
He knows what an ascending team looks like – that Knicks club that made a run to the Eastern Conference semifinals in 2023 won 47 games, 10 wins more than the previous season, and caught a lot of people by surprise. He can see some of that in this group, as well.
But there were multiple points during this past summer where he wondered if he would get to be a part of it at all. Barrett’s name came up repeatedly in trade speculation throughout the off-season, and there was some fire behind all the smoke.
It’s not that Toronto was actively shopping him, necessarily, but his contract – he’s owed north of $57 million over the next two seasons – would have been a handy salary-matching tool if the Raptors were able to land a star player – and they tried. The sense was that, with some overlap in position and skill set, the addition of Ingram might make Barrett expendable.
This isn’t new to Barrett. He’s been around long enough to know how the business of basketball works. He was routinely mentioned in trade rumours throughout his time with New York, but you can understand why this may have hit a bit differently, even if he did his best to tune out the noise.
“Obviously, this is the place I want to be,” he told TSN after the Raptors’ first day of training camp at the University of Calgary. “I would love to finish my career here. This is my home. But I think that, with it, is understanding the business aspect of it. And if you look at contract situations and all that, it makes sense to put my name in there, right?
“So, I don’t take that personally. People are just looking at numbers, looking at figures, looking at everything, and that’s kinda what would make sense. So, I don’t have any ill will or ill feelings towards that. All I can do is play my game and try to help the team win because at the end of the day, what negates all that, if the team is winning there’s no need for any of that.”
Some proof of concept would go a long way in keeping this group together beyond this season, or even for the duration of the season. The Raptors go into camp a hair over the luxury tax line. Even under the league’s more punitive collective bargaining agreement, it would be unusual for this – or any – organization to pay the tax for a middling team, and while Toronto is expected to be more competitive this year, most projections have them finishing between 37-40 wins and in the East’s play-in mix.
However, tax is charged after Game 82, meaning that they could opt to shed salary in the middle of the campaign, and if the first few months don’t go according to plan, unloading money ahead of the February trade deadline is all but a certainty. Just because Barrett – or most of these guys, save for Barnes and a few others – is on the opening night roster doesn’t mean he’ll be around in March. But if they’re winning and Barrett’s helping them do it, it’s hard to see Bobby Webster breaking that up.
To a man, everybody on this team has something to prove. In most cases it’s because they’re coming off injuries, like Ingram and Quickley, or a down season, like Barnes. Barrett’s case is different. He’s exceeded all reasonable expectations since coming to the Raptors.
He’s not a perfect player by any means, not yet anyway. No, his defence is not “horrible,” but it needs to continue to improve, and he shot just 63 per cent from the free throw line last season. Still, he’s looked like a far more well-rounded and efficient player than he did in four and half seasons with New York. His motivation comes from somewhere else.
“I was just born with a chip [on my shoulder],” said Barrett, son of Rowan Barrett, former Canadian national team player and the program’s current general manager. “I’ve had a chip on my shoulder ever since I was young. Everybody back home knew who my dad was, so I’d always get the, ‘You’re only here because of your dad, you’re not that good.’ So, I was born with that chip.
“I want to win. I want to be known as a winner. I want to win here. I want to be at home, in front of my family and friends with this group, this organization. This is where I want to be. So, it’ll be extra special for me personally to be here and to win here.”