How the Raptors can space Jakob Poeltl and Scottie Barnes on the floor

Amit Mann is joined by Chris Oliver to hypothesize ways Darko Rajakovic will spread out Scottie Barnes and Jakob Poeltl to optimize spacing when they're on the floor together. Listen to the full episode on the 'Raptors Over Everything' podcast feed or watch on our YouTube channel.

Video Transcript

AMIT MANN: You have Jakob Poeltl and Scottie Barnes, two non 3-point shooters in your frontcourt. I think Pascal Siakam will be used as a floor spacer, for better or for worse. We'll have to see how it goes. He shot pretty well from corner 3's this past season. And I've got to believe that it's only going to get better.

However, with Jakob and Scottie Barnes, Scottie's early in his career. Jakob is a center who doesn't shoot, doesn't have a lot of range. But he's efficient around the rim. How do you space those two when they're on the court together?

CHRIS OLIVER: Well, I mean, the classic example of modern basketball is what to do with two bigs that aren't necessarily great 3-point shooters? And it is a real dilemma.

I mean, it's easy to say put them in the dunker spot. But in the dunker spots-- if it's two in the dunker spot or one in the dunker spot, then you're not following kind of a lot of the five out spacing, which is obviously what's supporting a lot of teams nowadays. Is it just creating more space and more gravity? If there's always a player in the dunker spot, it also means there's always a helper in the dunker spot.

So the question is, off of any drive situation from the Raptors, because there isn't necessarily a lot of elite shooting on the perimeter, a lot of the defense can collapse. And if they're collapsing, they're taking away dunker spot. They're taking away drives. And now, it comes back to kickouts and playing out of that.

And that's where I think a lot of this kind of spacing, a lot of the usage of these guys has to come from their ability to be able to run kind of dribble handoffs and different types of zoom, stagger, stagger dribble handoff situations, zooms, to be able to create advantages. Because again, to just be able to stand at the dunker spot, it's just not a part of modern basketball that really helps.

Now, to end in the dunker spot is different than starting there, and to be able to have a lot of versatility off of those kind of short rolls and different types of spacing. Because let's say Poeltl is in the corner. And a lot of the situations is-- I mean, again, back to your Golden State example, Draymond's a non-shooting big. And certainly sometimes, they played with two non-shooting bigs.

But Draymond's a unique non-shooting big because he's learned how to play in that point five and never even consider the shot, and immediately understand, before he catches the ball, where he's going to take that search, decide, and execute to an advantage to his team. Sometimes it's a dribble handoff. Sometimes it's an inverted dribble handoff. Sometimes it's a flip. Sometimes it's a pitch, different things like that.

And I mean, we already connected-- I mean, Scottie Barnes has potential to be really elite at a lot of these things. And it's just a question of is he willing to do it. Because what you can't do when you do that is, you can't have the ball stick in your hands. And you've got to get it out of your hands quick with these quick kind of pitch and dribble handoff decisions, and then understand where to go after that, which is to get into space.

Now, the other part of that is, his teammates have to reward him. If he's going to do that for them, then they've got to find him when he gets back into space-- space for speed, especially kind of closer to the basket where he can take advantage of that. And that's a whole-- that's a whole next level concept, obviously. But I think that's what we hope to see with a lot of what those two guys are doing as the non-shooting bigs, to be able to play a lot more to the pitches and handoffs, and getting into space after those actions.

AMIT MANN: Something Steven Jones on Twitter had mentioned a few days ago is using some of these non-shooting bigs as off-ball screeners for shooters. Now, the Raptors, they lack their shooters, but they do have some.

And that's something that I'm curious if they experiment a little bit, is like, you have Jakob Poeltl spaced at the 45, right? But then as the ball makes its way around the swing, now, you have him setting a back screen or something like that, or as we were talking about, changing around the angles and finding ways to get players open and-- within the flow of the offense. I wonder what that looks like with the Toronto Raptors.

And for Scottie Barnes, we can get to it now, I did a podcast the other day with someone. And we were just talking about what Scottie's ideal role would be with the Raptors this upcoming season. And he is a high level reader.

He makes fast decisions. He can-- his passing angles and windows are different from someone who's a lot smaller-- a Fred VanVleet, for instance, because he's able to see over defenses with his 7' 3" wingspan. What does Scottie's role--