‘Pure energy and hustle.’ Scottie Barnes has infused Raptors with a youthful exuberance and his teammates like it

It was an opportunity assembly in a hallway days earlier than Raptors coaching camp started, the form of run-into-your-teammate-on-an-off-day encounter they undergo limitless instances in a season.

Pascal Siakam was headed a technique, Scottie Barnes the opposite and the standard greeting could be a fist-bump or a whats up or some fundamental acknowledgment of a teammate.

“We were doing physicals and I was walking out and he was in the hallway, and he was trying to give me one of those high (chest) bumps like you do in the game,” Siakam recalled. “And I’m like just walking in the facility; it’s like I hit some game-winner or something.”

Welcome to Scottie’s World, the place all the pieces’s new and enjoyable and thrilling and the power is coursing via him like electrical energy irrespective of how mundane the duty is.

“I think he’s just he’s just an exciting kid, like he’s exciting to be around,” Siakam mentioned “He just has a great presence and it’s really, really fun to see.”

Fast ahead just a few days to the primary time the Raptors took to a courtroom in public, an open scrimmage in London on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

It was the identical gamers doing the identical drills and scrimmaging towards one another as they've been since about late July.

Nevertheless it was removed from simply going via the motions for the bubbling rookie Barnes.

“You saw Scottie today screaming and yelling and jumping around,” laughed teammate Fred VanVleet after that 90-minute exercise. “He (inadvertently) kicked somebody so you never know what you’re going to get.

“You never know what to expect but you’ve got to love just the pure energy and hustle and just guys that are excited to be out there, just that joy for the game.”

If nothing else, in his quick, quick time with the Raptors, the 20-year-old Barnes has infused the group with a youthful exuberance that’s been absent the previous few seasons.

“I’d say it’s just me being me, me being me on the court,” Barnes mentioned. “I like to win. I like to make winning plays. I like to bring my energy to practice.

“No matter where I’m at, I’m going to be who I am. That’s what you’re going to see me, being enthusiastic, bringing positive energy to the team, picking everyone up, just trying to prepare us for whatever we need.”

Thus far — and even the pre-season remains to be in its infancy — Barnes’ enthusiasm has been spectacular. He has a means of energizing gamers on the courtroom with him, it helps him have an effect everywhere in the flooring. He’s younger and excitable and if that permits him to have an effect on the sport, it’s nice.

“At this level, you can’t be shy,” he mentioned. “You can’t be trying to look too cool. It’s just the dirty things that you need to do on the floor, that’s what’s going to need to be happening.

“It’s not really that hard. I’m not a shy guy. I’m just going to be who I am no matter where I’m at.”

The facet of Barnes that permits his older, more sedate teammates to just accept his excitable nature with out rolling their eyes is that reality he’s proven he’s obtained some very stable, multi-dimensional abilities which are going to assist the group win video games.

Coach Nick Nurse is adamant Barnes will get a heavy load in his rookie season, shifting everywhere in the courtroom. In simply two pre-season video games, Nurse has used him as a main ballhandler, an influence ahead and a wing, a form of a jack-of-all-trades piece that matches effectively into what the group was the roster to grow to be.

It’s what endeared Barnes to the group’s brass lengthy earlier than Toronto took him with the fourth decide in final summer season’s draft. Workforce president Masai Ujiri, common supervisor Bobby Webster and director of scouting Dan Tolzman had been monitoring Barnes for years via appearances with the US nationwide age-group packages and thru one yr at Florida State earlier than they selected him.

They knew what sort of participant — and particular person — they had been getting and didn't hesitate to make him Toronto’s highest draft decide since Andrea Bargnani was the No. 1 selection in 2006.

There are definitely components of his recreation that want to enhance however that’s not a difficulty for a company that’s proven its participant growth program is among the greatest within the NBA.

Barnes nonetheless isn’t a terrific NBA shooter by any stretch and his free throw taking pictures is suspect however he can have an effect on recreation whereas nonetheless fine-tuning these abilities.

And that's what’s going to endear him to his teammates, who remained bemused by his persona.

“He brings energy to everyone,” OG Anunoby mentioned throughout coaching camp. “He’s singing with the music, he’s always dancing. It’s fun to see, it’s fun to be around.”

The act would possibly already be getting outdated quick besides Barnes is ready to again up his enthusiasm and his talkative nature together with his play. Teammates discover guys who speak massive and play small; they don’t see that within the six-foot-seven native of Florida. He’s loud and he’s energetic however he’s additionally good.

“We’ve all got to communicate with either other on the floor and off, so I definitely hear him out there a lot,” VanVleet mentioned after Barnes’s pre-season debut Monday towards Philadelphia.

“Even better than that, when you do a lot of talking, you’ve got to hold your own so that’s great that he’s speaking up because now the spotlight is going to be on him even more with his teammates, so I think that was great for him and he’s been vocal since he got here.”

Barnes’s impression has already made him a fan favorite though he’s solely been on the courtroom in Toronto as soon as within the pre-season. Nevertheless it’s additionally made him a success with all of his teammates, together with 35-year-old veteran Goran Dragić, who has seen just a few rookies come and go in his profession and appears to have developed a novel relationship with Barnes.

“I mean, he’s hilarious,” Dragić mentioned. “He’s so funny. Good kid. Works hard, you know you’re going to see him to be first in the gym, last to go out. He got that personality that it’s unique, and I really like him. So we hung out a couple of times. And, yeah, he’s got a bright future. I can already see that.”