Raptors Have Precedent For Scottie Barnes' Early Walk Off

Scottie Barnes needs to be better.

It’s OK to have a bad night once in a while. It’s OK for the 22-year-old Barnes to still be learning as he grows into his new role as the face of the franchise for the Toronto Raptors. What’s not OK, though, is how Monday’s 23-point loss to the San Antonio Spurs ended.

With 20 or so seconds still on the clock, Barnes got up from his seat on the bench and began walking to the locker room. After an embarrassing effort from the team, Barnes decided he’d seen enough.

“It is definitely a learning opportunity for all the players on the team,” Raptors coach Darko Rajaković said of Barnes’ early departure. “This is not the performance that we want to have, the competitive spirit that we want to have. So everybody is going to look in the mirror and figure out what we need to do.”

Toronto has a precedent in these situations.

In 2020, Pascal Siakam took a frustration foul in the final seconds of a seven-point loss to the Philadelphia 76ers and walked off the court and into the locker room with 26 seconds remaining in the game. He was then held out the following night as a disciplinary measure.

“There's a certain way we want to do things here and everyone has to be a part of that,” then-Raptors head coach Nick Nurse said following Siakam’s benching.

But, for better or for worse, Toronto turned the page on that era.

Rajaković was brought in to provide a different style of coaching. He’s far less likely to publicly ridicule his players than his predecessor and he’s been reluctant to criticize Barnes at all this season.

“I thought that he blended in with the performance of the whole team, and that was not the standard that we expect,” Rajaković said of Barnes’ performance Monday night in maybe the harshest terms he’s used about anyone on his team this season.

But Barnes’ actions as Toronto’s team leader will have to be addressed.

His performance is allowed to fluctuate from time to time. He’s allowed to have underwhelming nights, but the leadership has to be there.