Toronto Raptors’ 2K Ratings: Barnes is too low

Spoiler: As per usual, the Raptors are rated lower than they should be.

If you enjoy video games or the NBA (or both), you’ve probably heard of, watched, or played 2K at some point. In anticipation of this year’s edition dropping September 6th, the in-game ratings of each player have been released over the last couple of weeks.

Of course, it’s hard as a fan to not think that our favourite players are being sold short. Every year when the ratings come out there’s the expected flood of anger and questions on social media related to how some players are over or underrated.

It’s not an exact science, but it is numbers based to some extent. Players that are perennial all-stars, or those that have had long, successful careers automatically get higher ratings. For instance, LeBron’s current rating is a 96, after averaging 26-7-8 last season, while Luka is only a 93 despite averaging 34-9-10. Of course, if you’re going to try to argue that Luka has been better overall throughout his career compared to LeBron, I have questions.

Once we get down past the top 20 players in the league, things start to become a little bit hazy, and that’s where we can start the argument that some players’ ratings are flat out wrong. So let’s take a look at where the Toronto Raptors landed, and whether or not they have been underestimated once again:

Scottie Barnes

Scottie remains at an 85, the same as his final rating in the previous edition. He’s ranked only 47th which, if you look at those around him, it probably won’t take long for you to get frustrated either. While it makes sense there wasn’t much fluctuation over the summer (especially given the lack of post-season play the Raptors had), the interest with his rating is probably based more in comparison to those around him.

He shares a rating with Julius Randle, Brandon Ingram, and Rudy Gobert. From a numbers standpoint, that makes sense. But then it doesn’t, because Cade Cunningham, Franz Wagner, and Evan Mobley are all rated 86, despite the fact that in a lot of metrics, Scottie actually beats them out.

This is where the 2021 Draft drama takes hold. The comparisons between these players started the day they were drafted and will probably follow them the rest of their careers. The Mobley/Barnes argument seems to be particularly prevalent. Both teams are happy with their pick, but every head-to-head contest yields social media posts comparing stat lines and performances, and Cavs fans continue to belabour Scottie’s ROY and All-Star nods. At this point, he holds more accolades, he’s our franchise player, and he’s better statistically in a lot of ways. The fact that he’s rated lower is a bit of an insult.

Consensus: Scottie should be (at least) an 86.

RJ Barrett

Finishing the last edition with an 83, RJ has dipped to an 81 to start this edition. His company on this list? D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, Coby White, and Immanuel Quickley (which we will get into later).

Despite D’Lo’s struggles over the last couple of years, he put together a statistically similar season and has some career longevity that could be used to support the rating.

Austin Reaves is statistically worse across the board, and has no business being rated the same, and to add insult to injury, Alex Caruso is rated an entire point higher, despite averaging about half the points and significantly fewer boards and assists. Defensively he’s one of the best at his position, but I’m not sold that RJ should be lower than him. Tyler Herro is rated two points higher, despite averaging virtually identical numbers, and the defence argument can’t be used to justify the difference.

By all measures, RJ got better when coming to Toronto, and eclipsed his performance from the prior season as well. His contributions to Team Canada were also incredible, generating a lot of excitement for the upcoming season. To decline in rating after that improvement is counter-intuitive.

Consensus: RJ should be an 83.

Immanuel Quickley

Starting this edition with an 81, he’s dropped from his final rating by 2 points, but is up from an 80 at the start of the previous edition. Most of the same arguments can be made about IQ, but he has averaged fewer points and boards, and RJ’s defence is more versatile. He did make the All-Rookie second team, but doesn’t have any other accolades, and despite improving since moving to Toronto, it feels like his increase from the start of the last edition is still a nod to him.

I’d be more interested in seeing how his rating changes over the course of the season before flying off the handle about how he starts.

Consensus: IQ is probably an 81, but probably shouldn’t be for long.

The Rest of the Roster:

There were some drops across the roster, but those feel a little bit more warranted. Bruce Brown plummeted 3 points to a 77, but he struggled since the trade so this feels rational.

Chris Boucher only dropped 1 point to land at 76, which was somewhat surprising as he had a very up and down season as well. Ochai Agbaji also lost 2 points to 74. Not much to argue with there, they all feel like adequate spots for them, relative to one another as well.

Gradey Dick remains at the 76 he ended the last season with, but was up 4 points from when the last edition initially released. Gradey continues to impress and develop, and showed some excellent flashes during Summer League before sustaining an injury so I’d look to see him climb another point or two throughout the season, but this feels like a good starting point as well.

Final thoughts

The Raptors were rated as a T3 team, in the company of Sacramento, Utah, Atlanta, and Detroit. While this is probably an accurate assessment of the team as a whole, it’s hard not to assume that 2K is doing much of the same that most people do with the Raptors - underestimate its players and leave them out of the conversation.

One nice note though, especially in light of this being the Raptors’ 30th season, is the inclusion of Vince Carter in purple Toronto threads on the cover of the Hall of Fame Edition of the game. A lot of marketing with the milestone season has included Vince, and speculation of his Jersey retirement continues to swirl, but regardless it’s nice to see his time in Toronto celebrated in this way.

Now we wait until after the first quarter (or so) of the season, when the ratings are updated for the first time. Hopefully this time, at a minimum Scottie will get the bump he deserves.