The Toronto Raptors received some timely 3-point shooting after being cold for most of the game, on a night Gradey Dick had his strongest performance of the season.
A year ago, and certainly on the night the Raptors selected Dick 13th overall, this would have made perfect sense. Of course the sweet-shooting Kansas freshman would have developed into the type of outside threat who could turn a game with a late offensive spark. Helping pull a stagnant offence, against a tricky zone defence, out of the mud with some big triples. That’s what he was drafted for, and what the idealized version of Dick could, would, even should provide.
As it went, though, those statements ran parallel to each other in Toronto’s 115-101 victory against the Indiana Pacers.
While Dick did have arguably his best game since the early part of 2024-25, he wasn’t a part of the late 3-point barrage. Instead, the league’s second-worst 3-point shooting team slumped to 1-of-13 in the second half, allowing Indiana to zone up quite a bit as they trimmed a 27-point lead down to four at one point. In the final five minutes, Jamal Shead and Brandon Ingram combined for triples in triplicate, putting the game away and letting the Raptors finish a respectable 35.7 per cent on a low volume of threes for the game.
So how, exactly, did Dick have a large imprint on the game while shooting 1-of-5 from outside, the primary thing he was brought in to do?
This has become one of the less conventional storylines of the season. Dick has improved in a lot of areas. Most notably, he’s improved from bad to passable within the team’s defensive scheme, and while he’s had some help there – data provided to Sportsnet confirmed that Dick defends nearly the easiest average assignment in the league – he has gotten stronger, makes better gambles, and hits the glass hard. The passing he flashed as a fun secondary skill as a sophomore is still there, with good vision and creativity in transition or attacking closeouts. And his work inside the arc has been solid, with strong cutting instincts and good mid-range shooting.
To wit, Dick tied a season-high with 21 points, added a career-high 11 rebounds (four offensive), and dished three dimes. The Raptors were plus-10 in his 30 minutes, which is also a fairly consistent trend. Indiana didn’t exactly defend well, especially in transition, but “best game of the year” doesn’t need many caveats.
All good stuff, right? The questions that follow are twofold.
The first is how much any of this matters long-term if Dick’s core skill, shooting, doesn’t meet a critical minimum to keep him on the floor when the team is healthier. Getting better at defence and rebounding is important, but the Raptors have other players who can do those things, too. They are important to the extent that they raise the floor when Dick plays, and assuage concerns that he might be just a situational specialist.
The value of a shooter comes not just from hitting threes, but the gravity they provide, and defences are starting to adjust to Dick shooting just 30 per cent on threes. Indiana even doubled off of him one pass away at times (he punished that once). If teams stop treating him like a “hot guy” (in Matt Bonner’s terms), the value his spacing provides erodes. He has to shoot well for all of his other improvements to matter. As fun as Wednesday was, Dick is not going to transform into a screen-and-roll power forward long-term.
The second, then, is what’s happened to his outside shooting. On Wednesday, he rushed a couple, and his mechanics look a little bit off at a quick glance, with a backward tilt in what are normally straight-up jump shots. He takes a tougher diet of threes than average, with a lot of movement and defensive attention, but that’s not enough to explain sitting under 35 per cent for his career. Given the track record, what we hear about his non-game work, and how pretty his shot looks when he’s in a groove, it’s hard to bet against the 3-point shot coming around.
For the moment, the Raptors will take a 21-point double-double in a way they didn’t expect from Dick. They’re thinned out enough to give him ample opportunity – the best stretch of his career coincided with massive usage, though your parsing there may involve some chicken-versus-egg – and invested a lottery pick in him. They’ll also have to make an extension decision on him this summer, so the data is important. He has shown really encouraging flashes, only to disappear. Young player stuff, to be sure, but difficult as the bar moves from development to winning. Wednesday surely earned him the right to keep plugging away in significant minutes.
And hey, Ingram was brought in to do exactly this, too, hitting big shots when the offence can’t create them otherwise. Take the short-handed road win and hope to build on the positives for Dick.
Here are a few other notes and takeaways from Wednesday’s game.
• Dick showed some great chemistry with Scottie Barnes in this one. Then again, who didn’t? Barnes was terrific as a playmaker, turning significant defensive attention from the Pacers against them to dish to anyone who could catch a pass. Barnes finished with 13 assists, along with 26 points on 23 used possessions, and continues to mesh well with the team’s young pieces. Whether using Dick as a screener to get switches or get Dick into space, finding Collin Murray-Boyles on dump-offs or as the roll-man, or passing out of high post doubles, Barnes will make the right read if guys present themselves. Awesome stuff in this one.
• Speaking of Barnes, voting for the NBA All-Star Game ends at midnight on Wednesday. Raptors fans did a nice job in the last round, getting Barnes from unranked to 14th in the Eastern Conference (and Brandon Ingram to 11th), and I’d expect based on social media activity that he lands a little higher.
Having said that, Barnes’s path to the game was almost always going to be via the coaches, who vote on the reserves. A strong voting showing is nice recognition from fans (and, later, media and players), but I’d be shocked if Barnes isn’t in the All-Star Game regardless.
The cases of Ingram and Pascal Siakam are tougher, as there are many forwards in the East with decent cases. Ingram has the “should the Raptors get two” factor working against him, while Siakam, despite a tremendous season, plays on a last-place team, which can sometimes qualify deserving players in a tough field.
• There are a lot of injury notes.
Jakob Poeltl (back), RJ Barrett (ankle), and Ja’Kobe Walter (hip) all remained out and are considered roughly day-to-day. As Michael Grange has covered, Poeltl’s timeline remains vague because he’s still experiencing some discomfort. Barrett and Walter are more traditionally day-to-day, though with practice time limited right now, any required ramp-up period has an unclear timeline.
Immanuel Quickley, Sandro Mamukelasvhili, and Garrett Temple joined them as scratches after being listed as questionable. Quickley and Temple are dealing with back spasms, while Mamukelashvili was sick. And before any tinfoil tingles here with scratches at trade season, it’s unlikely the Raptors would feign an injury designation for someone like Temple, who, all due respect to my pseudo co-host, would be in a deal primarily for salary matching, and his status would be irrelevant to a trade. (Grange also reported that Quickley’s back issue is legitimate.)
To make matters worse, Jamison Battle left the game in the third quarter with an ankle sprain and did not return, leaving the team with just nine healthy bodies to close out Indiana.
• Sometimes, in a situation like Toronto’s, a hardship exemption could be granted, allowing a team to add an additional player. The Raptors currently wouldn’t qualify, as they have a roster spot open and could just sign a player through normal means to address their depth.
The roster being at 14 (plus three two-ways) also means the Raptors are, for the time being, capped on the number of days two-way players can be active. They’re not in any danger right now, and could look to resolve that issue by filling out the roster after the trade deadline, when their luxury tax situation is clearer.
• Despite the team being so thin, Jonathan Mogbo only played the final minute of the game. It’s been noticeable how little he’s played, even with so few bigs available, and while he’s played well with Raptors 905 and will only make the minimum next year, it’s hard to imagine him pushing Murray-Boyles for minutes any time soon.
Ochai Agbaji – a name to watch ahead of the Feb. 5 trade deadline as the Raptors look to duck the luxury tax – played 24 minutes. He was solid outside of a couple of fouls late in the shot clock. He’s likely to be the odd man out as the wing rotation gets healthier.
• It’s a good thing the Raptors banked the win here, as things are about to get tough. The Clippers are in Toronto on Friday and have played much better of late, then the Raptors head out west for a five-game trip.
Their strong start to the season has been very fun, but it’s worth monitoring how they do in tougher situations. Not only have they yet to head west, but they’ve only played eight of their 24 scheduled games against the league’s current top-10 in net rating (they are 0-8 in those games).
Building some early cushion in the playoff/play-in battle could prove enormous down the stretch.
• Speaking of difficult stretches of schedule, the NBA club’s injuries have left Raptors 905 thinned out. Martin and Lawson are seeing regular NBA minutes, and two-way player Chucky Hepburn is out at least six weeks after undergoing meniscus surgery last week. All this while they head out on a road trip that’s nearly a month long.
This is normally where you see strong G League starts dissipate. That’s not the case for head coach Drew Jones’s squad, as they’re 3-0 without any of their two-ways, improving their record to 23-1 overall and 9-1 in the “reset” portion of the season. It’s entirely possible they lose another piece to a 10-day or two-way deal sometime soon, too, the cost of G League success.
