Why Immanuel Quickley is the MOST important player for the 2025-26 Toronto Raptors | Injured ≠ Bad!

Why Immanuel Quickley is the MOST important player for the 2025-26 Toronto Raptors | Injured ≠ Bad!

On our Thursday episode of Blocked on Raptors, we make the bold decision to talk about Emanuel Quickley the player and not Emanuel Quickley the contract. What a novel concept. You are Locked on Raptors, your daily Toronto Raptors podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. Hey, what’s going on and welcome to another episode of Locked On Raptors, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. It is Thursday, August the 14th, and I’m your host, Sean Woodley. I’ve been coming to the Toronto Raptors now for 11 seasons on various platforms. You can find all my work over on Blue Sky. You can find the show on Instagram. You can join us in the Lockdown Raptors Discord server linked in the description of the podcast. People still talking ball in the middle of August. They all need to go outside, but you can be one of these freaks who doesn’t go outside by joining the Discord. It’s 100% free. Again, link in the description of the podcast as always. And today’s show is brought to you by our friends at FanDuel. Football season’s around the corner. Visit the FanDuel app today to start planning your futures bets. Now, we’re off and running here on an Emanuel Quickly Focused episode of the podcast. We’re going to talk about uh you know, Quickley’s importance to the Toronto Raptors this coming season. Maybe he’s the most important sneakily. He’s not the best player on the team, but there’s a whole lot riding on him having a good year. We will talk about what happened last year, and we will get into our our sort of thoughts on the potential chemistry with the key players that he’s going to be rolled out there with this coming year. We’re going to do it all with our pal Esperhenny from the Athletic NBA Daily, from the CBL sidelines, from Raptors Republic. I don’t know what other 14 things am I missing. S, how are you? It really does feel like 14 things sometimes. And I I mean, we were talking about this offline, but I am relishing in the fact that I have absolutely nothing to do for the next month. Uh, hell yeah. I just I can’t wait to just sit on my butt and do nothing. Uh, which is going to be great. But I am excited to podcast with you, talk about Emanuel Quickley in August. Let’s cook. Let’s talk about IQ. Yeah, let’s do it. And we’re not going to talk about how Emanuel Quickley’s contract is keeping Cam Thomas from getting paid. I can promise you that. Uh, don’t care. Sorry to Cam Thomas. Get a better agent. I don’t know. Uh, let’s talk about quickly the basketball player. And I think the sort where I want to start with this s is I am kind of, you know, you in the process of sort of imagining what the team is going to look like. You start going back and watching some film from last year and piecing the pieces together. Obviously, there’s a gigantic piece that we haven’t seen play with the rest of the team and Brandon Ingram. So, it makes the projection a little bit difficult here. But, you know, I’m not here sitting here saying Emanuel Quickley is the best player on the team by any means, but I do think there’s a real case to be made that he is in fact the most important player on the team for making this team function this coming year. And I think the reasons are kind of obvious. He’s one of the very few people who can like dribble the basketball. He is one of the very few people who can shoot threes at volume and accuracy. And I I just think he he’s also a guy who his like offball play is a real strength of his game, which is maybe not something you’d say about some of the other players on this team. And so I think his sort of blend of on and off ball effectiveness is going to be really key to this team functioning properly on the floor. I think he’s going to run a lot of second units with bench guys and maybe Yaka Purle and sort of shooters in between. I think there’s going to be a lot of him featured as sort of the backbone of the offense. And then I also think there’s going to be a lot of him flying around off ball and using his gravity to create opportunities for others. I I just think if Emanuel Quickley is good this year, the Toronto Raptors stand a chance of being pretty good. If he’s not, things could get real grim real fast. And obviously the injury stuff from last year plagued everything and sort of clouds the entire perception of him as a player. I think that’s dumb. Injured does not equal bad. Uh, you know, put it in the a penny in the jar. I’ve said that a million times over the course of the last year. Uh, where are you on the idea that Quickley is in fact the most important player for this team’s functionality going into next year? Yeah, I’ll go even further and say that I don’t think there’s a world in which he has a bad season. I just I like it. We’re cooking in August. Let’s Yeah, we’re cooking in August. Why not? Let’s go with the optimistic route. I just don’t Unless Unless injuries cuz those injuries he had last year were also like weird injuries. They weren’t. He had a baseball injury. Right. Right. And so like and he even after he came back from the baseball injury, he had that big giant sleeve that he wore on every game. Uh not to say that that’s some sort of excuse. He actually ended up shooting the ball pretty well, but generally like some weird injuries. So to your point about injuries do not equal bad. Uh I agree there. And I think for the most part he is going to stand to benefit from the presence of a player like Brandon Ingram probably more than anybody just because of what you said in terms of his offball capabilities and also like he is the only guy on this team that is actually good at pullup threes. The only guy the the only player on an NBA roster in 2024 2025 that can shoot pull-up threes. I have the number here. Last season he took 3.4 attempts, shot 39%. And basically of players that have shot more than three threes last season, uh more more than three pull-up threes, I should say, he was top five. So like he a very very proficient pull-up shooter. He’s also good off of the catch. Uh that is what makes him sort of the lynch pin of what they want to do offensively with everything because he connects any lineup with basically I mean the fluidity that that he provides flexibility wise with their lineups that’s why he’s so important to your point. Yeah. And I just think like yeah, the gravity, the pull-up shooting as you mentioned. And I do think I know there’s this sort of perception of him, ah, he’s not he doesn’t got a great handle. He picks up the dribble too too easily. Um, you know, he kind of gets himself on an island at times. Like, yeah, that’s been a part of his game in the past. I I just kind of think maybe people didn’t watch the back part of the Raptors season last year because he was in fact quite good and made some real strides with the handle, with the playmaking. I know he’s not this guy who is like drawing, you know, all bucketloads of help every single time he drives, but he is someone who can get into the teeth of the defense. He is a very good drive and kick player. And I think that’s particularly important on this team, which is really all about turning one advantage into a better advantage into a better advantage, right? And I think he’s the guy more than anybody else who can get that first advantage even if it’s not like a glaring oh man, you know, he’s he’s got home free. He’s running home free to the rim there. There’s nothing the defense can do except sell out to stop it. He’s not that kind of guy. He’s not Tyrese Maxi. He’s not prime Damen Lillard, but yeah, he he just does so many things that functional basketball teams need. And yeah, the team was not good on offense last year. that that was and it’s going to be like a massive hurdle for them to jump from the bottom five on offense to somewhere respectable. But I think you could argue that Quickley was probably their best offensive player last year. He missed 50 games. And then you add in Brandon Ingram who might be their best offensive player now. And it it just seems like, okay, yeah, that’s a pretty good recipe for facilitating a pretty big jump, the necessary one for this team to get serious again. I’m just looking at his numbers and the one thing like, yeah, he doesn’t get to the rim. I mean, he does get to the rim. He doesn’t finish at the rim very well. Uh he’s like below average as a finisher for his position. But the one area where I think there’s actually room for growth and maybe to get back to what he was in New York is the floater. Um in Toronto he shot 44% on runners and floaters. Uh basically throughout his career, if you look in New York, he’s like 55% and above. So that’s a huge jump in my opinion. That’s a huge difference to be able to knock down floaters at like a a 55 60% rate versus 44. Um, and if the floater can just get back, that will unlock so much for him because he can attack closeouts and instead of, you know, kind of like getting to the rim and getting stopped or having to kick out, he has that. And sorry, as my fire alarm goes off, but he it it’s fire for Emanuel quickly. But it here, I’ll send it to you. Go ahead. Yeah. Uh, yeah. as as hopefully doesn’t have to evacuate his house. Uh yeah, I I just to that point, uh the floater is something that yeah, I I think we did start to see some signs of life of it last year, too. He shot 40% from short mid-range last year. Not incredible, but better than where he was at in the back part of the year after the trade. And that has been an area where he’s been excellent throughout his career. You know, top 20 to 15 percentile in short r short mid-range in, you know, the the couple seasons prior to coming to Toronto. I I just think there is a lot more for him to give with a full season. And I want to get into as just you know some of the ways in which he I think last year showed genuine strides as a playmaker as a guy who can have the keys to the offense at least for stretches. Maybe he was overextended having to do all of it for sure. But I do think there are things that he just does that no one else on this team does that are uh really valuable, really important. Again, playing functional offensive basketball. But we’re going to get into those things coming up in just one second and talk about the stuff that Emanuel Quickley can do as opposed to the things he can’t. Today’s show is brought to you by our friends over at FanDuel. The August 26 is a day to circle on your calendar. 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Um, let’s, uh, like I said before the break, I do think because of the contract that Quickley got paid last summer, uh, which we love talking about Emanuel Quickley’s contract. It’s so fun and cool. Uh, love to talk about it. It’s just like the most engaging thing anyone can talk about in basketball media. Um, you know, yeah, he’s currently overpaid for his production. Sure. I still think the sort of hand ringing over $32.5 million when the league is headed towards that just being fine starter money is a little excessive and again it makes the conversation about quickly about what he can’t do versus what he can do which I think is a lot. I think there’s this sort of um you know this sort of perception of him where it’s like oh yeah well he’s not like your your lead guard type. He’s not your Damen Lillard, so he’s poo poo. Or he’s not like a shooting guard because he’s too small for that, so he’s poo poo. And it’s just like, no, there’s a lot that he provides as an offensive player. He is not Cam Thomas if you’re trying to lump him in with these sort of offense first guards. Like, no, he actually does well-rounded things to affect winning basketball in a way that Cam Thomas or Josh Giddy do not. And I think it’s fair that he probably is going to make more money than those guys do, even though the stats might say, just the raw accounting stats might say otherwise. And I think for me, the thing is the thing that gets slept on, and again, it’s been a tiny sample, so we need to see it over a longer longer stretch, but Emanuel quickly scaled up last year and has scaled up since coming to Toronto from being this sort of six-man bench guy who played against second units to being the lead guard on a team. And he’s done it without really losing any efficiency. And I think that matters. like there is he’s doing it against starters and he’s still right around his career averages 57% true shooting last year just above his career average and he you know on a per 36-inute basis he was like 225 and8 that’s pretty good stuff that’s something I’m happy to pay $ 32.5 million for especially when there’s a complete posity of those skills on the roster elsewhere and I I just feel like because he’s not your top of the league incredible superstar guard he gets crapped on but he’s also not paid like that. So, what are we really doing here? I don’t know. You’ve always been a proiq guy. This is why I brought you on the podcast. I needed to sort of fuel the agenda. Um, but I don’t know. Any sort of thoughts on the idea of quickly being sort of unfairly judged because he’s not kind of exactly in line with some of his contemporaries at the position. Yeah. So, I the funny thing about the contracts and like the comparison to Cam Thomas and Jonathan Kaminga and all those guys who are like looking to get paid and looking at that contract, those guys aren’t scalable. And by scalable, I mean up or down uh in terms of their utility. Like they have one very specific utility. In Cam Thomas’ way, it’s scoring the ball. In Josh Giddy, it’s like being a Swiss Army knife, but also not being able to defend. in Jonathan Kaminga’s way, it’s like being a battering ram, but also not really knowing how to play basketball. Like, I think that’s something that Jonathan Kuminga still needs to do quickly can scale up or down. And so, we’ve seen him in New York obviously be like a six-man type. And I do think this year, not not that he’ll be a six-man, but we’ll probably see him in a little bit of a scaledback role just because of the presence of Brandon Ingram. And then in certain situations, like you mentioned earlier with the bench lineups, like he can really thrive and be a pick and roll playmaker for you, be a pick and roll facilitator, especially because of the pull-up shooting that he provides. So, I mean, just scalability wise, he’s so much more versatile in the modern NBA um compared to some of these other guys that we’re talking about. And also, I think the main question for me, and this is not u it’s funny, we’re talking about like what he can do versus what he can’t do. I guess the main question I have for him moving forward is just defensively how tenable he’s going to be because uh I think he for for all his like he is good as a team defender and he understands scheme very very well so he’s good at pressuring the ball he’s good at using his length off of the ball but he’s still small you know he’s still like a guy who’s like working on his strength so in isolations he can get bullied a little bit and so I wonder how tenable that is in the modern NBA when we see guard and point of attack defense being that much more important as we’ve seen in OKC and Indiana, etc., etc. Um, that’s just like a personal question I have for him moving forward. But in terms of utility on this Raptors team and what he provides, uh, I’m looking at at his pick and roll numbers from last year and basically he was very good at everything pick and roll related. 76 percentile in terms of pick and roll points per uh, possession, 76 percentile in terms of frequency. like he ran a lot of pick and rolls and the Raptors scored a lot out of pick and rolls when he was handling the ball. And that is not that’s not like inconsequential because if you look at the Raptors efficiency in basically every category, they were bottom of the league in every play type offensively. Uh they didn’t run a ton of pick and roll. They were bottom they’ve been bottom 10 in pick and roll frequency for the last two years. I’m very curious if that changes because Brandon Ingram is a high frequency pick and roll player because Quickley is a good pick and roll player and I think the machinations of him uh being used as a screener for Scotty Barnes being used as a screener for Brandon Ingram. That’s another aspect that they can play with a lot more. And so like Quickly just adds a level of versatility to this team. Uh I I remember I I am high on IQ because when he got traded I was like this is a guy who’s gonna maybe be an all-star and um who knows if that is possible. I like obviously the the amount of talent on this team now maybe he doesn’t have the usage necessary to get to allstar level but in terms of like impact I could see him being very very impactful on this Raptors team just because of what he provides for a team that doesn’t necessarily have it elsewhere. Yeah. And like the numbers under the hood with him on the floor were all much better than when he was off. Yeah, they still lost his minutes when he was on the floor, but it was only by like a couple points per 100 uh for a team that was clearly not trying. And I I think he just does stuff to grease along winning basketball even defensively, right? Like look, I don’t think he drove these numbers. I think it’s cuz he played a lot with Scotty Barnes and Yaka Purle who were incredible on the floor together defensively. But, you know, he had the third best onoff metrics in terms of defense as well. He wasn’t taking anything off the table necessarily. Again, yeah, you want to have good point of attack defense. Sure. I also think if you can get away with it, you know, with not having an incredible defender at any position, it’s probably at that at the league guard spot. And I think what he’s going to provide to the team offensively just totally counteracts any negative he’s giving you on the defensive end, especially considering he’s a good team defender. He can, you know, swipe for steal, stuff like that. Yeah. you know, in terms of like I want to ask you like what do you think is the thing he got best like improved at the most last season compared to where he was at with the Knicks? I think there’s a few areas that we can go here. But yeah, um there’s a couple things that I I think, you know, going back and like I watched every single one of his assists and turnovers this year. By the way, another important thing about him, he never turns the ball over. He is a ball security wizard. He is like 3 to one uh assist to turnover ratio. You love to see that from your league guard. um going back and watching all his assists, all his turnovers, a lot of his playmaking, you know, you know, opportunities, you know, there’s a few things I think that kind of popped off the screen. I’m curious if there’s anything for you that stood out as like, oh yeah, that like tangibly did get better for him last year. I would probably say the pick and roll playmaking. Uh like especially when he was paired with Yaka Purle, uh like good screener, so he’s able to get downhill more often again, drive the ball, make decisions off of the go. And I think that’s probably thing that’s like evolving for him. It’s not perfect yet, but on the-go decision- making with a live dribble is really, really important to what quickly will eventually be. Um, it’s funny because I kind of liken it to uh Fred Van Vleet post championship where it was like you saw every year he got a little bit better at on the-go playmaking and now you see I mean he’s he’s he was one of the engines for the Rockets offense last year, right? So, I think generally you see small improvements in those areas every season and it gets to the point where you’re like, “Okay, now this guy can be a real lead guard for you.” But it takes time. You know, it is a lot about like being in the film room, understanding Reeds. Um, and I think that’s probably the big thing that we saw from him is the playmaking, is the pick and roll playmaking and like using that as a threat for the Raptors offensively. In terms of everything else, I’m I’m like I think there’s like the shooting utility is just cannot be stressed enough, you know, and especially like the pull-up shooting especially is really important for him because you know for for it’s funny because his name is quickly but like in general he’s a very like slow and proddding guy. Like he’s not slow but he prods you know he’s very decisive. That helps with the assist to turnover ratio actually. Yeah. So, his decision-m is very like methodical, and in order to be methodical, like you need to have a lethal weapon that you can use. Shout out, great movie. Um, you need to have a lethal weapon to use, and that pull-up shooting is so lethal because of what he can do in the pick and roll when he has that little bit of daylight when Yakob sets a screen. So, it all kind of comes together in one thing. But to me, it’s probably the playmaking, pick and roll. Yeah, I think so. It’s sort of an interesting thing where I think the thing he maybe needs to improve upon the most and the thing he did get better at which I think is that sort of live dribble playmaking stuff like they’re kind of entwined a little bit. The thing I think he kind of could stand to improve the most as a creator is just like getting into stuff faster because I do think once he get gets into the stuff he is like you know head on a swivel making those quick reads making the right right play most of the time. I think where he gets himself in trouble is he just kind of limits the amount of time on the clock for the team to work with because he’ll kind of do the five six second dribble thing waiting to find that advantage and I think slowing Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. It’s not just a quickly thing too. It’s kind of like a team ethos thing as well. But you know obviously you got the ball in your hands. You’re the one who’s driving the ship here. You got to have that internal clock. Like I have compared the way he plays and sort of the impact he can have to like Mike Connley where it’s like this like three-point shooting and playmaking. He’s not like your lead scoring option necessarily, but he can do it all for you. I think Connley obviously is so far advanced as just like a guy who understands the beats and rhythms of every single possession. That’s a thing Quickly needs to refine. And hey, maybe he never gets there. Mike Conley is a basketball genius, but I do think just like getting into the stuff quicker will allow that quick twitch decision-m to kind of shine a little bit more. And in the Raptors offense, I mean, the way they run it, the more time you have to kind of compile advantages, the more effective it’s going to be. And I think now that you have Brandon Ingram, now that you have um guys maybe sort of occupying roles that are more befitting of their talents, I think there’s a chance that that sort of snowball effect can even be even more obvious and and apparent if they can just get into their stuff faster. So, that’s where I think Quickly needs to improve the most. But, I’m totally with you. like going back and looking at his assists even at the turnovers. Like he’s making quick decisions on the fly with a live dribble. He’s not doing the pick it up 18 feet away thing and resetting and all of that. Like there was a lot of just like all right, I’m going to make this like very slick quick skip pass to the corner to keep the possession alive when I draw the help over or uh you know he’s finding ways to get to floater range and make the play out of there or the pick and roll stuff I think really came along as well. It’s Yeah, I I I think there is like a pretty solid, not incredible, not top of the league, not all-star playmaker, but yeah, you make $ 32 and half million dollars a year, you’re not being paid to be an all-star in the modern NBA. We need to have the sticker shock go away. This is just not what that amount of money is equating to anymore. It’s the Y absolutely. Um, so yeah, let’s uh come back on the other side. I want to get into specifically the fit with Brandon Ingram and Scotty Barnes and how those guys can help elevate one another. We’ll do that to close up the show in just one sec. All right, back at it here with Espar Henny from the Athletic NBA Daily and Raptors Republic and the CBL and all over the damn place. And uh yeah, let’s get into the Scotty Quickly Ingram Triforce, if you will, because those three guys I think are going to carry the day for this offense at the end of the day. RJ Barrett’s in there, too. I think RJ Barrett’s kind of the the sore thumb fit with that group and, you know, I think they’ll probably stagger to that effect pretty pretty pretty aggressively, I think, is kind of what it’s going to be. But I I do think the the sort of meshing of skills between Quickly, Ingram, and Barnes is quite nice. Obviously, a big storyline for last year that we kind of didn’t really get a full look at because of the false start upon false start for quickly to start the year was the sort of long game of bringing along IQ and Barnes’ chemistry. Uh what did you make of the strides they did or did not make last year in terms of their connection and what are you looking for from them this coming season and what can a healthy quickly you think provide to sort of elevate what Scotty Barnes is doing? Yeah, the Raptors did not use Scotty as uh screener that often last year just because he was so on the ball and like the use like they he even talked about it like they were experimenting a ton with what he could do on the ball and so they didn’t really necessarily have him be utilized as a screener, be utilized as an offball player. I imagine we see much more of that uh next season just because of Brandon Ingram but also because of Emanuel Quickley and also they didn’t run so they even when they had IQ roaming off ball they didn’t really have him be utilized as a screener for Scotty. It was more frequently Grady Jacobe had it a few times, but if I I’d have to check the numbers, but I feel like Quickly would probably be third in the pecking order in terms of being used as a screener for Scotty. And that probably needs to change and I think it will because of Brandon Ingram because now you have a secondary ball handler wing type who also could use those screens. Uh, and I think he’ll work really, really well off of that. The other thing is like the three-point attempts got to go up in my opinion. If you’re a guy that is as good as quickly as a three-point shooter, he took six and a half last year, 7.6 last year, uh, the year before that with the Raptors. He’s been about that throughout his career, like six six and a half. I would like for it to eventually be like 8, nine a game, you know? Uh, and part of that will be his offball utility, playing with other guys, getting more open shots. Uh, and I think BI will absolutely help with him getting that that uh percentage and attempts up a little bit. Yeah, and I do think it’s important to remember like his number, his minutes were kind of suppressed last year because of the injury management and the tanking. Uh, he was at 8.8 per 36 uh three-point attempts, which was his highest since his rookie year. So, encouraging there, but hey, bring that even higher, man. Let it rip, man. And I do think like they’re just going to be better looks for him with Brandon Ingram on the floor as well. And I do think again they’re going to unlock a lot of that offball stuff for him too where I think that’s frankly um where he can get like a huge portion of that volume. You know, the pull-up stuff is great. It’s not always the easiest to get that shot off, especially when it’s being game plan 4 and you have a bit of a slower release like IQ does. Though I do think the release thing is kind of maybe a little overblown with him. Like stuff goes in. He puts it up a lot. Like he’s an elite shooter the way the way it operates, right? This is this is pretty crazy. So I’m just looking at the numbers now while we talk. Okay, so catch and shoot numbers last year for Emanuel Quickley, 38% total on 116 attempts. But then if you look a little bit closer on guarded catch andoot threes, he shot 22%. On unguarded catch-and shoot threes, he shot 45%. So like very very good when he has daylight. And I do think BI will be able to provide him a little bit more daylight to be able to create those shots. We actually saw it when BI used to play with Trey Murphy and with Herb Jones. Like they would get tons of open corner threes and above the breakthroughs and like those guys are bigger so they do have more opportunity to just rise up over the competition. But I think Quickley can do the exact same. So just more of that please. you know, totally. And and I think like, you know, to the point of him being used as a screener more often, like we saw it like it totally unlocks things when he’s like doing the ghost screen thing and flaring to the wing or you can run split actions with him. Like he is just like he’s a guy that teams are terrified of and I think um he can be someone who can create advantages for others elsewhere even when he’s not on the ball because of that gravity. It’s uh it’s a nice skill to have. Hopefully he can play lots of games. I think he probably will because he played 73 games a year before last season was the outlier bad season from hell. Just a weird year for him and honestly started off as poorly as it possibly could have with ass crunching on opening night. Yeah. Like they I I think that was you know to compound all the contract conversations with the year that he had didn’t help. You know, if it was just like hey he played 82 games and the Raptors tanked and like he had a good year. I don’t think we’d be having this referendum about his contract. Um, it really is just because of the injuries and and how it kind of followed up on the contract stuff. That’s why it’s kind of unfortunate. You know, injured does not equal bad. Money in the jar. Um, one of the things kind of going back and watching his assists, a thing that stood out to me is like maybe a secret good skill of Quickleys that’s going to I think be even more important this year as Scotty Barnes kind of transitions to a bit of a different role. Quickley’s kind of an awesome entry passer going back like there’s a lot of just like beautifully lofted in delicate uh like perfectly in the pocket entry passes on the tape to Scotty Barnes in particular. And I think um as Scotty probably operates a little bit more from the post this season, I think we’re going to see a lot of small ball with him at the five where he’s going to get to kind of clear out and do his thing from the elbows. Like I think that is an a low-key pretty important skill. The lost start of the entry pass. Another thing that stood out to me too and just sort of thinking about quickly in Brandon Ingram, there’s a whole lot of that sort of pitch play where it’s kind of semi-transition and quickly pitches it back to Scotty and he bricks a a straightaway three. Like I think you put Ingram in that position and you just kind of work those two in a two-man game a little more often. I think like you replace a lot of those pitch plays. Um you know, Ingram in place of Scotty, that’s going to be a lot of quick instant offense for the team, too. Which leads me to ask you like obviously a big part of the success of this team is going to be Ingram’s ability to buy into some offball play. How do you think quickly is going to inform whether that goes smoothly or not? because I think that’s a pretty big component of what Quickley can provide to this team. A and I think obviously, you know, Ingram is just going to have to buy in and adapt his game a little bit to fit the way the Raptors play and to, you know, modernize his modernize his game a little bit. How do you think quickly plays into that? Just on the Ingram note, like I I think the catch and shoot volume will be there. Like if you I I tweeted this a while ago, but like 70% of BI’s three-point attempts throughout his career have been catch and shoot attempts and he shot 40% on those. The reason he’s a damn good shooter, man. Really good shooter. It actually the the issue there is that his catch andoot volume every year has gone down. And that’s that’s partially because of scheme. That’s partially because the Pelicans have put the ball in his hands more often. That he’s been a pick and roll playmaker more often. So he has to be a pull-up shooter, but I do think he will have more time off ball just to be because the Raptors are all about quick decision-m five offense, etc., etc. You’ll just be able to move off of the ball more often. To the quickly point, uh, I think it’ll be very, very important for him to not only pressure the defense from above the break, but also weaponize the corners. Uh, and I think it’s very important for a creator like Brandon Ingram to have shooters out in the corners that he can rely on because they are like genuinely release valves for him. So, he’s operating in the middle of the floor most of the time. Middle of the floor is a very hard place to guard on defense. You think about Joel Embiid, you know, MVP season. It was ab above the free throw line, making tons of decisions, being a guy who can weaponize his strength and his playmaking and his shotmaking from that area. It’s so hard to guard from there because you don’t know which way to send help from. And so Brandon Ingram can do similar things because of his mid-range ability. Uh Pascal Seakum was very similar in that realm because he could catch it in that area and it was hard to double. you didn’t know where to send doubles from and so it created a lot of opportunities for Fred Van Vleet. I think the same thing applies to Emanuel Quickley where you need to be spaced out to the corners and be able to take that shot pretty frequently. But also like above the break spacing is very important also when you have a a post guy like Scotty Barnes who can, you know, punish mismatches. And so that as a release valve is very important. It’s just about moving off the ball. I think for Quickly it’s like he’s gotten used to being an onball player over the last couple years. How can you kind of zip back and forth from the mentality of oho hey I have to like operate a pick and roll now but now when BI has the ball I have to shift and try to run around a bunch to get an opening you know. Yeah. Like the stuff when you go back and watch him on the Knicks like I really liked those Knicks teams when Quickly was first coming up. um kind of a little sicko for those not very good but you know plucky Knicks teams and the jitterbug energy of quickly off the ball was just so palpable. Yeah, he had some on ball duties when he was in off the bench as well. But like where he was at his best was he gets rid of the ball and all of a sudden he appears on the weak side corner and he’s banging a three on you out of nowhere because he’s fast, he’s elusive, he can get around screens. And I I I think he’s just like a Yeah. Like there’s a there’s a blend of the on ball stuff and the offball stuff for him that I think just makes him a better player. Sort of some of its parts style. Like there’s just Yeah. I I I think you you don’t find guards who have that sort of um two-faced play essentially that that quickly can provide. And I yeah, I think it’s uh there’s a real recipe here for for it to work. Obviously, the spacing’s got to be right elsewhere. Um you know, I think, you know, if RJ Barrett’s in the starting five, like dude’s got to be eager to take a lot of threes and move and uh take more threes and hopefully hit them. Um, they have to continue to be creative with how they manufacture space with Yaka Purle on the floor next to Scotty Barnes. Again, I think there’s going to be a lot of Scotty at the five in the backup minutes with when when Purle is sitting just because it allows them to create space and have more shooting injected. You know, would I love to see Grady Dick supplant RJ Barrett in the starting five at some point just for the three-point juice. Wouldn’t hate that at all. Maybe there’s a defensive drop back there, but I think the offense could be pretty damn potent in that situation. Like I do like that this team has all kinds of different skill sets to blend together. It’s not like they have a whole bunch of two-way guys who you can just throw out in any iteration, but I do think there’s enough in terms of like stratified to one end of the spectrum skill sets that they can find some fun balance with their guys if they get the mixing mixing and matching right. Um but back back to the point of Ingram, yeah, like I think there is a real world in which he’s damn effective as an offball player. I think the escape from New Orleans thing is real. Uh, I think it’s just like clean slate, fresh start. I’m totally fine to um sort of view him without all that baggage because that’s a lot of baggage and a franchise that just seemingly has no idea what it’s doing. Um, I’m hopeful and yeah, I think Quickly again is going to be pretty essential to making that experiment work as well. Uh, S, man, thanks so much for jumping on the show, dude. It’s always a pleasure. Anything you want to promote for the good people out there? Uh, yeah. We’re I’m doing these like individual breakdown expectation type of things for Raptors Republic for each player in the rotation. Um I’ve done Grady Dick, I’ve done Brandon Ingram, and I’ve done RJ Barrett so far. Next week will be Emanuel Quickley. So, if you are still interested in IQ stuff, be on the lookout for that. Yeah, appreciate you, man. Thank you. Of course, brother. I love love love having you always and uh we’ll see you soon. Hopefully around uh I guess media day is like not that far away. It’s Yeah, it’s like it’s like month and six six weeks, but please don’t remind me. You know, I’m excited. I’m not trying to wish that time away by any six weeks will be I’m relishing these six weeks. These will be fun. Six weeks. Do it up, play a video game, read a book, do both. Uh it’s all there for you. Uh we’ll leave you there. Thank you so much, everyone. We’ll be back again on Friday. Haven’t quite ironed out what it’ll be. I’m hoping to get one of our new locked NBA draft guys on the show from the No Ceilings crew. They they’re doing locked on stuff now and hopefully we can get someone on from that team to talk Colin Murray Boils a little bit because I haven’t talked much Colin Murray Boils. I wasn’t here when he got drafted and I want to deep dive into him a little bit and what we can expect in year number one. Uh, you know, might do some other stuff. I mean, the schedule I guess comes out today. I’m not one for looking at the schedule and discussing the games played in a pre pre-prescribed order against all the same teams who play every year, but uh maybe there’s some stuff that we can get into there. Maybe they don’t have the Hell Gauntlet through the first 50 games they had last year. Wouldn’t that be awesome? Um, we’ll leave it there. Thanks so much. Go to the Discord link in the description of the podcast. Follow, subscribe, rate, review, go to the YouTube channel, subscribe over there if you haven’t yet. Much appreciated. Talk to you Friday. Thanks for hanging. Bye. Damn it.

He’s not the best player on the Toronto Raptors, but there’s a strong case to be made that Immanuel Quickley is the most important player to the Toronto Raptors’ success this coming year. In Episode 1924, Sean Woodley and Es Baraheni (The Athletic NBA Daily, Raptors Republic, CEBL) to talk about Quickley’s importance to the Raptors and why he’s in line to have a very good season if he can stay healthy. They chat about why Quickley’s unique skillset on the Raptors’ roster is essential to the team playing functional basketball, the strides he made in an abbreviated first full season as the team’s lead guard, the playmaking steps he’s taken and what he still needs to improve, and why his off-ball play figures to be a much more potent weapon this coming year than it was given room to be last year. Lastly, Sean and Es chat about Quickley, Scottie Barnes and Brandon Ingram’s on-court connection, how IQ can help the team’s two best players, and how they can unlock him even more.

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