On Thursday evening, Scottie Barnes and the Toronto Raptors returned from the All-Star break for a home game against their Atlantic division rivals, the Brooklyn Nets, at home in Toronto. The Raptors haven't been able to compile wins very consistently so far on the 2023-24 NBA season, but Barnes has turned himself into a (literal) All-Star in his third season with the franchise.
Of course, one of the players for the Nets, and arguably their best player, is none other than former Villanova Wildcat Mikal Bridges, who has a signature in good fun celebration he does whenever he hits a three pointer. On Thursday evening, Barnes hit a three in the early going against the Nets, and immediately taunted Bridges with the famous, or infamous, gesture.
(Video courtesy of Rob Perez on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter).
right in mikal’s face 2 minutes after the all-star break pic.twitter.com/YnEGfmIcJh
— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) February 23, 2024
As previously mentioned, Barnes was rewarded for his efforts so far in 2023-24 with a spot in this year's All-Star game, which took place this past weekend in Indianapolis. Scottie Barnes also participated in the skills challenge competition the prior evening, teaming up with fellow All-Stars Trae Young of the Atlanta Hawks and Tyrese Maxey of the Philadelphia 76ers.
In any case, priority number one for the Raptors moving forward would appear to be finding ways to restructure the team around the excellent talent that is Barnes, which the team has partially already started doing, making themselves younger by acquiring Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett from the New York Knicks prior to the trade deadline.
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