V Thoughts: Agbaji's leap, Mogbo's leaps, Dick's coming of age

Looking at some bigger picture things a third of the season in

Hi, you’re probably wondering what happened to takeaways from the game between Toronto and Chicago.

I didn’t think there was anything significant and new enough to take away other than the way Jamal Shead stood out in the fourth quarter comeback attempt. The transition defence was bad, there should have been a big advantage in terms of paint scoring but the Raptors were only a plus-6 there while expectedly losing the 3-point battle by 15 points.

Raptors fans also have another injury to worry about as Jakob Poeltl slipped when sliding over into the paint and hurt his groin. He’ll undergo testing and and there may be an update at Tuesday’s practice.

Instead, I wanted to put together bigger thoughts I’ve had around certain players or the team in general a third of the way through the season. I’ve left off the likes of Scottie Barnes, RJ Barrett, and Immanuel Quickley because I’d rather save it for when they actually play together (and I’ve touched on them enough individually in the game-to-game takeaways). Hope you enjoy, and if you do, share :)

Pogo Mogbo

Jonathan Mogbo is the knight in shining armour to Spalding’s damsel in distress.

Whether he or a teammate is shooting it, Mogbo is the first one to try and anticipate how and where he can get the basketball back. His second jump is something that has stood out to me from the beginning and — in combination with his amazing anticipation — can set himself apart for years to come.

The 23-year-old currently gobbles up 12.5% of the Raptors’ missed field goal attempts, placing him in the 84th percentile among big men in the league. Let’s remind ourselves that this is an undersized big at 6-foot-6.

In the first play below, Mogbo puts up a right-handed floater off the left foot, and even with Jakob Poeltl inside says, nope, I’ve got the inside track and momentum going towards the basket so I’ll just take off with two feet and dunk it down with my left. In the second play, Mogbo is battling Trey Lyles and once he’s able to tap the ball up he knows there’s no way Lyles is beating him in a second jump battle. In the last clip of the three below, he doesn’t get the offensive rebound but I thought it showcases how great he can be on the second leap considering that on this play he’s battling LeBron James and Jaxson Hayes.

I also wanted to show this final clip from the NBA Cup game against the Bucks. Not only does Mogbo perfectly re-time his jump because the ball bounces off the rim a couple times, he then is able to recover as he looses the handle to grab it before it goes out of bounds and throw it off Pat Connaughton to maintain possession of the ball.

Never fear, Spalding. Pogo Mogbo will always be by your side.

Offensive rebounding like it’s Vision 6’9”

Mogbo’s efforts have been an important factor in the Raptors putting up the second-best offensive rebound rate (32.9%) in the NBA, per Cleaning the Glass (CTG).

I mentioned Mogbo’s terrific 12.5% offensive rebound rate on field goals missed earlier, Jakob Poeltl and Bruno Fernando are actually tied for the team lead just above him at 12.7%. Scottie Barnes’s 5.9% rate puts him in the 86th percentile among forwards.

If in the little time you’ve watched Ja’Kobe Walter you’ve noticed someone with a nose for the ball, you may be onto something. The ever active rookie has a 4.2% rate which would put him in the 96th percentile among combo guards. That’s the position CTG has currently assigned to him though he’s probably better off listed as a wing.

This is an area the Raptors are unexpectedly excelling in after ranking 17th in the category a season ago. We saw the potential for it in the pre-season and now 27 games in we can see it’s a clear piece of the identity.

Come for Agbaji’s corner threes, stay for the drives

It’s important to remember what Agbaji’s starting point was this summer to properly assess where he’s at now.

As a Raptor, Agbaji shot 26% on his corner threes and 19% from above the break. The corner number wasn’t reflective of his capabilities, as he shot 46.2% from that area of the floor during his time in Utah. Toronto did identify flaws in his technique, though, and felt addressing it in the summer would help him become a more dependable shooter and possibly allow him to steadily expand beyond the corner.

Not only is Agbaji shooting 51% on his corner threes this season, he’s also made 13-of-36 (36%) from above the break. He sat at 25.8% for his NBA career on non-corner threes entering this season. Now, 36 attempts is pretty insignificant from a sample size significance perspective, but it speaks to his shot selection, too.

Which is where appreciating his drive game is just as important as the 3-point shooting. The Raptors saw a great cutter when Agbaji arrived in Toronto and said, hey, if he can figure out cutting angles and has enough athleticism to take advantage of them, he can do the same off the bounce as well.

Agbaji has been really good in transition this season but it’s these plays where he’s able to either attack a poor closeout or off a dribble hand-off are really important skills to have. Even with the outside shooting improvement, the jumper isn’t always going to be there. If these attacks off the dribble can sustain, it’s another layer alongside his cutting and transition game that can form a solid base for his offensive game.

Dick ahead of schedule

Again, if you look back to last season, the challenge most laid out for Dick was to expand his game beyond corner threes.

Last year, just over two-fifths of Dick’s long-range attempts came from the corner. This year, that number is down to a quarter of his attempts and his non-corner shooting percentage has improved from 31% to 36%. It’s possible that percentage is even higher if the team was healthy and he didn’t have to take some of the shots he’s taken under duress.

That’s been a great development in and of itself, but he’s really shown off a well-rounded scoring ability by using his gravity to attack closeouts, sidestep defenders, step into the mid-range, or go all the way to the basket. His career-high 16 free-throw attempts against the Milwaukee Bucks earlier in the season were a great illustration of how he can manufacture points in different ways.

Dick has become a certified bucket getter and may just be the most dynamic scoring option on the team not named Quickley. Offensively, he’s where one might’ve hoped he’d be a couple years from now and that’s huge progression.

What’s next? Improve his finishing around the basket where he’s only at 49% for the season and make progress towards being at least a net-neutral defender.

How good are the Raptors, really?

We have been teased throughout the season, watching the Raptors compete with nearly every team but finding different ways to lose close games. All told, the Raptors are now 7-20 with a 6-8 record at home and 1-12 on the road.

What would it look like if the projected starting five of Immanuel Quickley-Gradey Dick-RJ Barrett-Scottie Barnes-Jakob Poeltl had played 200-plus minutes instead of the zero to this point? You’d like to think that’s worth at least five wins. Instead of the wins, we’ve seen accelerated growth for Agbaji, Dick, and even Barrett’s playmaking. Opportunities for Mogbo and Walter have been significant, too. It’s fair to wonder how much any of that matters if what I believe to be the true core of Barnes, Quickley, and Dick have only played eight minutes together.

I do think it’s fair to say that the individual progression different players have shown suggests this team is actually further along than expected and could actually be a .500 team with a normal degree of health. That’s a credit to Darko Rajakovic and the coaching staff as development is the biggest metric they’re being measured on. Frankly, that makes the prospect of adding a top five draft pick to this roster all the more tantalizing.

Some might remember my season preview where I predicted the Raptors to be around 7-18 at the 25-game mark and around 15-35 at the 50-game mark:

Barnes may be back sooner than expected but with Poeltl possibly out for a little bit and Quickley still without a timetable, being 20 games under .500 a couple months from now seems very much in play. I think it would be suboptimal to pursue a Play-In spot if that were to be the case, but let’s see how things play out.