RJ Barrett's Minutes Are Up 10 a Night for Toronto
With a teammate out, Barrett is logging more minutes and more points, and whether that holds depends on who comes back.
RJ Barrett is playing 10 more minutes a night for the Raptors than usual. Over his last three games, through May 3, he has averaged 41.6 minutes. That is a jump from his season mark of 31.2 minutes across 64 games in 2025-26. The extra time on the floor lines up with a teammate being out.
The minutes bump has come with more scoring. Barrett has averaged 24 points a game over that same three-game stretch. His season average is 19.8 points. Both numbers moved together, which points to a bigger role rather than just a hot shooting night.
For this to hold, the teammate who is out needs to stay out. A role built on someone else's absence is only as durable as that absence. If that player returns to the lineup, Barrett's minutes and scoring load have less reason to stay elevated, and both would likely settle back toward his season numbers.
If the increased workload continues past these three games, it becomes harder to call it a short-term fill-in stretch and easier to call it a real change in how the Raptors are using him in 2025-26. The next few games, and whether that teammate is on the floor for them, will answer which one it is.