Toronto Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic didn’t hold back when talking about Scottie Barnes during a recent interview in his native Serbia.
Rajakovic has long been a believer in Barnes, but his latest praise took things to another level. In explaining how elite players help great coaches become great, he drew a line from Phil Jackson to Michael Jordan - then made his own comparison.
“I think there is no coach and there is no success for a coach without players. They all became great coaches by taking care of their players.
You look at all our greatest coaches, who are fantastic, coaches, thinkers, philosophers, workers and eveyrthing else, none of them became without they all became great coaches by taking care of the players, and I think that’s on every level. Whether it’s the Euroleague, whether it’s the NBA, it’s Phil Jackson.
There’s no Phil Jackson without Michael Jordan. My Michael Jordan is Scottie Barnes.”
Rajakovic didn’t mean Barnes was Jordan as a player. He was making a point about the kind of franchise cornerstone a coach needs in order to make his system work. And in Barnes, Rajakovic sees exactly that.
“That’s one fantastic person. A young guy with a big heart.
A great worker. I am also very grateful for him.
And again, how god arranged it. Yes, everything, as I see basketball going on to play basketball, he does that too see.
He is one of the very, very rare players throughout the NBA.”
He went even further in describing Barnes’ value, pointing to the way he embraces the dirty work and puts defense first.
“What is that level of player, an all-star player? A Franchise player who wants to play pressing the entire field, whose priority is defense, and the first thing about him is that, and that’s something that makes my job much easier. That he is different, that he has different priorities and does other things.”
Barnes backed up that praise throughout the 2025-26 season. In 80 games, the 25-year-old averaged 18.1 points, 7.5 rebounds, 5.9 assists, 1.4 steals, and 1.5 blocks while shooting 50.7% from the field.
His influence stretched well beyond the box score. Barnes was the only player in the NBA last season to post 100 blocks and 100 steals, and that two-way impact helped him finish fifth in DPOY voting while earning his first All-Defensive selection.
He then turned it up again in the playoffs. Against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round, Barnes averaged 24.1 points, 6.1 rebounds, 8.6 assists, 1.1 steals, and 1.7 blocks per game.
That run fit the bigger picture for Toronto. The Raptors went 46-36, finished with the fifth-best record in the East, and returned to the playoffs after a four-year absence. Barnes was at the center of it all, giving Rajakovic the kind of player every coach dreams of having: a star who makes the vision real.
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