TORONTO — Just when the off-season vision of the Toronto Raptors was finally taking shape in real-time, a chill went through Scotiabank Arena.

It was hard to miss Scottie Barnes — the Raptors player upon whom the hopes for any kind of success the season might bring lie heaviest — running up the tunnel to the locker room, huddled over holding his left hand.

Not good.

Barnes plays a rugged style, but he’s been vulnerable to hand and finger problems. He missed the last 22 games of the 2023-24 season with a broken bone in his hand that required surgery. He said earlier this season that a lot of the problems he had shooting last season (he was a career-worst 27.1 per cent from three) were in part due to multiple finger injuries he played through.

There might have been something to that. Com

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