Scottie Barnes and the Toronto Raptors are just under a month away from beginning their path to winning the franchise’s second NBA championship. Now that Toronto’s first Finals MVP, Kawhi Leonard, is back with the Raptors, the superstar duo will lead a team of young, hungry role players who are destined to prove their worth this season.

Before acquiring Leonard, the Raptors were viewed as one of the teams in the middle of the Eastern Conference. The upside was the aggressive and physical defensive scheme initiated by head coach Darko Rajakovic and led by Barnes. Seeing the franchise cornerstone be at the forefront of every defensive tactic allowed for the role players to excel as they followed in his footsteps. This overall impact earned Scottie Barnes fifth place in the Defensive Player of the Year voting, however just Second-Team All-Defense.

Now set to share the floor with a two-time DPOY winner in Leonard, his ceiling can only be raised as he continues to learn every day at practice. After being snubbed from the three All-NBA teams as well, there’s no doubt Barnes will have a mission this season: to be the best player on both ends for a championship-caliber team.

A group of writers from ESPN compiled a list ranking the 30 NBA franchises by their outlook over the next three years. Along with an explanation of the ranking came a bold prediction, and what was stated for the Raptors may not seem as outlandish as the other franchises. Taking over the Raptors' final prediction was Ben Golliver, and he believes in a bright future for the former No. 4 pick in the 2021 NBA draft. 

Predicting a player to win an award simply because of another player potentially having injury issues isn’t right, but there’s a different aspect that people may not be thinking of. Whether the media wants to admit it or not, voter fatigue is real. It’s the reason guys like Michael Jordan and LeBron James don’t have 10 MVPs each. Wembanyama may be the favorite to win the DPOY award every year until he retires, but the voters will eventually get tired of him winning every year. Is that going to happen in the next three years? Maybe only if he wins the next two, which would make it three in a row, thus opening the door for Barnes to win in 2029.

Getting back to why Barnes can actually win the award rather than having it fall down to him, his versatility provides more impact than Wembanyama in certain aspects. The former No. 1 pick in the 2023 NBA draft is still very young (22), and it’s only a matter of time before teams start to figure out ways to bring him to the perimeter and out of the paint, where he excels. Alternatively, there is no area that teams can exploit Barnes on defense; he can pick up the ball outside, stop the post down low, roam the paint on help defense, clog the passing lanes while denying his man, attack the glass for defensive rebounds, and push the pace in transition. The one thing that the Raptors need to do in order to emphasize these abilities to the voters is simple: just win games.