Immanuel Quickley is doing more with less for the Raptors

"There are two ways a doctor can treat a patient. He or she can of course prescribe medicine or solutions of any kind. You go in with a janked elbow, the doctor can offer an X-ray and medication and the whole kit and caboodle. Or, of course, if you go in with a janked elbow and tell the doctor, "it hurts when I move it this way," the doctor can say, "don't move it that way.""

"In the NBA, players can improve broadly in those same two ways, too. They can address their weaknesses, turn them into strengths, and evolve as players. Or they can just stop doing the things that they're bad (relatively) at. So far this preseason, it seems Immanuel Quickley is choosing the latter solution. There's no publicly available tracking data from preseason, so we're working mostly off the eye test here, in conjunction with extrapolated concepts from box-score stats."

"But broadly, Quickley has seen far less primacy on the offensive end, and he has expended far more effort on the defensive end. Again, this isn't tracked publicly, and I haven't counted to prove this; however, I trust my eye test for generalities like this, and it's quite clear that Quickley's touches are way down on a per-minute basis. He is running fewer primary actions, dribbling less, holding less, and just generally doing less. Yet! His shots per 36 minutes are only slightly down ( 16.8 per 36 so far this preseason versus 17.2 last season), and his 3-pointer attempts are actually up. ( My prediction may actually come true this year.)"

"The real area in which the changes to Quickley's game are evident is in his assists per game. He's averaging fewer than half as many per 36 minutes as compared to last season. (And before you say it's only because it's preseason, he averaged as many last preseason as compared to this one.) Quickley is seeing less of the ball, making fewer choices, and generally finding his own place within the flow of the offence rather than determining everyone else's. That is manifestin"

Immanuel Quickley has reduced offensive primacy and is allocating more effort to defense during the preseason. Observations rely on the eye test and extrapolated box-score concepts due to lack of public tracking data. Quickley is touching the ball less, running fewer primary actions, dribbling and holding the ball less, and making fewer playmaking choices. Shots per 36 minutes have only slightly declined while three-point attempts have increased. Assists per 36 minutes have fallen to fewer than half of last season's rate, indicating a shift from determining the offense to fitting within its flow.

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