Quick

Today at 11:56 PM

TORONTO — How good is Immanuel Quickley, really?

Objectively he should be at least 'NBA starting point guard' good. That's what the Raptors were betting on when they signed him for five years and $162.5 million this past summer, or $32.5 million per season.

Given that number represents about 23 per cent of the $140.6 million NBA salary cap, the math says Quickley should be better than that. Then again, by the end of the contract based on where the cap is heading, the Raptors guard's salary will only be about 15.8 per cent of what is projected to be a $205.8 million cap in 2028-29.

(Side note: $205.8 million!?!?)

If everything works out the Raptors will be getting surplus value for Quickley by then, given he will only be 29 years old in the final year of his deal and theoretically still in his prime. 

Safe to say that Quickley will have some make good payments to deliver in the back half of the deal given that his first full season in Toronto has been somewhat of a mess, through no fault of his own.

Quickley returned to the lineup on Friday night as the red-hot Raptors — winners of five straight and seven of their past eight — hosted the Chicago Bulls, losers of eight of their past 10.

The different trajectories of the two teams meant the Raptors, after going 8-31 in their first 40 games, remained just 4.5 games behind Chicago for the final play-in spot in the Eastern Conference.

But having Quickley in the lineup hasn't exactly been a boon to the Raptors’ fortunes this season. With the Bulls fairly comfortable 122-106-win Friday, Toronto is now 1-9 in the 10 games Quickley has played.

Scottie Barnes led the Raptors with 20 points (8-of-20 from the floor), 10 rebounds and five assists, while RJ Barrett had 19 points and nine rebounds. To no one's real surprise Barnes, an All-Star last season, was left off the Eastern Conference All-Star team on Thursday even though he's played some of his best basketball of late: "It hurts a little bit. The year’s not going as we want it to go … It is what it is. I’m still blessed to be in the position I’m in and blessed to be alive."

The winning has helped, but that could be coming to an end with the Raptors facing a tough run of opponents between now and the All-Star break. Maybe Quickley will help. It's admittedly a bit cheap to point out that the Raptors’ best stretch in a lost season — the past eight games when the Raptors won seven and seemingly overnight turned into an Eastern Conference juggernaut with the NBA's best defence — started when Quickley went down with his latest injury and ended when he returned.

The loss dropped the Raptors to 15-33 on the season while the Bulls improved to 21-28 and pulled five-and-a-half games up in the race for 10^th place, not that the Raptors are actively trying to win that race

But as for Quickley's individual win-loss record, it's one of those moments when correlation doesn't mean causation, or something like that. But it's still weird.

And for his part, Quickley was quite good against Chicago as he finished with 14 points, four rebounds and two assists on five-of-eight shooting in 15 minutes, which was part of a plan to ramp him up slowly after dealing with what he said was a nagging groin strain. For the night Quickley was three-of-five from deep and looked fit and sharp.

"I mean playing with great players, it's not hard to really fit in with the guys," said Quickley later. "You know with the standard they've been setting while I was out defensively, [I'm] just picking up [on] the effort that everyone has been playing with, you just have to match that. Playing with a lot of energy puts you in a rhythm, for sure."

The Raptors as a group couldn't say quite the same thing. Over their eight-game streak, the Raptors boasted the NBA's best defence, but the Bulls shot 50.6 per cent from the floor against them and strafed Toronto with 18 threes on 45 attempts. Chicago scored 67 points in the second half.

"I thought that especially in the first half. I thought that we did a really good job there [defensively]," said Rajakovic. "… I thought that we really competed in the first half. … [in the second half] I thought it was really starting with our offence, to be honest with you, we were not able to score and convert, and we just kind of like trickled down on our defence as well."

Even with Quickley back and a full lineup missing only rookie guard Jamal Shead (illness), the Raptors’ offence largely stalled out as they shot just 42.4 per cent from the floor and 10-of-33 from three, with even that total inflated by a late, fake, comeback after the Raptors had fallen behind by 20 midway through the fourth quarter.

It also didn't help that for the first time since the Raptors started their surge they got minimal help from their bench, with Davion Mitchell, Bruce Brown and Ochai Agbaji all finishing in negative numbers relative to their Chicago counterparts.

You could ask why Rajakovic chose to not play Chris Boucher — who has arguably been the Raptors’ best substitute all season — or Kelly Olynyk — who has come on strong before missing the past three games with a calf strain — and the answer would be:

 "I just wanted tonight to give more room for Ja'Kobe [Walter] and then have him there to play more minutes as a young player we're trying to develop," said Rajakovic. "… and Kelly as well was available tonight [but] since we have Orlando [Robinson] on a 10-day contract they wanted to continue to see what he can bring."

Walter scored 14 points, grabbed four rebounds, had two assists and a steal and got to the free throw line eight times, but was -8 in his 18 minutes, while Robinson (two points, three rebounds, two assists) was -5 in his 14 minutes.

The reality is that the Raptors are still not in the business of winning games in what they have declared a rebuilding season.

Which is why, all things being relative, the Raptors haven't really missed Quickley, which would be more concerning if he hadn't played a total of nine games over three months, those games themselves broken up into three stints, each being weeks apart, and if the team was concerned with battling for a play-in or playoff spot.

His longest stint without injury was six games beginning on New Year’s Day. The Raptors went 1-5, including losing five straight. Once he went out, the Raptors went on their recent surge.

It's been an incredible run of luck, really.

“A lot of his injuries this year were unfortunate mechanical injuries," said Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic. "I think all we have to do is really be intentional with how to rebuild him back — how to get his conditioning, his rhythm, how to incorporate him with the team … I know that he’s going to do everything in his power to get his rhythm back and get back performing at a high level."

It didn't take long. Quickley hit the first shot he took, a three-pointer after running down a rebound on a Gradey Dick miss, and he hit his second — a fastbreak lay-up set up by Barnes. He sat down after four minutes but didn't miss a beat when he subbed in again to start the second quarter with the Raptors trailing 30-27. Quickley chipped in with a pair of confident-looking step-back threes, and after subbing out for another rest, came back just before halftime and hit one more jumper and showed some spark when he sprinted back to Coby White on a fastbreak lay-up after a Jakob Poeltl turnover.

All in all, it was an impressive 12 minutes as Quickley finished the first half with 12 points on five-of-six shooting.

Despite their efforts, the Raptors trailed 55-50 at the half, mainly because the Bulls — who have fully embraced volume three-point shooting as a core offensive principle — knocked down nine of their 21 attempts from deep, while the Raptors were six-of-17. The Bulls average 43.1 three-point attempts per game, second only to the Boston Celtics league-wide.

Threes continued to be the difference in the third quarter as three different Bulls hit a triple as part of a 17-5 run in the middle of the quarter that gave the Bulls some separation after a dunk by Gradey Dick off a nice find from Barnes cut the Bulls lead to one. A fourth three by a fourth different Bulls shooter — Patrick Williams in this case — on their last possession of the quarter gave Chicago an 88-74 lead to start the fourth.

The Raptors never really challenged after that, and Quickley's night was already done by that point.

There is still plenty of time for Quickley to demonstrate his value this season and beyond, but halfway through his first full year as part of the Raptors’ future foundation, the full picture has yet to come into focus.