How Raptors winger RJ Barrett ended up exactly where he needed to be

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Saying Barrett has come home doesn’t fully capture how much at home Barrett feels while playing for the Raptors. At 24, famous and without money, he has chosen to live in Mississauga, a family-run suburb perhaps best known for Square One, a mall where Barrett fondly remembers spending time at the massive Playdium arcade to have spent. Barrett swears that on days off from work, he still goes to the mall to see a movie or hit the food court, and is happy to pose for photos if asked. “I walk around relaxed, you know? Because sometimes I see little teenagers and stuff. And I think, ‘That used to be me and my friends,'” he says. “If I saw a Raptors player, if I saw DeMar at number one, I would ask him for a photo, you know? So, it’s cool. I try my best to be normal. You know, doing normal things just brings you down again. This is a job that can be stressful and a lot of fun. You can feel like you’re on top of the world, or you can feel like you’re coming down. That’s why I always do things that keep me balanced.”

Barrett shares a house with a large garden where he can let his four French bulldogs – Kobe, Princess, Cain and Rilo – run around to their heart’s content. His roommates? A high school friend studying for his master’s degree and his grandmother Petula, his mother’s mother. “She helps with the dogs. She cleans all day every day and just does whatever is necessary,” he says. “She is very, very helpful. My room is always clean when I come back. It is beautiful.”

Barrett may have found his comfort zone with the Raptors almost immediately, but the answer to that nagging question — and his understanding of the timing of the deal — didn’t come until later. Just weeks after Barrett joined the team, his younger brother Nathan also came home. It seemed relatively harmless at first. While studying to be a pilot at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida, the 20-year-old developed a persistent rash. Soon after, his energy levels plummeted. Instead of traveling south en masse, the Barretts brought their younger son back to Toronto for evaluation and treatment. A quick admission to the hospital followed. “He said, ‘I’ll just get it checked out and then I’ll go back to school,’ and then he never left the hospital,” Barrett says. Nathan died on March 12th due to complications from an autoimmune disease.