Everything Bargnani: Grumble, Grumble, Grumble

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Apollo wrote:

Somebody needs to test that Primo, it may not meet league regulations.

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they also cut out that little thing at the end that used to be on the commercials

"everyone knows it's primo" then there was a word it kind of sounded like "grapevine". but, it's not on the commercials anymore. This requires further investigation as it may uncover the bargnani mystery.

aha... upon further investigation i have discovered that it was "graywire" at the end of the commercial as in graywire enhancements. You thought we wouldn't find out didn't you!? you damn hairy italians! You've been giving Bargnani steroids because you discovered the root of all his laziness was all the pasta he was eating. So, you decided to put a little something extra in the sauce!!

luckily, scooby and the gang were here to solve the mystery.

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another mystery solved!!

Had a long day in the office today, so didn't get a chance to watch the forums today.

It seems that the majority of posters feel that keeping Bargnani is fine, and even if this year is the best statistical season we will ever get from him, he may be consistently good enough to keep around until we turn the corner. I equate Bargnani to someone like Deng then. A guy that the Bulls were trying to build around, and just couldn't get there until they got solid pieces around him (Rose, Noah, Boozer). Now they are one of the best teams in the league, and favourites to win it all (if they can get through Miami).

Deng right now is the same age as Bargnani. So Chicago is several steps ahead of where Toronto should be. I hope Bargnani continues to play well when he's 29/30 so that when we do turn the corner he can keep up. I'd also be interested to know how Bargnani reacts if he was no longer the #1 option on offense. When he was paired up with Bosh (although not in his 'natural position') his consistency dropped on offense - but there could be a lot of factors why he has improved this year.

Perhaps now is not the right time to trade him then. Perhaps there is no time to trade him. We could just see what he's like at the end of his contract in 4 years when he turns 30.

When I think of a player who has peaked, I think of someone who is ready to win now, and not someone who is on a team that is building for the future. Hopefully Bargnani is okay with that - as he's going to be losing his prime years on a crappy team. But on the other hand Bargnani has only given us what we've all asked for him in his 6th year, so if he cries the blues then its more on him than anybody else.

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Apollo wrote:

But the Grizzlies didn't sell high. They're not a good example. At the time what they received was viewed as a total fleecing. Sure, now it looks good, but back then they were given a bunch of scraps and luckily out of that Marc Gasol turned out to be one of the best second round prospects of the last decade.

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Agreed.. I remember at the time absolutely no one thought it was a deal that was in favor of the Grizzlies. Bad example.

I don't see why we should trade Bargnani.. I think if we traded him it would never be a trade that would turn out better for the Raptors, so I don't see the point. Plus, he's as consistent a scorer as the Raptors have, and we need all the scoring we can get.

Not to mention that if he maintains his current play he'll probably we worth more at age 29 or 30 than now because he will be established then. If he doesn't maintain then he'll get traded and we won't be talking about him anymore. ;)

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LBF wrote:

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another mystery solved!!

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Jerome Williams is not dumb. I just want to have that on the record before I have to testify to Congress. ;)

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Nilanka wrote:

It's been done before (see Memphis trading Pau Gasol). I'm not necessarily saying I agree with the "sell high" mantra...I'm just saying it's not unheard of.

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I don't think it's a mater of "don't sell high".. As much as "don't sell when he's one if the 2-3 players buying into the new team philosophy the most"

I have two points to make on Bargnani's current season:

1. The sample size is too small at 11 games as I write this, to judge if there's longterm change.
2. I am not willing to forgive and forget years of deliberate, systematic underachieving, nor his outrageously large contract.

On the latter point, the worst kind of player is the kind that desperately needs to be coached to have any success. Coaches should be basically transparent if you've got the right players. One as good as the other.

His contract somewhat precludes the ability to bring in true superstar players. If he'd been on Miami's roster a couple years ago, they wouldn't have been able to sign the Superfriends. So I'd say if he were to be traded for substantial assets and cap relief, good riddance.

One other thing that occurs is that if there's to be a true "culture change", it will be necessary to get rid of some of the bad apples from the previous regimes. I'd also include Calderon, DeRozan, Kleiza et al. in that group.

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Brandon wrote:

I have two points to make on Bargnani's current season:

2. I am not willing to forgive and forget years of deliberate, systematic underachieving, nor his outrageously large contract.

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What is "deliberate" underachieving? The guy comes to a new Country with a new language, a new style of basketball, a new comfort zone... He's finally starting to look like he's not about to pee his pants out on the floor. It's not as if the past few years he's been thinking, "I'm going to go out there and play horribly". He had no confidence. He's finding it.

I do agree with the culture change hypothesis, but I don't think shipping out Bargnani is the way to go, especially when he's working hard at all the things we've demanded of him.

The contract's really not that bad either, especially if he keeps his game at this level.

His contract is actually a good when you compare his production to those making around what he makes. The contract isn't the problem and it won't stop him from being moved should that be decided the best thing to do.

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LBF wrote:

they also cut out that little thing at the end that used to be on the commercials

"everyone knows it's primo" then there was a word it kind of sounded like "grapevine". but, it's not on the commercials anymore. This requires further investigation as it may uncover the bargnani mystery.

aha... upon further investigation i have discovered that it was "graywire" at the end of the commercial as in graywire enhancements. You thought we wouldn't find out didn't you!? you damn hairy italians! You've been giving Bargnani steroids because you discovered the root of all his laziness was all the pasta he was eating. So, you decided to put a little something extra in the sauce!!

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hmm...i always thought it was 'grainwise.'

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Apollo wrote:

His contract is actually a good when you compare his production to those making around what he makes. The contract isn't the problem and it won't stop him from being moved should that be decided the best thing to do.

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I think a player getting that kind of scratch had better be adding 10-15 wins to his team's totals at the end of a season,a nd there's no precedent for that in Bargnani's past.

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Brandon wrote:

I think a player getting that kind of scratch had better be adding 10-15 wins to his team's totals at the end of a season,a nd there's no precedent for that in Bargnani's past.

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People don't get contracts based on what they've done, they get contracts based on what managers think they can do in the future. That's why you see young unproven guys get big contracts while 30 somethings at the end of their careers are signing for the vet minimum.

Also, where are you getting these 10-15 wins from? How does one proven that a player added ten wins to his club?

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Apollo wrote:

People don't get contracts based on what they've done, they get contracts based on what managers think they can do in the future. That's why you see young unproven guys get big contracts while 30 somethings at the end of their careers are signing for the vet minimum.

Also, where are you getting these 10-15 wins from? How does one proven that a player added ten wins to his club?

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I think all-stars add that much to their teams. There's a point of diminishing returns though, because wins get lot more difficult after a team gets to about 55 or so. We can see what happened when Lebron James changed teams. He's universally considered to be the most productive player in the league, and without him Cleveland dropped to 40 fewer wins. Miami added 20, although past 55 wins it became more difficult. In other words, Miami already had an MVP-type the previous season, so Lebron didn't add 40 regular season wins to that team because they weren't that bad to begin with.

I'm deliberately mentioning those HOF-type players because they're the only ones I'd give a big contract to. I think Jordan was right this summer when he said that the middling players are getting too much money. The Raps gave Bargnani and Calderon big contracts and Amir Johnson and Linas Kleiza fairly big ones, and what have they got for it? The team sucks. Their suckage wouldn't be very much worse without those guys.

I've read your arguments about building a team, and how you think these guys are necessary and whatnot. But I think you build a team with stars first. Stars, and lots of them. Then, after that's done, you can go out and get middling players to round things out. Over and over we've seen that having too many big contracts on the books hurts a team's ability to bring in stars. Look at Miami and the Clippers, for example. I don't care if you draft them or sign them or trade for them, but this is a star's league exclusively. If you don't have a few of the top 30 players on your team you aren't in the conversation.

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Brandon wrote:

I've read your arguments about building a team, and how you think these guys are necessary and whatnot. But I think you build a team with stars first. Stars, and lots of them. Then, after that's done, you can go out and get middling players to round things out. Over and over we've seen that having too many big contracts on the books hurts a team's ability to bring in stars. Look at Miami and the Clippers, for example. I don't care if you draft them or sign them or trade for them, but this is a star's league exclusively. If you don't have a few of the top 30 players on your team you aren't in the conversation.

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You make it sound as if you can add a star player to your team, simply by snapping your fingers. No, you go further to make it sound like you can add multiple stars that easily. Unless you're Miami, Boston or New York, you really just have two options.

One: You get lucky and land a star or two in the Draft. The Thunder are a good example of this working out well. They sucked, they picked the right guys and now they're a legitimate force.

Two: You put together solid pieces, draft one legitimate talent, and the winning draws in the stars. Chicago did a nice job in accumulating good pieces that really accent D. Rose. With the winning, every time a notable free agent is looking, Chicago comes up in the conversation.

New Jersey snapped their fingers and gave up everything for their star.. But without the solid pieces around him it's just wasted. Other stars aren't exactly clamoring to go lose with him in Brooklyn. Or maybe next year I'll eat my words.. The Raps are doing all they can do. Getting some good complimentary pieces, sucking enough to strike gold in the draft, and leaving cap space to accommodate a star when the stars align and the winning happens. Next years draft will be the deciding point just how bright the near future is for these Raptors.

Brandon, $10M/yr is nothing close to max money. Franchise players get the max money deals. Jordan was making $30M/yr in '98. Shaq was making it right into his Miami days. If you want to talk bad deal let's talk Lewis and Arenas clearing well over $20M/yr. Go look up guys making in around $10M/yr and I guarantee you that Andrea is as impactful right now as most of them.

Calderon was given fair market value. He was playing outstanding basketball when he was up for a contract and the Raptors had two choices, keep T.J., who was no longer getting along with Bosh, or keep Calderon and give him what he was worth at the time. They went with the guy who was saying all right things, getting along with everybody and staying healthy. If it wasn't Toronto somebody else would have given him that money the way he was playing. Amir's contract is not bad. Colangelo gave him a deal he felt Amir was worth and it's worked out really well. It looked risky when it was signed but I really don't know how you can sit there and criticize it now. For the play Amir gives them it's a high value contract and not to mention he could easily be moved tomorrow if they decided it was best for the team. Kleiza was a bad deal but it was also a relatively small deal as well which could easily be amnestied if need be. I think you need to turn down your hindsight goggles here a bit because it's clouding the discussion.

The comments that went off track on to Amir have been moved here:


http://raptorsrepublic.com/forums/sh...s-Amir-Johnson

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“It starts with Dre’ (Andrea Bargnani) and myself,” DeRozan tells HOOPSWORLD. “We try and take that challenge and have everyone else feed off of our energy. It’s a role that both of us are going to have to take on and it should be fun.”

Of course, part of the reason DeRozan’s scoring is down is that Bargnani is scoring at a career-best clip of 22.3 points per game. DeRozan sees a difference in his front court mate, who has been asked to step his game up considerably under Coach Casey.

“Oh yeah, definitely. Whether it’s rebounding or just impacting the ball on the defensive end, he’s definitely big for us. I don’t think people get a chance to see it but he’s definitely been putting in hard work and he’s shown people that he can play on the defensive end.”

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Source: HoopsWorld.com


Normally you'd say, "Yeah, well he is his teammate, of course he is going to speak highly of him."

However, last year numerous people called out Bargnani in the exit-interviews exit (i.e. reporters waiting) so I don't think he'd say it if he didn't mean it.

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Matt52 wrote:

Source: HoopsWorld.com


Normally you'd say, "Yeah, well he is his teammate, of course he is going to speak highly of him."

However, last year numerous people called out Bargnani in the exit-interviews exit (i.e. reporters waiting) so I don't think he'd say it if he didn't mean it.

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And he calls him Dre now....how sweet.

Yeah, including him. Well, he didnt say it directly(and nobody really would in that situation anyways) but i remember him saying that they badly need a center who can dominate the paint, protect the rim, provide help defense and rebound. Well, Bargnani was pretty much the one playing that spot the whole year, so i dont know, maybe Demar was talking about, um, hhhmmm, Dorsey?? hahaha.

I think "Dre" should come out and say, well, we'd be in a better spot right now if i didnt have to do all the scoring, we dont seem to get any production from our SG, whoever is playing that spot....and then next year "Dre" will call Demar "Roz" or maybe "De-De" (pronounced as Dey-Dey).

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Matt52 wrote:

Source: HoopsWorld.com


Normally you'd say, "Yeah, well he is his teammate, of course he is going to speak highly of him."

However, last year numerous people called out Bargnani in the exit-interviews exit (i.e. reporters waiting) so I don't think he'd say it if he didn't mean it.

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Yeah, I'm with you. Bargnani deserves high praise so far this season for what he's done. It's nice that we keep hearing from everyone in the know that Andrea is busting his ass in practice.

ya we need Bargs to say that lol.

Year end press conference:

Bargnani: " um well i think we need more scoring from the SG position, i'm not going to say names but it starts with a D"