James Johnson will yell at him in the locker room to play defence and if he doesn't he'll go Bruce lee on his ass.
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Bargnani is an above average one-on-one defender. He wouldn't be bad in iso situations. He just can't play help defense to save his life.
Jose stated that he made sure to run pick and roll plays for whoever Kyle Korver was guarding....every team has a weak link that if you have the right personal can be exploited. Bargs was left to defend Bogut with single coverage, no one even showed a double team, don't blame that on him, that is coaching or players not doing the right thing.
Seriously Matt, do you honestly feel that our record would be that much better with Reggie in the lineup everyday? I mean 13 rebounds a game for 30 minutes of PT is supposed to last all season long? He was just a ball grabber. I'm not hating but opponents leave him open or give him space only to lose his dribble was the way to play Reggie. Our turnovers were getting really ugly at one point. I know it's been a while but I never forget. Reggie's paint defence wasn't stellar either. And when paired with Bargs, it was simply porous defence at best.
And correction, the Raps had a 6-10 record. The last loss was the loss in Boston, Nov. 26 (110-101).
When will people give up on the "he plays centre so he needs to have a ton of rebounds"? Is he that terrible? Looking at his uber-comparison, bargnani gets 5.6RPG and Nowitzki gets 6.6...one whole rebound more..for $17 million dollars a year...one whole rebound more. Defense? That may be another story, but give up the rebound thing already.
This is one of the biggest myths I've been seeing this past season. Bargnani is NOT an above average one-on-one defender. Not even close. He's below average. It's just that some people choose to only remember the games when he defended well when the majority of the time his man produced above average.
The truth is that Bargnani sometimes plays well in certain specific circumstances- against a bigger, slower, big man who relies on a lot of fakes. Bargnani doesn't react well, so faking him doesn't do much. He simply stands in one place and uses his length to prevent easy shots over him. He can be posted up by strong post players, isolated and easily taken off the dribble by quick, face-up big men and pretty much all big men outmuscle him on the boards.
There's a very good reason he's almost always assigned to the weaker offensive big man. He's not very good.
The difference is that Dirk has the ability to rebound on a consistent basis, if need be, as his career rebounding average of 8.4 can attest to. And it's not just NOT getting the rebounds, it's allowing his opponents to get them. And by the way, the 6.6 rpg is a 10 year low for Dirk. Bargnani has never even averaged that many once.
Yes, rebounding IS an issue. As is his defense.
You are right on the record.
The season started very rough however leading in to his injury they had won 5 out of 8 (with a close game to MIA and an embarassing blowout to WSH).
I'm not questioning the roster was weak and the team would be any good. In fact, I'm glad Reggie went down from a Raptors fan perspective as it gave an opportunity for Davis and Amir to grow which they have done (I feel awful for him as a person and player though).
They had a.375 (6-10) winning percentage with him and a .238 (10-32) winning percentage without him.
You said the experiement bombed badly. In the context of what I consider bombing badly and the record without him, I disagree with your statement. One can only speculate on what the rest of hte season would have looked like with him. I'm discussing the statement 'the experiment bombed badly' - I disagree.