Everything Bargnani: Grumble, Grumble, Grumble

[Tim W.]

And I've supported my arguments about Bargnani's defense with stats plenty of times. Possibly even in this thread. But my point is that you don't need stats to see that Bargnani is not a good defender. There's no fine line here. No grey area. Was Jordan a great scorer? Of course he was. And you don't need stats to see that. You just need to watch him on the court. Of course, you can look at the stats and see what is obvious. And you can do that with Bargnani's defense, too.

[DG88]

Players do improve on help defense. It is really not uncommon at all -- actually, it's expected.

Also, Dallas did not generally play zone to hide Nowitzky. He has improved a lot on defense over the years. They play zone for a variety of reasons, but if it's to hide anyone, it's Terry or Barea.

Defensive awareness is key if you want to be a good help defender, because you need to know where the ball is going and where you're man is. Bargnani is good at the later but not the former, which is where you have the problem. Until the ball is a foot away from him he won't react at all and by then it's too late. I'm not sure if there's a way to improve on your awareness I believe it's instinctual. If Bargs was a better rebounder than this weakness wouldn't be harped about as badly as it is but he's bad at both. I've given up on the fact that he can be a better help defender. Rebounding he has a chance at getting better at but I'm not putting any money on it.

[Soft Euro]

And another top 100 underway at cbssports. Bargnani at 83 over there.

83. Andrea Bargnani, C, age 25, Toronto Raptors
2011 stats: 21.4 ppg, 5.2 rpg, 0.7 bpg, 8.6 RR, 53.3 TS%, 16.50 PER
Composite rankings (random order): 96, 67, 87

If basketball had a defensive DH -- or in this case a DD, designated defender -- Bargnani would maybe be a top 20 player. He's almost everything Dirk Nowitzki is offensively, especially at the age of 25. He's seven feet, can hit from anywhere, puts the ball on the floor and can shoot over anyone. He's not Dirk in terms of efficiency -- or anywhere close -- but just for comparisons sake, he's similar.

It all falls apart in terms of rebounding and defense though. Basically any board Bargnani grabbed is a result of it just bouncing straight to him (his rebound rate was an embarrassing 8.6 last year). He's not aggressive and doesn't attack. His defensive rating was atrocious last season (115.0) and he basically has no idea how to move his feet on a pick and roll.

But on the offensive side, good. Defense, bad. Hence, No. 83.

Source

[Brandon]

On Aug. 6, this article appeared on Dave Berri's site. It is written by Devin Dignam. It judges Bargnani a failure even if he's compared only against shooting guards, ignoring his massive shortcomings as a centre;

[...] even as a shooting guard (the position with the lowest overall productivity) Bargnani is still significantly below average. An average player posts a WP48 of 0.100 and in Bargnani’s playing time would have earned around 5.0 wins. At 2.9 wins our seven footer still comes up short even if we spot him 6 inches.

[ezz_bee]

I usually hate saying things like this, but anyone who thinks that Bargnani is anything better than a bad defender knows little to nothing about basketball, or has simply not watched him play.

A comment like this is definitely condescending, and does not really leave room for discussion, and IMO is bad form. However, Tim has (as most of us have noted) had the unfortunate compulsion (a masochistic tendency imo) to continually entangle himself in discussions about bargnani and his defensive and rebounding capabilities. Not saying we should excuse the poor form, but at least acknowledge that it is understandable that he at times becomes exasperated with what must seem like saying the same things over and over again. However, I don't think he should be allowed to make the kinds of statements like the one above without being criticized for using a very cheap tactic that effective shuts down discussion, because this in fact a discussion board. And Tim, like everyone else who posts should be challenged to defend our positions, when a statement like this is made.

And my argument is, and always has been:

Bargnani is a terrible team defender, a terrible pick and roll defender, very bad at defending faceup big men who can put the ball on the floor, bad at defending active post men who have good footwork, and decent at defending slower, more methodical back to the basket big men when they post up.

I agree that depending on how you read some of Tim's statements it may initially appear like he has flip flopped or changed his position about bargnani's defense. However, in my experience this is only because he has responded to particular question and/or argument. As a whole I have never noticed a case were he as contradicted any of the his beliefs stated above. Although the above post may be one of the few instances were I've seen a fairly complete breakdown of his evaluation of bargnani's abilities in a single post, I can quite clearly recall instances where all of these points have been made in different scenarios, although perhaps a little more intricate that most of our positions, I have found Tim's analysis to be cohesive.

Therefore you can count me as another poster who believes that Tim's assessment of Barg's is consistent.

I would also add that for the most part, my eye test of Bargnani has left me with a very similar opinion to that of Tim's. Further I would state that there is a general consensus here at the republic that bargnani is a negative on defense. I would say that this is supported not only by the "eye test" of our posters, but also by any statistical evidence we (as a whole group) have been able to dig up at this time. Even the article that I posted which was the impetus of this thread argued only that barg's was not a "terrible" defender, the implication being that his is still below average/bad. I can say quite confidently that you can only put barg's into 3 categories. He is either a below average/poor defender, a bad defender, or a terrible defender. I don't think you can make the case that bargnani is currently, an average or above average defender. And I have never seen any stats (advanced or otherwise) and/or a compelling argument that would lead me to believe that you could consider bargs an average defender or better.

That being said, I do think that we have a remarkable intelligent and insightful group of posters (relax, this is only in comparison the gong show that is other websites ) that would allow us to be able to dig into specific areas of bargnani's defense to examine closely which types of situations he is good/bad/terrible. With the help of advanced metrics and websites like synergy sports we can have discussions that delve into barg's specific defensive capabilities. Which was what I was hoping this thread would spark and to a satisfactory extent it has. In my opinion, if we put bargnani's defense under a more powerful microscope and delve into his situational pluses and minuses, we may be able to make better predictions on which specific areas he is likely or unlikely to improve without falling back on the overly simplistic argument that a new defensive minded coach will have an impact (not that he won't, just that this argument on its own is difficult to support with any kind of evidence, and is basically an opinion statement along a spectrum that is either believed or not believed). If we can continue this effort of more specific analysis I think we will be better informed, have a greater knowledge of the game, and have more realistic expectations. Also it is a distraction from the lockout and gives us something to talk about.

I would love greater analysis about the specifics of bargnani's defense as well as arguments based on that analysis. However, I will state that I believe the greatest indicator of future behaviour is past behaviour and as such I think that it is unlikely we will see a substantial change in bargnani's effort/output on the defensive end. I will keep this opinion until somebody provides me with evidence that is strong enough to warrant a change in this position.

[Tim W.]

I agree with the content, as well as the length, of the above comment.

[TheGloveinRapsUniform]

I agree with the content, as well as the length, of the above comment.

Tim stamped!

[TheGloveinRapsUniform]

I partially agree to ezz_bee's comment. *Partially* because i didnt read everything word for word, but the gyst, i somehow agree.

When people say "have you ever played basketball?" have you ever watched a single game of basketball? or when you dont agree on some things people say you know less about basketball than they do, i think is laughable at times. but i guess people say that at the heat of the moment, and it does bother me initially but i dont lose sleep over it. i think what people really need to understand and drill in their heads is that this is a public site, and everyone is entitled to their opinion no matter how dumb it is.

[Tim W.]

Tim stamped!

It's like a tramp stamp. But lower.

[ezz_bee]

Isn't it time this thread was merged?

[pesterm1]

Was just watching some of Bargnani's highlights from the exibition games of the Eurobasket 2011. One thing that is noticably different about him is his speed, size and lift. He put up 26 pnts and 6 rbs today against poland. Check out the vids and judge for yourself. To me he looks slimmer which is alowing him to be alot smoother and mobile on the court.

( This could have been posted in the "Everything Bargnani" thread but i figured with so little going on it could sit on the homepage for abit)

[ATT]

HOLY! is it just me or does it look like he's going after every rebound?
He even got one of his own miss from the free throw line...

and i know he's not facing NBA caliber players but still..he looked so energized!

[ezz_bee]

It's hard to say from just the highlights, but he does seem to be more mobile and it looked like he was jumping more for the rebounds. Not sure it'll change my expectations but it definitely isn't a bad sign.

[Soft Euro]

I bet I could look energized and going after every rebound if 30 minutes or so were packed in one and a halve minute.

[Madman]

i'd like to believe it. i really would, but how many summers are we going to see this same post

"Hey guys, Andrea killed it with the italian national team, check this video"

then he comes here and does nothing.

[Soft Euro]

To me he looks slimmer which is alowing him to be alot smoother and mobile on the court.

First I thought the video was stretched, but that doesn't seem like it. However the almost rectangular screen and viewing point of the camera give (to me) the illusion that everyone is pretty tall; so I don't think he has slimmed down (or at least that this is proof of that). If it's not an illusion I guess the players did some serious stretching excercises before the game.

[hateslosing]

i'd like to believe it. i really would, but how many summers are we going to see this same post

"Hey guys, Andrea killed it with the italian national team, check this video"

then he comes here and does nothing.

To be fair, in previous years he played well with the national team but didn't kill it. I also wouldn't say he killed it toady, 6 rebounds is less than what he needs to bring. I hope he is getting faster though, might help him rebound more. Anyone able to comment on how he looked on D?

[Balls of Steel]

Any Valanciunas videos instead?

[WhatWhat]

He looks the same. The fake he made @ 1:20 was nice though.

[WJF]

I thought he did look like he had more lift on his his fade-away jumper in the paint and on his pull-up jumper. The one rebound I really liked was the first one as he took it from two of his own players, just going after it higher and aggressive.
How many minutes did he play?