Hatred Against Our Players Has To Stop (Bargnani Situation)

[YogiStewart]

If I go to a restaurant and get a crap meal, in a certain sense I "boo" when I demand to see the manager, make my complaints, sometimes heatedly, and then refuse to pay.

wow. refuse to pay...
as someone who is very involved in Toronto's food and drink scene, if i saw you pulling the shenanigans you're describing, i would automatically side with the restauranteur, not you. those who demand something should never get what they demand. those who politely request and look for resolution should hopefully have their problems addressed. mistakes can happen and everyone has an off night. it is how one addresses the off night - that is what's important. a restaurant should comp your meal. you should not demand to be comped. and if Andrea is dogging it, he should address it an apologize. we should not be booing him and demanding an apology (or his head)

Could we expect as much from the Raptors? Seriously, should we be able to ask for a refund if the product, advertised as professional basketball, doesn't meet that standard? Or Andrea, like the opera singer, shouldn't get heckled and booed? Being Italian, he should understand.

ah yes, being Italian, he should understand. and perhaps we should start to cheer for Jonas in a way that "his people" would understand? same with Gay and Lowry, I guess? come one, dude...

and if you want sporting events to work where you can demand a refund based on a player or team's outcome, then you really are nuts. maybe demand refunds if you don't like how a movie ends. demand a refund from Wonderland because there wasn't enough excitement or "wonder". demand a refund on part of your wedding expenses from your wife's family because you didn't dig how she banged you last night. if you want, i can insert more ridiculous examples. but you paid to go to an entertainment event. if you were not entertained, you don't go again. but the term "caveat emptor" applies appropriately to one who buys a ducat to a sporting event. you are not guaranteed to be entertained. you are not guaranteed to see a win. it is the lottery ticket of entertainment. and you most certainly don't boo the Lotto 6/49 attendant when you pay good money to win $15 million and your ticket doesn't win, do you?

[5DOM]

I think we should boo Quincy Acy because he's getting paid close to 7 digit figure for sitting on the bench. BOOOO

[Too Late Crew]

You shouldn't boo players based on what kind of money they make either, its not your money and this is the NBA where 100% of the players are millionaires...

It's funny, but 90% of his detractors bring up his salary, and yet many of them keep saying MLSE should spend on luxury tax... "It's not my money, yadda, yadda". Well, if it isn't your money, and it isn't, then maybe it's irrelevant because even if his salary were a lot less, it wouldn't give us any cap space this coming summer. Really, it's weak sauce.

Not true

His salary does matter.

Yes the team may indicate they will go into the tax. Let's see what happens when it actually comes to to do itIf they will actually go into the tax let's see how they feel about having to pay a guy essentially 12 Million dollars plus to get him for the MLE. Yes that's what happens when you are over the tax that guy you wanted to sign to the 6 million dollar MLE now costs you 12M because of tax.

Outside of the tax implications its not unreasonable to expect production for your $. Be that production in return for the lost opportunity cost that Bargs salary represents or production for the $ you spend on a ticket to the game. At this point he is being paid 10M fans are paying 100s of dollars to go watch him come into the season out of shape, play poorly and frankly not appear to give much effort.

I personally wouldn't continue to boo him every single game just to boo him. But I think that the boos are only partly directed at Bargs. When he came back after the trade deadline The boos are directed at BC for his continued horrible management of this team and Bargs.

The Bargs fanboys love to defend him with the "its not his fault" line. Yet in large part Bargs is the one who controls if he's booed or not. We've seen it in the past with other players. If he came out and dove on the floor or crashed the boards the boos would either stop or subside. Its obvious that he's no longer wanted here. Its obvious he no longer wants to BE here. But its still your job and you have to at least try.

Jose was gone..traded for Chandler. There is no clearer signal that you don't have a future with this team yet the guy came back and gave effort even while everyone knew he was on his way out next good chance. Being on the trade block is not a get out of jail free card to just stop trying.

[Chandler Bing]

But that's on management, not the guys getting paid. Why not boo Fields if it's all about money?

Because it's not all about money. There are a number of factors involved. We've been building towards this day with Bargnani for a long time now. And frankly i believe it's more Bryan Colangelo's doing than Andrea's.

[Chandler Bing]

I think we should boo Quincy Acy because he's getting paid close to 7 digit figure for sitting on the bench. BOOOO

You know, we could be dissecting the Fulham-Stoke game right now.

[Oakville_Raptor]

I think Toronto sports fans are the worst of any teams fans in North America.

Thank God that i'm not a fan of the Leafs.

[Chandler Bing]

I think Toronto sports fans are the worst of any teams fans in North America.

Thank God that i'm not a fan of the Leafs.

Steve Kerr‏@SteveKerrTNT

If there are two fan bases that deserve a winner, I'll go with Golden State and Toronto. Rowdy crowds every night- even during lean times

[Oakville_Raptor]

I think Toronto sports fans are the worst of any teams fans in North America.

Thank God that i'm not a fan of the Leafs.

Steve Kerr‏@SteveKerrTNT

If there are two fan bases that deserve a winner, I'll go with Golden State and Toronto. Rowdy crowds every night- even during lean times

I meant by the way they treat the players on their teams. No player would ever want to sign with a team where their own fans boo the hell out of a player on the team.

[ATLTimekeeper]

It's kicking a dog when he's down and that reflects poorly on the character of those who choose to boo. Doesn't upset me all that much, but I hope for the team to win so I'm gonna side with the guys that will ignore the loafer and just support what's going well. We should NOT take cues from Knick fans'

I don't think, long-term, that emo fans move the needle on whether players want to play here or not. They want money and wins and weather and big city livin'. Supportive fans are likely way down on the list.

[Volcano]

If I go to a restaurant and get a crap meal, in a certain sense I "boo" when I demand to see the manager, make my complaints, sometimes heatedly, and then refuse to pay.

wow. refuse to pay...
as someone who is very involved in Toronto's food and drink scene, if i saw you pulling the shenanigans you're describing, i would automatically side with the restauranteur, not you. those who demand something should never get what they demand. those who politely request and look for resolution should hopefully have their problems addressed. mistakes can happen and everyone has an off night. it is how one addresses the off night - that is what's important. a restaurant should comp your meal. you should not demand to be comped. and if Andrea is dogging it, he should address it an apologize. we should not be booing him and demanding an apology (or his head)

a better analogy would be:

There's only one restaurant in town and it's a pay-after-you-order type of joint. You enjoy dining out with friends and family once in a while, so you go there as a loyal customer despite it not being the greatest. The manager advertises one of his 7-foot waiters, lets say his name was Bargnacle, as the best in the business and gives him more tables than any other waiter.

Now Bargnacle is good at writing down orders, but it never seems to make its way back to the kitchen. One time, you're waiting 1/2 hour for a glass of water to come, but it never does, so you get up to go and look for him. You find Bargnacle outside smoking pot in the back alley, so you politely ask him to get you some water. He grunts in acknowledgement.

Another 1/2 hour passed and your patience is wearing thin..there's no food or water on the table. You approach Bargnacle again and he says he must have lost the tab while he was smoking. Now you're a little snappy and get him to take down your order again..reminding him that you need some water. 1/2 hour later you get your water..you take a sip and find out it's toilet water! Enraged, you start yelling at Bargnacle.

Nearby customers shake their heads in disgust. When they ask you what the problem is, you tell them everything. But they feel that yelling is uncivilized and tell you that if you were more nurturing, then maybe Bargnacle would be better at his job..after all, how many 7-foot waiters are there? It's probably his manager's fault for not giving him a better structure on how he should wait tables.

You still love the restaurant, but you don't want Bargnacle serving you. Every time you see Bargnacle approaching your table, you yell out, "NO NO NO". Another waiter, Lowery, pleads for you not to yell NO at Bargnacle. Other customers chastise you for yelling NO at Bargnacle. So you sit at your table, alone and misunderstood. All this time...all you wanted was a tall glass of water.

(btw, I don't condone booing Bargs)

[Neutral 123]

It's kicking a dog when he's down and that reflects poorly on the character of those who choose to boo. Doesn't upset me all that much, but I hope for the team to win so I'm gonna side with the guys that will ignore the loafer and just support what's going well. We should NOT take cues from Knick fans'

I don't think, long-term, that emo fans move the needle on whether players want to play here or not. They want money and wins and weather and big city livin'. Supportive fans are likely way down on the list.

So they should boo him when he's playing well?

[orbesnet]

Toronto sports fans have the right to boo any of their teams. We continue to fill stadiums of losing teams while owners exploit that fact.

Yea cept when we were a losing team we didnt boo him. And now that were winning were booing him. Great message to send to owners lol

Now is the right time to boo him, he's hurting the team by playing... we're winning without him and he's contributing bupkiss. Boo this man!

[raptorfan416]

I don't give a flying f£%k. I will boo this scrub if i pay my money and i have to watch a lack of effort from him. Are people forgetting this guy haven't scored a single point in 2 straight games ? Go look at his rebounding numbers... You can pick one of these teenagers playing at your local gym that can play with more passion than this scrub.. People are booing because he's playing like he doesn't even care. It's like come man, hack somebody, go under the basket and push somebody, for love of god act as if you have life in your body. This guy is so f*&king soft..BC messed up this guys career by treating like a child actor..it's like the guy has no life in his body. He's playing like he doesn't want to be touched.

[Neutral 123]

[Merit]

I understand that Bargnani is "an enigma" with questionable effort. I booed him when he was playing poorly in games both last season and in games earlier this season. This was to demonstrate to the owners that I was displeased with the status quo. However, I'm a Raps fan first and a Bargnani hater a distant second. Colangelo deserves some of the blame here for the way his situation was handled in the media.

I see it like this: he hasn't been traded and is still a Raptor. While we don't have to like that he doesn't rebound well, we should do what's in the best interest of the team winning. Sure, feel disappointed if he misses a bucket, but booing is weak sauce. I feel like some of you haters have never played a team sport. You're not going to like every player on your team, but at the end of the day they're still on YOUR TEAM. You have their back until they're no longer with you.

Simple concept: support Bargnani while he's here. Cheer when he plays well. Be the bigger man. When he improves and gets traded - boo him mercilessly. That's what I'm doing, anyway.