Issue with this quote [Time to call out Andrea Bargnani]

[sanity]

Time for Colangelo to bite the bullet and order his coach to bring Andrea off the bench and start either Rasho or Johnson alongside Bosh. Individually both Andrea and Bosh are decent players, and can be great in the right situation, but they just plain suck when paired together.

[gregdj]

Not sure what more there is to say.

They were bad at both ends, they were all bad (I’ll give Amir and Andrea average marks because they did pretty much what they usually do, the rest of ‘em were horrible) and there were no redeeming qualities whatsoever to that game.

In his 4th season in the NBA, is this what our number one draft pick has come down to? Giving an Andrea a pass because this is what we expect out of him?

Though he is a great offensive player at times, there is no doubt in my mind that Andrea is the worst 7 foot defensive center in the league

Go ahead and point your fingers at team defense, but the center position is a team's backbone.

Eastern Conference starting centers:
Al Horford
Kendrick Perkins
Tyson Chandler
Joekim Noah/Tyrus Thomas
Shaq/Big Z
Ben Wallace
Jeff Foster/Roy Hibbert
Jermaine O'neal
Andrew Bogut
Brook Lopez
David Lee
Dwight Howard
Sammy Dalembert
Brendan Haywood

Western Conference:
Eric Dampier
Nene
Andres Biedrins
Yao Ming
Marcus Camby
Andrew Bynum
Marc Gasol/Hasheem Thabeet
Al Jefferson
Emeka Okafor
Etan Thomas
Amare Stoudamire
Greg Oden
Spencer Hawes
Tim Duncan
Carlos Boozer

"Their only big man at the rim is Chris Bosh," Wallace said. "They don't have any shot-blockers."

Smitch benched Andrea because he demanded more (defensively) out of him, now the media and fans have to demand more out of our 7foot center. Unacceptable

When you put it that way it looks like we are missing our backbone, bargnani is another shooter we have plenty of shooters already. We NEED a REAL DEFENSIVE C... and also a more defensive PG and i think well see some positive changes

[_venom_]

Now not saying that Bargnani is worse then Joel Przybilla but does anyone else think that we'd be a much better team if Pryzbilla was our starting center and not Bargnani?

[sanity]

Now not saying that Bargnani is worse then Joel Przybilla but does anyone else think that we'd be a much better team if Pryzbilla was our starting center and not Bargnani?

Probably. We were a better team with Rasho starting alongside Bosh 3 years ago.

[Spartan13]

What kills me about Bargs is that I find many times where the guy just doesn't look like he gives a ****.

Yeah, to be honest- the Caliper Test was 100% correct. He doesn't seem to give a **** about anything, and this has been more of a disadvantage than anything beneficial.

There are benefits though. Bargs doesnt get intimidated by who he plays against, like how Bosh sometimes does with KG and Rasheed. And Bargs is pretty clutch too, hes not scared to take the big shot nor is he scared to hold onto the ball for free throws, nor is he scared to take his 5th shot after hes missed 4 and then get hot again.

My only defense for Bargs, is that his offensive game hinders his D. First, Bargs expends energy and gets an offensive mindset. Also, Bargs can't afford to get into foul trouble, unlike most other C's on this list, because we need him on the offensive end, so that makes it harder for him to foul guys who go at him on D.

But I do agree he can do a lot more defensively, like with rebounds and using his massive frame to alter shots, and posting up guys as well. The only thing that makes me not wanna throw him under the bus is that he has at least made improvements in this area every year, so hopefully that will continue until he gets to at least Dirk or Okur like respectability.


EDIT: LOL at Carlos Boozer. The guys not a C, nor does he even play better D then Bargnani. Gerald Wallace would have a field day with him, the guys never averaged a block a game his whole career.

[ruckus]

Bargs needs to step up his D. Thats it. Plain and simple. It's not like his offense drains a lot of energy. Stand out at the 3-pt line, set a few screens, pump fake and drive, the odd hook in the paint. Its not like he's banging for O boards or running through screens to get a shot off.

[_venom_]

Bargs needs to step up his D. Thats it. Plain and simple. It's not like his offense drains a lot of energy. Stand out at the 3-pt line, set a few screens, pump fake and drive, the odd hook in the paint. Its not like he's banging for O boards or running through screens to get a shot off.

This is what irritates me most about Bargnani. It's not like he's going all out on offense where he doesn't have anything left on the defensive end. That could be an excuse for Bosh since he's the lone presence in the paint for our team night in and night out (offensively) but Bargnani barely breaks a sweat on offense and still looks like he doesn't give a damn on defense. I mean for god's sake just look around the court on defense. It's like he's in his own little world out there and is oblivious to off the ball movement by the opposing team.

[knickerbocker2k2]

Bargs seems to be getting worse on the defensive end not better. He probably has the least court
awareness of all our players. The guy just doesn't know what is happening around him. Physically he can do adequate job on the defensive end. You have guys with less physical tools be more mobile and more effective. Watch him next type he plays pick/roll. He seems to make like 10 different mistakes. Whether it is allowing the guard to split the pick. Or not hedging and allowing clear path to the basket. Or not coming down fast enough to get the rebound. It is a joke to see him on the defensive end.

Unfortunately I don't think he has the basketball instincts or awareness to be ever effective on the defensive. This is not something that you learn. This type of awareness gets build early on and if he hasn't shown it now, he will never.Teams will have constructed around him to hide his weakness. For instance have C like Noah and tweener SF/PF like Tyrus Thomas play next to him.

[CreaM]

Time to call out Bryan Colangelo.

[Superboy316KING]

maybe we should blow it up after all....

[Death Knight]

Well, defensive rebounding is part of defense, and a couple of things are really disturbing when I watch Bargnani.

1. He is so weak coming up with the ball that even rebounds which belong to him get lost out of bounds or taken away quite easily. I know he doesn't really jump that high, but give me a break........Gotta be stronger and maintain control of the ball better.

2. Stands and becomes a spectator when the shot goes up. Not only does he have ZERO (0) ability to track balls, but he doesn't even position himself correctly or try to get to the right spots to give himelf a chance to rebound the ball. I see plenty of golden opportunities for him to get rebounds, but the man just makes no effort whatsoever.

3. A lot of people seem to suggest that Bargnani may not get a lot of the defensive rebounds, but he does a good job of boxing out. For a while I also thought the same, but recently, I'm starting to see otherwise. He may box out a man initially, but he doesn't finish his box outs. If his man moves left or right, trying to go around him, he basically lets them do so without an resistence. A box out is continous movement and battle with your man until you or your team comes up with the ball. Bargnani just does not continuously battle his man, and as a result, would often lose the battle.

This third obervation also applys to the offensive end. In the rare instances when he is actually around the paint and a shot goes up, if he is boxed out, he basically raises up the white flag and gives up. He makes no effort to try to battle for rebounds. I'm not suggesting that he tries to climb over people's back and pick up lose ball fouls, but he should at least make an effort to hook his man's arm and try to go around them, the same way opponents get position on him at the defensive end for offensive rebounds.

All of this comes down to effort. Bargnani is just damn lazy, plain and simple. He can talk about wanting to rebound the ball more, but he sure ain't doing the necessary things to get more rebounds.

Last night against the Bobcats, the Raptors gave up 15 offensive rebounds. 9 of them were by the frontcourt players of the Bobcats.

Chandler - 4
Mohammed - 4
Diaw - 1

These weren't even long rebounds, so you can't blame the guards. These are the responsibilities of our bigs. On some occassions, Bargnani did box these guys out, but he allowed them to get around him because he did not carry out a continous boxout or finish his boxouts.

[Nostradunkus]

I dont understand the personal hate for Bargnani, he's clearly trying to play his best and hes been playing real good to his abilities. Unfortunately its the coaches with encouragement from management who are using him all wrong and hes taking the heat for it.

No other coach gives a Center that gives up this much on defense and rebounding this many minutes or shots a game. Just doesnt happen, which is why the Raptors are a statistical anomaly. Sacrificing defense for offense. Obviousley the trade off is not working in their favour so waht do they do? Adjust. And this is not a knock on Bargnani, he is who he is and he doing it well and can become even better doing offensively. But the team needs defense/rebounds athleticism. Starting with the C position and eventually getting to Calderon. Cant forget Caldeorn, but he's last in the priorities, it starts in the paint.

[Ari_Emanuel]

Time to call out Colangelo for the Bosh-Bargs combo instead... it simply doesn't work. Andrea can play center but he's not a center by any mean... he should have a defensive presence next to him, not a soft defensive big like CB4! It's not too late to trade one of the two...

I'm down to trade both. Bosh is great, but if he won't toughen up and drop the people pleaser pathology, then I don't want to pay him 20 mil a year. A friend of mine was told he was a ppl pleaser during an internship years back and that he needed to stop if he ever wanted to be A: successful and B: happy. Seeing Bosh stick up for his crappy teammates in the media, not stick up for them on the court and wimper about not being respected without giving hard fouls reminds me of this story.

IMO, we should blow this team up (the core that is). BC has really f'ed up but its not to late to redeem himself. After all, we do have one of the top offensive teams in the leage and we have a ton of scoring talent, expiring etc. We won't be starting from scratch if we can sign and trade Bosh with the season he is having. Only one condition, Jose has to go to. If Andrea is gone, so be it. This team is soft almost top to bottom.

[Ramen Monster]

Didn't we already try playing a defensive anchor beside Bosh? Wasn't JO supposed to be that guy? I don't have the stats, nor do I know where to find it, but how much better was our D when we had an interior presence?

For various reasons it's obvious the JO experiment didn't work, why would something similar work now?

[Hendrix]

i think david lee is legitimately WAY worse but that's about it .... a couple of guys you can argue either way but your point still stands for the majority

David Lees probably a worse defender. But I think when you include defensive rebounding it gets a lot closer. Atleast Lee grabs 27% of drb's, and doesn't have the worst drtg of big men on the worst defensive team ever.

[Raps in 4]

Bargs is a PF. Therefore, he has to be traded, or Bosh. BC has to decide soon.

[Hendrix]

Didn't we already try playing a defensive anchor beside Bosh? Wasn't JO supposed to be that guy? I don't have the stats, nor do I know where to find it, but how much better was our D when we had an interior presence?

For various reasons it's obvious the JO experiment didn't work, why would something similar work now?

I don't understand this argument in the slightest. Because our team wasnt good when we had a good defender at a position, we shouldn't worry about putting a good defender at that position agian?


That team sucked because

-Our perimiter defenders couldn't keep their men in front of them at all.

-We had nobody that could create on the perimiter.

-J.O was pain-stakingly inefficient offensivly.

-J.O was often injured.

-Bargs suckeed off the bench, and playing at the 3.

[Schad]

Didn't we already try playing a defensive anchor beside Bosh? Wasn't JO supposed to be that guy? I don't have the stats, nor do I know where to find it, but how much better was our D when we had an interior presence?

For various reasons it's obvious the JO experiment didn't work, why would something similar work now?

I don't understand this argument in the slightest. Because our team wasnt good when we had a good defender at a position, we shouldn't worry about putting a good defender at that position agian?


That team sucked because

-Our perimiter defenders couldn't keep their men in front of them at all.

-We had nobody that could create on the perimiter.

-J.O was pain-stakingly inefficient offensivly.

-J.O was often injured.

-Bargs suckeed off the bench, and playing at the 3.

And if we were allowing the 110.0 points/100 we did last season with our offense this year, our expected record would be 51-31. Our defense was poor last year, but manageable...it was the fact that our offense tanked that killed us.

[_venom_]

JO was a bad fit beside Bosh because of durability and the fact that offensively he needed touches in an area that Bosh needed touches not because of defense. The ideal fit next to Bosh is a good defensive big man who doesn't need to score other than on garbage buckets. JO needed iso's called for him which really killed our spacing around Bosh. You need a Perkins, Pryzbilla, Haywood type of center that will do the dirty work and create space down low for Bosh.

[And1Skip]

Didn't we already try playing a defensive anchor beside Bosh? Wasn't JO supposed to be that guy? I don't have the stats, nor do I know where to find it, but how much better was our D when we had an interior presence?

For various reasons it's obvious the JO experiment didn't work, why would something similar work now?

I don't understand this argument in the slightest. Because our team wasnt good when we had a good defender at a position, we shouldn't worry about putting a good defender at that position agian?


That team sucked because

-Our perimiter defenders couldn't keep their men in front of them at all.

-We had nobody that could create on the perimiter.

-J.O was pain-stakingly inefficient offensivly.

-J.O was often injured.

-Bargs suckeed off the bench, and playing at the 3.

I actually do recall that the combo of JO and Bargs (with Bosh injured) was doing pretty well. I think it was only a few games though (they were 2 and 2?) and the Bosh came back and JO was traded (not sure of the order). Bargs was doing his thing and JO was blocking like 6 shots per game. The Bosh/JO combo didnt work on offence(or defence for that matter) and Bargs didnt get minutes to prove himself on offence. I would say either Bosh or Bargs would look good with a C like Kendrick Perkins (he was who the Oak recommended as a type of player that knows his role).