Andrea Bargnani Signed 2 Year Contract With EuroLeague Team Saski Baskonia

[OmegaAtrocity]

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[Mr Loggins]

He averaged 14.3 and 4.6 in 28 minutes in the NBA. Not first selection material but not that bad, I thought he can be given another chance in the NBA nut injuries really slowed him down the last years. I always thought he can be a very impactful player in europe, it's time to ball now, no excuses.

Injuries weren't his biggest issue. It really seemed like he just stopped caring.

He had an NBA ready body

[UcanUwill]

This is a sign of how euro basketball is changing. All these players have played for Baskonia in their primes: Prigioni, young Calderon, young Dragic, Huertas, Nocioni, Scola, Splitter, Oberto...

A couple of years ago they signed a washed up Odom and now this. Oh Lord....

I am not following you. Euro basketball changing how exactly, I am seriously have no idea what you are trying to say. Its a typical NBA wash out signing, he have those every year.

[The Flying Gent]

he is not as bad as people say, his biggest problem was he was a #1 pick and could never live up to it

His biggest problem is his head. There was no reason he couldn't have lived up to the #1 selection with his realistic potential skills and physical abilities. For whatever reasons, whether he's lazy or doesn't love the game or both or more, he just didn't have the right mentality for it.

[DonaldSanders]

Why would he leave the NBA now when big contracts are thrown around like candy. Johnson on the heat got 12M... my lordy

[Vonneguts]

This is a sign of how euro basketball is changing. All these players have played for Baskonia in their primes: Prigioni, young Calderon, young Dragic, Huertas, Nocioni, Scola, Splitter, Oberto...

A couple of years ago they signed a washed up Odom and now this. Oh Lord....

I am not following you. Euro basketball changing how exactly, I am seriously have no idea what you are trying to say. Its a typical NBA wash out signing, he have those every year.

I just wanted to point that 10 years ago real stars played in Europe and that now there are just Bargnanis.

[blitz41]

Keep cashing them cheques big fella

[magnumt]

To the International Boards...



--Mags

[Throwback24]

One of the greatet euro players to grace the NBA, see sya later Bargs

[Duffman100]

Conditioning was his downfall. He clearly didn't put work in the offseason, he never really improved after his rookie season.

[UcanUwill]

This is a sign of how euro basketball is changing. All these players have played for Baskonia in their primes: Prigioni, young Calderon, young Dragic, Huertas, Nocioni, Scola, Splitter, Oberto...

A couple of years ago they signed a washed up Odom and now this. Oh Lord....

I am not following you. Euro basketball changing how exactly, I am seriously have no idea what you are trying to say. Its a typical NBA wash out signing, he have those every year.

I just wanted to point that 10 years ago real stars played in Europe and that now there are just Bargnanis.

Teodosic, DeColo, Bourousis, Llull, Heurtel, Printezis are all in their primes and play in Europe. I dont think those names are worse than the ones you mentioned. I think the level of competition is pretty much the same. Baskonia itself is definitely not as good as it was in 2000s, while they still had prime Scola and Macijauskas, but just this past season they reached final 4 and they had Bourousis and Hanga playing best seasons in their careers.

[Mirotic12]

This is a sign of how euro basketball is changing. All these players have played for Baskonia in their primes: Prigioni, young Calderon, young Dragic, Huertas, Nocioni, Scola, Splitter, Oberto...

A couple of years ago they signed a washed up Odom and now this. Oh Lord....

When they signed Odom it was a pure gimmick marketing deal. They were trying to get some fans to show up to seem him. The owner even admitted that. He was the team's 3rd string center the entire time he was there. That signing had nothing to do with basketball.

As for the signing of Bargnani, they lost their main center in Ioannis Bourousis to free agency, so it makes sense that they signed him. He was simply an available free agent option. I guarantee you he would in no way be their first, second, or even third choice of a free agent.

Bertans replacement, outch. Well, maýyyyybe he will do well, will definitely keep an eye on him. Wonder what his inicial fantasy cost gonna be?

He is absolutely without any doubt the replacement for Bourousis, and not Bertans. Bertans played SF the entire time he was in Baskonia. And no way in the world can Bargnani play SF or PF in EuroLeague, with all of the small ball that is played there.

This is a sign of how euro basketball is changing. All these players have played for Baskonia in their primes: Prigioni, young Calderon, young Dragic, Huertas, Nocioni, Scola, Splitter, Oberto...

A couple of years ago they signed a washed up Odom and now this. Oh Lord....

I am not following you. Euro basketball changing how exactly, I am seriously have no idea what you are trying to say. Its a typical NBA wash out signing, he have those every year.

I just wanted to point that 10 years ago real stars played in Europe and that now there are just Bargnanis.

None of those players were stars, except Scola (and he was not even considered at the elite level, he was a star, not a superstar) when they played with Baskonia. In fact, Dragic would be considered an end of the bench scrub at that time. And seriously...Prigioni and Oberto were never anything remotely close to being stars in EuroLeague. They were role players their entire careers, everywhere they played.

Also, EuroLeague is miles and miles better than it was 10 years ago. If you claim otherwise, you certainly have not seen any EuroLeague games recently.

I am not following you. Euro basketball changing how exactly, I am seriously have no idea what you are trying to say. Its a typical NBA wash out signing, he have those every year.

I just wanted to point that 10 years ago real stars played in Europe and that now there are just Bargnanis.

Teodosic, DeColo, Bourousis, Llull, Heurtel, Printezis are all in their primes and play in Europe. I dont think those names are worse than the ones you mentioned. I think the level of competition is pretty much the same. Baskonia itself is definitely not as good as it was in 2000s, while they still had prime Scola and Macijauskas, but just this past season they reached final 4 and they had Bourousis and Hanga playing best seasons in their careers.

EuroLeague is way, way better than it was 10 years ago. 10 years ago the league had 4 good teams (Maccabi, CSKA, Baskonia, and Panathinaikos). Now it has like 14 teams that have rosters as good or better than what those teams had 10 years ago. The biggest budget in EuroLeague 10 years ago was 15 million dollars. Now the biggest budget is 42 million dollars, and only 3 teams in the whole league have a budget at or below 15 million dollars.

It's not even in the same realm of comparison.

10 years ago, teams could not have any success without a high budget, and now, even teams with smaller budgets are very highly competitive, because the depth and quality of the league is so much stronger. Team likes Brose or Baskonia (smaller budgets) doing well....that would never happen 10 years ago. Because back then, a small budget meant 2-3 million dollars, and not much of a team at all. Now, even a team like Brose has a 17 million dollar budget, and so they can sign a bunch of good players.

Conversely, the big teams, with big budgets didn't get worse, except for Maccabi, and Panathinaikos, but even in the case of Panathinaikos, they greatly increased their budget this year, back to where they could sign any player they wanted to. So really, only one big team declined, while the rest of the league definitely got better. Look at a roster CSKA had 10 years ago, and it's nowhere near as deep or strong as what they have now. The same with teams like Barca, Real Madrid, Olympiacos, Fener, Milano, and so forth.

[naabzor]

He averaged 14.3 and 4.6 in 28 minutes in the NBA. Not first selection material but not that bad, I thought he can be given another chance in the NBA nut injuries really slowed him down the last years. I always thought he can be a very impactful player in europe, it's time to ball now, no excuses.

Injuries weren't his biggest issue. It really seemed like he just stopped caring.

He had an NBA ready body

This is really unfair to him. I don't want to say he is a great player but defintely he is not an unprofessional one. He played well for his first six seasons in Toronto. He was improving. Him and Bosh were the best bigs scoring duo in the NBA at a certain point in time if I recall correctly. He was not perfect by any means and did not pan out as expected but he was an ok player most of his career in the NBA.

This is Bargnani, for me:

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He was never by any stretch of the imagination a center. He was a small forward, a power forward AT BEST. Toronto killed him making him gain too much weight and easily negated what made him good in the first place, his speed, dribble and mobility at his height, combined with a great jumper.

History can't be re-written, unfortunately, but to me Bargnani wasted his potential in Toronto playing a style of basketball he is not good at.