SoTD: Bargnani's defensive breakdown (updated)

[Neutral 123]

I love the marvelous job the nuthuggers have done of derailing this thread. I mean, you can't make any factual statements that would put Bargs in a good light defensively so let's do everything we can to deflect criticism.

Back to the facts:

- Bargs is a piss poor rebounder
- Bargs is a piss poor help defender
- Bargs is a sub par man defender
- Bargs so called "improvements" are more a product of increased minutes than actual improvement, especially when you consider it's taken him 4 years to get to where he is
- Empirical evidence suggests he's terrible on defense and his learning curve is that of a mentally challenged brick (statistical evidence backs this as well)
- He's lazy and unfocused (as per Bargs)

This guy is barely a starting calibre player so I don't get why some of you are being goaded into giving him props for some really pathetic achievments. Even on offense, you expect big men to shoot a high percentage and he's not even top 3 on THIS team. He doesn't draw fouls and can barely create his own shot.

Not one person on this board can give a valid reason why anyone should be excited about Bargs. You can take his rookie numbers and extrapolate them to his minutes this season and statistically he's the same mediocre player who has added a bit of a post game.

So he can take smaller guys in the post now, big **** whoop, 4 years for that and we're supposed to be jumping for joy? Honestly, on any other team Bargnani would be relegated to Ryan Anderson status. Small contract / small role off the bench to come in and give the defense a different look.

But yeah, we should expect massive improvement next season and beyond for some (Please Use More Appropriate Word) reason that isn't backed by his past learning curve or any factual evidence.

Next season will be great and I'll make a prediction. If Bosh leaves, Bargnani will bomb away at will. He'll probably put up 20 pts on terrible efficiency while we lose all kinds of games. His defense will continue to be ****. The fanboys will then preach how his "offense easily offsets his defense" and they'll blame his teammates for not being good enough (this will be particularly funny because they'd never offer Bosh that leeway). They'll say he needs a defensive/rebounding C next to him to succeed (LOL!), without realizing that the only guy that can mask such a weak player would be D12. Then at some point, the fans will wake up and Bargs will start getting boo'd just like Jose Calderon. At that point, maybe just maybe the organization will finally decide to cut ties with this bum.

Bargnani is barely a starter in this league, nobody should feel bad for stating this. He'll have to improve at a rate that not only has he never displayed himself, but a rate that very few players ever improve at after age 24/25. You can bend / twist / outright lie, but the facts speak for themselves.

Soon to be 5 wasted years for a guy that's ultimately going to be a specialist-type bench player on a different team. Awesome!

And let the church say AMEN!!!!

[roundhead0]

Question is...

Raps defense is laughable for Bargs...
or Bargs is laughable for raps defense?

somewhere in between maybe???

I think there is a feedback loop. If one is bad, it makes the other worse, which in turn makes the first one even worse than it would be otherwise.

To put it more simply: don't stick bad defensive players together in a defensive system that they can't play. See: Raptors 2009-2010.

[isyed]

We're also dealing with limited sample sizes here even though it is the entire season. You could be playing excellent defense but if the guy you're covering happens to be hitting everything in sight on that particular night despite your efforts, that can seriously skew your overall stats. It should even out with a large enough sample size, but unfortunately I'm not sure that you will always get that with 1 season's worth of stats.

8.5
6.7
1.7
1.9

The amount that the Raptors D has been worse per 100 possessions with Bargs on the court versus him off the court in the last 4 year. Not a coincidence, not a surprise that he's getting worse with more minutes and responsibility. He really is one of the worst big men in the league on D. Flat earthers hate to hear this stuff though

LOL

TOO much logic....i feel sorry for bargs lovers

[Neutral 123]

Stats are useful, but they are no substitute for actually watching players play because you get more context. For example, with all the stupid switching off the Raptors do and the general confusion that sometimes resulted, how many times did they end up letting guys get wide open shots? How many times was that Bargnani's man?

Bargs is a C. Look at the 3 point shooting that "his man" got: 47%. That's waaaaay above the league average, and certainly not the kind of shooting that you would expect from opposing C's. Clearly there was an another factor in play here.

Basically, without putting every player at one position into the same system with the same players, any statistic has limited value because we could be comparing apples to oranges. That is why it is more important to actually watch to see what happens and evaluate more subjectively than it is to simply look at the numbers. Numbers help, but never tell the entire story.

We're also dealing with limited sample sizes here even though it is the entire season. You could be playing excellent defense but if the guy you're covering happens to be hitting everything in sight on that particular night despite your efforts, that can seriously skew your overall stats. It should even out with a large enough sample size, but unfortunately I'm not sure that you will always get that with 1 season's worth of stats.

If we are watching the games, we can see that Bargs is every bit as bad as the data suggests.

[Tommy Gun]

We're also dealing with limited sample sizes here even though it is the entire season. You could be playing excellent defense but if the guy you're covering happens to be hitting everything in sight on that particular night despite your efforts, that can seriously skew your overall stats. It should even out with a large enough sample size, but unfortunately I'm not sure that you will always get that with 1 season's worth of stats.

8.5
6.7
1.7
1.9

The amount that the Raptors D has been worse per 100 possessions with Bargs on the court versus him off the court in the last 4 year. Not a coincidence, not a surprise that he's getting worse with more minutes and responsibility. He really is one of the worst big men in the league on D. Flat earthers hate to hear this stuff though

LOL

TOO much logic....i feel sorry for bargs lovers

The flat-earthers are now combing through four years of 82games.com archives frantically trying to identify other big men without the porous D reputation that Bargs has in hopes of being able to point to anomalies which will explain away this stat.

[Hendrix]

I love the marvelous job the nuthuggers have done of derailing this thread. I mean, you can't make any factual statements that would put Bargs in a good light defensively so let's do everything we can to deflect criticism.

Back to the facts:

- Bargs is a piss poor rebounder
- Bargs is a piss poor help defender
- Bargs is a sub par man defender
- Bargs so called "improvements" are more a product of increased minutes than actual improvement, especially when you consider it's taken him 4 years to get to where he is
- Empirical evidence suggests he's terrible on defense and his learning curve is that of a mentally challenged brick (statistical evidence backs this as well)
- He's lazy and unfocused (as per Bargs)

This guy is barely a starting calibre player so I don't get why some of you are being goaded into giving him props for some really pathetic achievments. Even on offense, you expect big men to shoot a high percentage and he's not even top 3 on THIS team. He doesn't draw fouls and can barely create his own shot.

Not one person on this board can give a valid reason why anyone should be excited about Bargs. You can take his rookie numbers and extrapolate them to his minutes this season and statistically he's the same mediocre player who has added a bit of a post game.

So he can take smaller guys in the post now, big **** whoop, 4 years for that and we're supposed to be jumping for joy? Honestly, on any other team Bargnani would be relegated to Ryan Anderson status. Small contract / small role off the bench to come in and give the defense a different look.

But yeah, we should expect massive improvement next season and beyond for some (Please Use More Appropriate Word) reason that isn't backed by his past learning curve or any factual evidence.

Next season will be great and I'll make a prediction. If Bosh leaves, Bargnani will bomb away at will. He'll probably put up 20 pts on terrible efficiency while we lose all kinds of games. His defense will continue to be ****. The fanboys will then preach how his "offense easily offsets his defense" and they'll blame his teammates for not being good enough (this will be particularly funny because they'd never offer Bosh that leeway). They'll say he needs a defensive/rebounding C next to him to succeed (LOL!), without realizing that the only guy that can mask such a weak player would be D12. Then at some point, the fans will wake up and Bargs will start getting boo'd just like Jose Calderon. At that point, maybe just maybe the organization will finally decide to cut ties with this bum.

Bargnani is barely a starter in this league, nobody should feel bad for stating this. He'll have to improve at a rate that not only has he never displayed himself, but a rate that very few players ever improve at after age 24/25. You can bend / twist / outright lie, but the facts speak for themselves.

Soon to be 5 wasted years for a guy that's ultimately going to be a specialist-type bench player on a different team. Awesome!

And let the church say AMEN!!!!

Good post Reignman.

If you were to compare him to a guy like Hakim Warrick there wouldn't be a heck of a lot of difference between the 2. But I'm sure that comparison would get a lot of "lol's" from the nuthugger crowd, instead of any actual facts to dispute it. When you cut through the bull like Bargs being the #1 pick, and how much money he makes and cut it down to actual impact on the court, he's not better then a lot of bench playing, soft bigs, that suck on defense around the league. Yet this guy's our supposed "franchise player" lol.

[Courtside]

the nuthuggers...

...the nuthugger crowd

The flat-earthers...

...and people wonder why the conversation can't remain civil.

[Tommy Gun]

The flat-earthers...

...and people wonder why the conversation can't remain civil.

flat-earther definition

flat·-earther (-ʉrt̸h′ər)

noun

1. a person who believes that the earth is flat
2. a person whose beliefs are regarded as outmoded, irrational, reactionary, etc.

Totally appropriate in this case-willful delusion and resistance against all statistical evidence and common sense are trademarks of all flat-earthers.

[Reignman]

the nuthuggers...

...the nuthugger crowd

The flat-earthers...

...and people wonder why the conversation can't remain civil.

Those monikers stem from people like you who can't / won't admit the truth. For eg. you still can't type the words "Bargs is a terrible defender" when all empirical / statistical evidence points to it.

You'll find a way to bring Bosh into it and bash him or try and find weird exceptions to bend and twist the truth but the fact of the matter is......

Bargs is terrible on the defensive end.

[hkr]

I'm not really sure what you mean by "probably was the teams player". I hope you're not sayng he was only probably the teams best player, because it's not even close.

And I don't know why people keep cutting out important parts of my quotes, and failing to address them. The **** supporting casts he's had are the problem, not Bosh. And it's not even like there hasn't been opportunities to fix it, or that the problems the teams faced wern't obvious/ never adressed.

No, what I mean is that he's obviously a good player, but the gap between him and the likes of James, Howard, etc was a lot larger than usually perceived. And that's why I don't agree with the supporting cast part completely, especially Jose who was an extremely efficient player in the previous three seasons.

Also in terms of point differential, the Raptors did have its best team that was almost a 50 win team(in point differential that is) back in 07-08, so I do like to think that 50 win season has already occurred. Just that they were either really unlucky or used all their stats when blowing away teams.

As I said, it's unfair to pick on Bosh since he was better than other players on this team but I still do think as the "top dog," his production wasn't that great, so in that sense I blame Bosh. But obviously we could've had better supporting cast too.

[roundhead0]

We're also dealing with limited sample sizes here even though it is the entire season. You could be playing excellent defense but if the guy you're covering happens to be hitting everything in sight on that particular night despite your efforts, that can seriously skew your overall stats. It should even out with a large enough sample size, but unfortunately I'm not sure that you will always get that with 1 season's worth of stats.

8.5
6.7
1.7
1.9

The amount that the Raptors D has been worse per 100 possessions with Bargs on the court versus him off the court in the last 4 year. Not a coincidence, not a surprise that he's getting worse with more minutes and responsibility. He really is one of the worst big men in the league on D. Flat earthers hate to hear this stuff though

At no point did I say that Bargnani is a good defender. I simply pointed out that stats are not everything, and that actually watching players play is still the superior method of evaluation.

The problem is that everyone wants something that they can simply and boil down into a quantifiable answer, since people hate uncertainty and doubt and complexity. So they turn to statistical analysis even while admitting that the stats cannot include everything because some things are not easily or satisfactorily quantifiable.

Anyway, it really should be no surprise that the defense improves with Bargnani off the floor since he's a young offensive C, and would be replaced by a more experienced and defensive C. In his rookie year he wasn't even really used as a proper C (Garbo and Rasho played most of the time at C. Bargnani was really more a SF). In his second year he could barely even stay on the court and he was horrible as a completely raw C trying to learn the position on the court at an NBA level.

Anyway, I have no illusions of Bargnani currently being even an adequate NBA defender, but the level of hate towards him is ridiculous and unwarranted. He definitely has improved both defensively and offensively, and every year he adds a component to his game. Last year he finally learned to stop fouling every minute, managed to start figuring out man-defense, and started to develop an offense game that didn't involve hitting three pointers as the trailer at the top of the key. This season his foul rate dropped further despite being a more consistent man-defender, and he added a much more robust inside post game (though it is still lacking) and was much more consistent with his mid-range jumpers.

Considering how his game is still growing, no one should really be surprised when he adds another element to his game next year and refines the skills he currently has. I have a bad feeling that his improvement will again be more on the offensive side of the ball (more post development) and not enough on defense or rebounding, but I do maintain some optimism. I really have no reason to believe that Bargnani has reached his peak--or really anything close to it--since he makes progress each season and there are still so many potential areas where he can make massive improvement. I don't know if he'll ever truly break out to become a star or at least a very good player, but I think there is still that chance, and if it happens then the naysayers will end up spouting a lot of revisionist history like they did when Bogut made his breakthrough.

[roundhead0]

If we are watching the games, we can see that Bargs is every bit as bad as the data suggests.

I disagree with that. Overall Bargnani's defense is clearly not good, but these stats were looking at man-to-man defense, and in that light I think Bargnani was pretty respectable overall based on actually watching him play. The bigger problem was probably the system or else the players in the system. There was general confusion and ineffectiveness all-around with this team and switching off, so I would not be surprised if most of the players look relatively bad in man-to-man defensive numbers since they were also coming late to try to defend an open man due to a poor switch and thus at a great disadvantage.

[Hendrix]

the nuthuggers...

...the nuthugger crowd

The flat-earthers...

...and people wonder why the conversation can't remain civil.

lol, those are teh most appropriate terms possible to define you.

Anyways I'm out. If a few of you would like to ignore every form of stat possible, the observation of just about every fan, and scout out there then be my guest. Trying to have a rational discussion with people that are completly irrational is irrational in itself, and a complete waste of time.

[nbajam]

I love the marvelous job the nuthuggers have done of derailing this thread. I mean, you can't make any factual statements that would put Bargs in a good light defensively so let's do everything we can to deflect criticism.

Back to the facts:

- Bargs is a piss poor rebounder
- Bargs is a piss poor help defender
- Bargs is a sub par man defender
- Bargs so called "improvements" are more a product of increased minutes than actual improvement, especially when you consider it's taken him 4 years to get to where he is
- Empirical evidence suggests he's terrible on defense and his learning curve is that of a mentally challenged brick (statistical evidence backs this as well)
- He's lazy and unfocused (as per Bargs)

This guy is barely a starting calibre player so I don't get why some of you are being goaded into giving him props for some really pathetic achievments. Even on offense, you expect big men to shoot a high percentage and he's not even top 3 on THIS team. He doesn't draw fouls and can barely create his own shot.

Not one person on this board can give a valid reason why anyone should be excited about Bargs. You can take his rookie numbers and extrapolate them to his minutes this season and statistically he's the same mediocre player who has added a bit of a post game.

So he can take smaller guys in the post now, big **** whoop, 4 years for that and we're supposed to be jumping for joy? Honestly, on any other team Bargnani would be relegated to Ryan Anderson status. Small contract / small role off the bench to come in and give the defense a different look.

But yeah, we should expect massive improvement next season and beyond for some (Please Use More Appropriate Word) reason that isn't backed by his past learning curve or any factual evidence.

Next season will be great and I'll make a prediction. If Bosh leaves, Bargnani will bomb away at will. He'll probably put up 20 pts on terrible efficiency while we lose all kinds of games. His defense will continue to be ****. The fanboys will then preach how his "offense easily offsets his defense" and they'll blame his teammates for not being good enough (this will be particularly funny because they'd never offer Bosh that leeway). They'll say he needs a defensive/rebounding C next to him to succeed (LOL!), without realizing that the only guy that can mask such a weak player would be D12. Then at some point, the fans will wake up and Bargs will start getting boo'd just like Jose Calderon. At that point, maybe just maybe the organization will finally decide to cut ties with this bum.

Bargnani is barely a starter in this league, nobody should feel bad for stating this. He'll have to improve at a rate that not only has he never displayed himself, but a rate that very few players ever improve at after age 24/25. You can bend / twist / outright lie, but the facts speak for themselves.

Soon to be 5 wasted years for a guy that's ultimately going to be a specialist-type bench player on a different team. Awesome!

I feel your pain man. I feel your pain.

[Courtside]

Those monikers stem from people like you who can't / won't admit the truth.

They're not monikers (seems you don't even know what the word means) - they're thinly veiled insults.

You know it. Tommy Gun knows it. Hendrix knows it.

[J-Roc]

Maybe those other people in the NBA are actually "blowing smoke" when they tell BC what his team is worth.

[roundhead0]

One thing I would like to see: Bargnani's man shot 46.8% from three, which is far above league average and so it stands out a bit. How did other C's fare on this stat, and how often did their man take a three pointer?

Bargnani's man took about 1/6th of their shots from three, which sounds very high to me for a C, but it would be nice to have the actual numerical comparison.

[cookieman]

Good post roundhead.

more on the stubborn death of hope and why it sucks to be a hater:

I appreciate that you are trying to kill hope with annoying facts. Some of you have even paid money to prove just how bad Bargnani is. However, I am not interested in facts unless they support my own pre-conceived notions. There I said it.

I'm sorry Bargs/BC ruined your life. I think Andrea and DeRozan have a lot of room for growth. That makes me crazy, blind to the truth, and a moron. But it also makes me actually look forward to next season. I can live with that tradeoff.

We can argue back and forth, but it would be easier to just accept the fact that a year from now the flat-earthers will either be thrilled with the progress of Bargnani, or will be thinking about how good DeRozan could be, or someone else. The haters will still be really angry and miserable. Either because the Raptors suck, or because you were wrong. I don't see the upside.

[Lionel Messi]

Good post roundhead.

more on the stubborn death of hope and why it sucks to be a hater:

I appreciate that you are trying to kill hope with annoying facts. Some of you have even paid money to prove just how bad Bargnani is. However, I am not interested in facts unless they support my own pre-conceived notions. There I said it.

I'm sorry Bargs/BC ruined your life. I think Andrea and DeRozan have a lot of room for growth. That makes me crazy, blind to the truth, and a moron. But it also makes me actually look forward to next season. I can live with that tradeoff.

We can argue back and forth, but it would be easier to just accept the fact that a year from now the flat-earthers will either be thrilled with the progress of Bargnani, or will be thinking about how good DeRozan could be, or someone else. The haters will still be really angry and miserable. Either because the Raptors suck, or because you were wrong. I don't see the upside.

I can agree with these stats AND look forward to next year. Isn't that better?
Dealing with the truth but still knowing that there is room for improvement?

The truth is, Bargnani was a terrible defender this season. BUT I still have hope for the future. I'm an optimist, I always try to think of the "best case" scenario, but at the same time when that scenario doesn't happen, I can see the truth.

[Tommy Gun]

Good post roundhead.

. However, I am not interested in facts unless they support my own pre-conceived notions. There I said it.

That's all you had to say.

I hereby appoint you the official spokesman of the Raptors RealGM flat-earth society. Courtside, Dagger, Mcfurios et. al. will contact you shortly for further instructions.