The thing that bothers me the most is that, Bargnani DOES have what it takes to become an average help defender, but chooses not to provide that level of help defense on a consistent basis. Why? I don’t know. No one ever holds Bargnani accountable, so that’s probably why. If the coaching staff starts holding him accountable, you’ll start seeing things change and hopefully P.J. Carlesimo is that no non-sense type coach for Bargnani.
Now, I made a hypothesis a while back would the Raptors be at least respectable on the defense with at least one capable defender (Sonny Weems and/or Antoine Wright) who could at least offer a bit of resistance. Looking at the top ten most used line-ups from the Raptors last season, I took the line-up that at least had Sonny and/or Antoine with Bargnani as C, to see their DRtg.
Code: Select all
Units DRtg
Jack – DeRozan – Turkoglu – Bargnani – Bosh 116.27
Calderon – DeRozan – Turkoglu – Bargnani – Bosh 115.34
Calderon – Jack – Turkoglu – Bargnani – Bosh 125.78
Calderon – Weems – Wright – Bargnani – Bosh 111.01
Jack – Weems – Turkoglu – Bargnani – Bosh 109.47
Calderon – Wright – Turkoglu – Bargnani – Bosh 125.50
Jack – Weems – Wright – Bargnani – Bosh 103.17
Jack – DeRozan – Turkoglu – Bargnani – Nesterovic 129.66
Calderon – Weems – Turkoglu – Johnson – Bargnani 110.69
Jack – Weems – Wright – Bargnani – Bosh 90.0 As you can see, Bargnani appear in 6 different line-ups with at least one of Sonny or Antoine. Together, those line-up yield an average DRtg of 108.30 which would put them around 15 to 18 in the league in DRtg standings which is pretty good.
Take that haters . 