Bargnani, star and core player according to Casey

[JoePanini]

What’s your current take on Andrea Bargnani and where do you think he can take his game?

To me, he’s Dirk-like, as far as being seven-foot, one of the best big men shooters in the league, great hands, athletic. Where I see him getting better is being more focused on pushing himself each and every day, putting his nose to the grind and taking it as a challenge each and every day to be the best. That’s the determination I want to charge Andrea with and try to reach him with. I thought he made big steps last year when Bosh left. I thought he took a big step offensively to put more of the team on his shoulders and take big shots. But now the charge is to be more of a leader, to be a better defender, to be a better weak-side defender and there are some things we can do to help him with that. But it’s got to come from within. I mean, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. But we’re going to work with him, whether it’s holding him accountable, putting my arm around him, whatever it takes to work with Andrea because he’s got too much talent to let it fade and not really try to strain his potential out of him and try to get the most we can out of him. Again, he’s our star, he and DeMar are our core guys… That’s going to be our job as a coaching staff is to make sure every day we get in the gym, work with him and push him and see where it lands.

I got this off RaptorsBlog

Is this a good or bad thing? Do you think Casey can get Bargnani to care about basketball and actually play every night? Or will this eventually cause his failure as it partially did with Smitch and Triano?