HoopsWorld.com: Toronto Raptors Trade Fix

[knickz]

bargs must go

[Apollo]

This writer needs move into writing about Fantasy basketball. He should leave the real basketball critiquing to those who actually watch the games.

[blackjitsu]

It's like I never left this board, another Bargs thread.

If you are strictly judging players by stats (which is ridiculous), you must use multiple offensive and defensive stats to see the total impact a player has. Bargs offensively is good. No one has ever challenged that. It's the other side of the ball, the fact we have two capable, cheaper power forwards, the fact we just drafted our "future" starting center that makes him possible trade bait. Ed and Amir play defense. The impact of losing them, because they play on both ends, would be enormous. This means Bargs would be a more suitable option. However, if Bargs goes back to blocking shots and rebounding then all the naysayers will go away.

It's pretty clear to me that we need players (at least a starting sf, possibly a pg). Bargs, and Barbosa being moved would garner the best return in a trade for the least amount of negative impact. Hence, their names come up. No one is making Bargs a scape-goat for an incomplete team.

[mcHAPPY]

Sure, I'd love that. Unfortunately, I don't believe Bargnani will ever be an adequate enough defender and rebounder to be anything but a liability most of the time he's on the floor. As for DeRozan, I am still a fan of his and hold hope that he'll one day become, at the very least, a borderline All-Star. For that to happen, the thing he needs to improve the most on is not his three point shooting or handle but defense.

Most importantly, though, if you look at most of the true contenders over the years, their leading scorers are generally elite players who are able to affect the game by more than just their scoring. That describes neither Bargnani or DeRozan, at least at this point. And they need to set the tone for the rest of the team.

I think DeRozan might, one day, be able to become a 2nd option on a contender, as long as he makes big strides on his game which he's young enough to still be able to do.

Bargnani, on the other hand, has been discussed ad nauseum. He's now 26 and has been in the league 5 years with almost no improvement shown on anything but offense. And while he's a very good scorer, his inability to manufacture shots (getting to the line) is still poor for a guy who scores as much as he does. And the more he's on the floor, the more the other team can take advantage of his poor defense and rebounding.

Even if the Raptors do not have a lot of team success in the win/loss column, I firmly believe Casey will teach the players the basic fundamentals of defense and make the better on the other side of the ball over the next 2 years. For a young team, this is more important than anything else, in my opinion.


You raise a good point on Bargnani being 26 (birthday October 28). With DD and ED just turning 22 and JV being 19, at what point is he considered too old to be a part of the Raptors when they start, collectively, making noise and being a competitive club? Especially JV - if he is being touted as the complimentary piece to Bargnani, he could be 24/25 before he is making his imprint on the league. At that time, Bargnani will be 31/32.

[Tim W.]

So you wouldn't want a Bargnani with a better, consistent defending to go along with improved rebounding, and probably a Derozan with better D, and an improved handle and 3pt shot?

Sure, I'd love that. Unfortunately, I don't believe Bargnani will ever be an adequate enough defender and rebounder to be anything but a liability most of the time he's on the floor. As for DeRozan, I am still a fan of his and hold hope that he'll one day become, at the very least, a borderline All-Star. For that to happen, the thing he needs to improve the most on is not his three point shooting or handle but defense.

Most importantly, though, if you look at most of the true contenders over the years, their leading scorers are generally elite players who are able to affect the game by more than just their scoring. That describes neither Bargnani or DeRozan, at least at this point. And they need to set the tone for the rest of the team.

I think DeRozan might, one day, be able to become a 2nd option on a contender, as long as he makes big strides on his game which he's young enough to still be able to do.

Bargnani, on the other hand, has been discussed ad nauseum. He's now 26 and has been in the league 5 years with almost no improvement shown on anything but offense. And while he's a very good scorer, his inability to manufacture shots (getting to the line) is still poor for a guy who scores as much as he does. And the more he's on the floor, the more the other team can take advantage of his poor defense and rebounding.

[er1csh3n]

If Bargnani and DeRozan are your first and second options, you're in BIG trouble.

And the longer you keep a Bargnani that does not improve his defense and rebounding drastically, the more difficult it will be to trade him and the more likely you'll have to take back a bad contract in return. He's still owed $45 million over the next four years.

So you wouldn't want a Bargnani with a better, consistent defending to go along with improved rebounding, and probably a Derozan with better D, and an improved handle and 3pt shot?

[Soft Euro]

If there is anything we can call knee-jerking it's the reactions this article gets... In my opinion there certainly is some truth in it. Really, there is a lot of nonsensical stuff being said about Bargnani. While there can be said a lot about Bargnani (like duh), he did improve in some parts of his defense. Yes he really did. He isn't bad in all aspects of defense. It's been discussed thoroughly this summer (and findable in the Bargnani-thread).

Furthermore, Bargnani isn't a one-dimensional scorer: last year he got about 20% of his points in isolation, 20% posting-up, 15% from P&R plays and 20% from spot-up positions. There are only two players on our team who have a significantly higher TS% and that are, predictably, Davis and A Johnson. And that's because they get a large portion of their points from cuts and offensive rebounds (and in Amir's case from P&R situations). Those are high percentage plays which you won't have on every play.

Lots more can be said (like how his usage is way too high and should be brought down in order to be more effective, but guess what, that has not really been his choice), but I really don't understand why so many Raptor fans can't be more objective about Bargnani. I smell a lot of scape-goating there, especially when some fans are calling for using the amnesty on Bargnani and/or about 'addition by subtraction'. There is no realism in those statements; really, have you seen the talent on our team? Not all fans are subject to this behaviour, not even most fans. But there is a lot of that going on. Some on here, but a lot on e.g. the comment-section on raptorsrepublic.com or raptors hq.

The author might have been on bleachers, but there are good writers who started on there. I know of at least one, Jonathan Tjarks, who now writes for realgm and sbnation. He's one of my favorites (when discussing the game, not the lockout).

[Nilanka]

I think people are expecting WAAAAAAY too much of Casey in terms of his impact on Bargnani's game. Bargnani is a lazy player by nature. We have 5 years of evidence to support this. Casey's novel voice might cause a marginal knee-jerk reaction, where Bargnani goes through an initial stretch of 10-15 games where he rebounds/defends better, but it'll only be a matter of time until his true [lazy] personality resurfaces. It's naive to think one man can change another man's personality. Bargnani is what he is...a one-dimensional volume scorer. Nothing else.

[Nilanka]

hoopsworld is a brutal site.

Brotherston used to be on Bleacher Report. That should tell one everything they need to know about HoopsWorld.

[Tim W.]

I do agree Barbosa should go, but not for his reasons, I like Barbosa, always have, played like me when I actually played competitive basketball, but I also agree Bargnani should stay, I would like to see Casey get through to him, and if he does, then we have a potential 1st or 2nd option in the making, if he only increases slightly better in D and better shot selection in Offensive, I would ship him for a pick and a backup swingman to spread minutes through our other core forwards, Davis, Johnson, another Johnson, Alabi, and Valanciunas.

If Bargnani and DeRozan are your first and second options, you're in BIG trouble.

And the longer you keep a Bargnani that does not improve his defense and rebounding drastically, the more difficult it will be to trade him and the more likely you'll have to take back a bad contract in return. He's still owed $45 million over the next four years.

[er1csh3n]

I do agree Barbosa should go, but not for his reasons, I like Barbosa, always have, played like me when I actually played competitive basketball, but I also agree Bargnani should stay, I would like to see Casey get through to him, and if he does, then we have a potential 1st or 2nd option in the making, if he only increases slightly better in D and better shot selection in Offensive, I would ship him for a pick and a backup swingman to spread minutes through our other core forwards, Davis, Johnson, another Johnson, Alabi, and Valanciunas.

[Tim W.]

it's not a very informative article, but nothing it says is especially wrong. Bargnani has improved and he has been a scapegoat, and Barbosa will probably be the first guy to be traded.

It's sort of like writing an article about the Heat where you say "LeBron and Wade are among the best players in the game, but they have a weak supporting cast, and questions have been raised about LeBron's tendency to choke in tough playoff series." Yeah, but we knew that.

Well, I'd disagree that he's improved and that he's a scapegoat. Bargnani's scoring has increased, but that was mostly due to more minutes and shots. And most of the rest of his game has actually regressed. And him being a scapegoat means that fans are blaming him for the team's circumstances. I haven't seen that. I just see people who have come to the realization that Bargnani's a) not going to become the player some envisioned and b) that you're going to have a tough time winning if one of your main big men is a liability half the time he's on the court.

[malefax]

it's not a very informative article, but nothing it says is especially wrong. Bargnani has improved and he has been a scapegoat, and Barbosa will probably be the first guy to be traded.

It's sort of like writing an article about the Heat where you say "LeBron and Wade are among the best players in the game, but they have a weak supporting cast, and questions have been raised about LeBron's tendency to choke in tough playoff series." Yeah, but we knew that.

[Joey]

I stopped reading anything Hoopsworld a Looong time ago.

[Mack North]

I don't believe there's too many fans that don't like the direction the team is head. Do we wish we had a better team right now? Sure. But it's pretty clear that since Bosh departed we're headed for a rebuild. Any knowledgeable knows that this takes a few years at least, we're just in the beginning stages.

Stories like this just brutal. Fans of other teams read this crap and then go around believing it to be true all because they "read it on HoopsWorld". Hence the bad rap we seem to get around the league.