Andrea Bargnani Begins New Chapter with Toronto Raptors

When Andrea Bargnani entered the NBA draft in 2006, critics highlighted substantial flaws in the Italian's game which they stated would hinder his success on the NBA level.

For at least one season, their criticism seemed to be put on the back-burner. However, it certainly shouldn't have been.

Even as a rookie, Bargnani rarely lived up to the numbers or role of a traditional number-one pick. What fans got were glimpses of hope and fragments of greatness. Whether it was a brilliant pass or a game-winning shot he hit, Andrea kept people dreaming of a day when the rare glimpses would eventually materialize into something more.

Last year, those glimpses seemed to die as quickly as they were born. Perhaps it was a result of high expectations being compared to what was actually happening. Perhaps it was the fact that after showing so much promise in the preseason, he almost fell out of the rotation as the months went on.

It may have been his inconsistent performances and lack of dependability, which had Raptors coach Sam Mitchell wondering if he was going to get twenty-eight points, or two.

Maybe it was just the constant comparisons to his draft class, as Brandon Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Rudy Gay all became leaders of their respective teams. It certainly didn't help that for a seven-foot centre, he was allergic to rebounding and shot-blocking.

Whatever happened last season, it was a step back for Bargnani, and a step back for the Raptors, who saw their previous win total of forty-seven fall to forty-one.

Needless to say, everything the critics originally said about him being soft, undetermined, a poor rebounder, a poor defender, and a bust seemed to be relevant again.

Il Mago simply disappeared. If he wasn't getting into foul trouble, or getting called for his third traveling violation of the night, you may simply have forgotten that he was even in the game.

After the first few games of the regular season last year, Bargnani looked great. In the first game of the season, he scored twenty points in just twenty-two minutes, while grabbing five rebounds, getting to the line five times, and blocking two shots. In his second game, he scored twenty-one points, got to the line four times, and grabbed six rebounds in just under thirty minutes.

Over his first five games, he averaged over fourteen points, and  six rebounds in just twenty-seven minutes of playing time. If you were to assume that he would have played a normal thirty-five minutes, he may already have been a near twenty-points, eight rebounds guy last year.

Instead, he lost his starting position, as the team lost three straight games and mastermind Sam Mitchell decided it was time to pull some strings. 

Mitchell wanted Radoslav Nesterovic.  In Bargnani's place, Rasho posted zero points in a scoreless effort. To his credit, he did gobble up a ton of rebounds, and allowed Bosh to get his game back on track after a few off games.

The end result for Mitchell was all that mattered. The Raptors went on to win two straight games, and Kapono and Bargnani were replaced by Moon and Nesterovic. It seemed that once again, much like in his rookie season, Andrea was in Mitchell's doghouse.

As the Raptors went 2-8 to start the previous season, Colangelo sat down with Mitchell and forced his hand to play Bargnani more. He stated that if the Raptors lost games while Bargnani wasted away on the bench, then they were "losing twice". For the next fifty games, Andrea was arguably the best rookie of his class, and the Raptors had one of the top six records in the league. In fact, following the New Year in the 2006-2007 season, the Raptors had the forth best record in the league, and the best in the Eastern Conference. It was a remarkable turn of events from the 2-8 start they got off to.

Sadly for the Raptors and Bargnani, this time when Colangelo intervened, Andrea's season was already lost. Battling with a plethora of infections, slowed down by breathing problems due to adenoids, and feeling drained by antibiotics, Bargnani was just tired. It certainly didn't help that Mitchell didn't talk to his young big man for nearly three weeks towards the middle of the season as some form of "tough love" treatment.

The worst part was, he didn't look like he cared. He didn't have a towel on his head, and he wasn't getting technical fouls. To the fans who had welcomed him as a savior the year before, he simply looked disinterested and lazy.

Furthermore, it seemed Andrea came off as an introvert. He seemed to distance himself from his teammates when he was doing badly, and very rarely did it seem that he had any relationship with them. He seemed just like a young Kobe Bryant, who also struggled early in his career because he simply didn't trust the players around him to help him.

The year before, Jorge Garbajosa and Pape Sow were two of Andrea's closest friends on the team, and it certainly allowed him to vent or ask for advice when things wern't going his way. Last season, it didn't seem that way. "We didn't know him," one team official said. "We didn't know how to get the best out of him."

Yesterday, however, the Raptors media was introduced to another Andrea Bargnani. This one seemed a little more jovial, laid back, and he even added a joke for good measure.

What was more impressive was that his physique seemed completely altered.

Having followed Andrea for six years now, his body has gone through some significant changes. Unlike Bosh, his shoulders were never rounded and his base was never small, thus, the potential to bulk up was never a question. Last year,

he weighed in at a shade over 250 pounds—the majority of which was due to a strong base. This year, his upper body seems to be defined, and this will no doubt help him finish at the basket with a little more authority at his current weight of 262 pounds.

After last season, Bryan Colangelo re-stated his position on Andrea, claiming he was still one of Bargnani's "biggest fans". Those are telling words coming from the man who drafted the likes of Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire, Shawn Marion, and Michael Finley.

Colangelo always took pride in taking Marion because everyone else wanted Maggette. He always seemed to want to do the unconventional thing in Phoenix. But for Colangelo, Andrea Bargnani is something completely different.

On a trip in 2004 to Italy, Colangelo saw Bargnani play and at that very moment stated that "whenever this kid comes into the NBA, he's going to be the number-one pick". This fact was repeated through numerous interviews following the Bargnani pick in the summer of 2006, and it puts to rest the murmurs that there was no "obvious pick". For Colangelo, it was going to be Bargnani or nothing.

Seeing his blossoming rookie turn into one of the least productive players in the league—and a player who many Toronto fans booed last season—would certainly explain why Colangelo ensured that Andrea put in the work he did this offseason.

There is much more than ego on the line here. If Andrea Bargnani becomes the player Bryan Colangelo envisioned in that gym in Treviso four years ago, then the Toronto Raptor go from a treadmill team to a championship contender with two young superstars no one can matchup with playing two of the most important positions in the NBA.

In a closing interview yesterday at media day, Bargnani shrugged off comments about last year being a disaster, acknowledging it wasn't something great but at the same time not a disaster.

Bargnani mentioned that while his first season was consistently decent, his second season was filled with some spectacular performances, and some atrocious ones. Certainly the same player who could hardly score a point against Orlando in the playoffs was the same player who posted twenty points, seven assists, and seven rebounds in arguably the Raptors' most impressive win of the year, in Boston on January 23, 2008.

Another intriguing point Bargnani brought up was that he was never sure how much he was going to play, or what role he was going to play.

These facts needed to be stated to fully appreciate what Andrea did this summer. After resting for two weeks following his adenoidal surgery, he went straight to work. He ignored his duties to the Italian national team and put himself in the hands of the Raptors coaching staff. Through vigorous workouts, he's certainly convinced the Raptors new superstar, Jermaine O'Neal that he's on a road to redemption this season.

"When you watch a person work out you learn a lot about him," O'Neal said. "Some guys are naturally gifted and don't like to work real hard. They just breeze through. This guy was working hard and he really wanted it. I don't know what has gone on with him before here, but he really accepted the challenge. We played together for the first week and the next week we played against each other. He didn't shy away and I was trying to beat him to death."

O'Neal has not been shy about making predictions and having his voice heard. One name which comes up repeatedly is Bargnani's.

Perhaps one could argue that O'Neal, much like Chuck Swirsky last year, has just had one too many conversations with Bryan Colangelo and is just speaking the party line. Or perhaps one could be optimistic that a player who once suited up with players like Rasheed Wallace, Arvydas Sabonis, Scottie Pippen, and Reggie Miller knows talent when he sees it.