Andrea Bargnani clarifies his stand on the controversial Toronto Raptors comments – NBA Update
If being one of the worst teams in NBA, despite having reinforcements during the summer, isn’t bad enough, having your franchise player talking bad about his own team is certainly the last thing you would want.
That is exactly what happened two days earlier when Andrea Bargnani was quoted by Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport, calling the Raps pretty much the worst team in NBA and their situation this season as desperate.
Bargnani recently made it a point to clear the whole issue and asserted that the Italian magazine misquoted him;
“'Nobody is satisfied. Not me, not DeMar (DeRozan), not coach (Dwane Casey), nobody,'” Bargnani said in English, according to the Sun. “That was my sentence, (a) pretty good answer to a pretty stupid question. But I think it was
an answer that makes a lot of sense.”
Dwane Casey, the Raptors coach, had also said in the aftermath of the event that he was sure Bargnani’s words were lost in translation. The player sounded furious;
“I’m not going to go over every single (bit of) c**p that was in there, I just wanted to clarify for all you media guys that specific sentence,” Bargnani told reporters. “I’m going to have people look over it and take care of the
other stuff, because I don’t think some people can afford to change my words like that, so I’m going to have people taking care of that.”
Selected as the number one pick in the 2006 NBA draft, the Italian forward has had a tough ride at Toronto, mainly due to his injury issues. Compared to Dirk Nowitzki mainly due to his shooting skills and also recognized for his
swift movement despite the size factor, Bargnani has not been able to play an entire season so far in his career. The closest he got was in 2009-10 when he missed only two games.
His numbers went up in the 2010-11 season after the Raps lost Chris Bosh in the free agency, but his injury issues never allowed the Raptors to come close to playoff contention. Under Casey, Bargnani has seemed to improve a lot
on defence, but after missing more than half of last season, he could miss one to two months with torn ligaments in his right elbow and a strained right wrist.
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