| Bargnani's Future Tied To What Happens With Bosh Authored by Gagan Gandhi - May 21, 2009 - 1:21 pm
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In the case of Bargnani, there’s no reason for him not to re-sign this summer to a new long-term contract. If you’re Colangelo do you want to give him guaranteed money for two or three years after only 50 games of consistency?
After a rookie campaign where he showed flashes of Dirk Nowitzki like play, his play tailed off as a sophomore. It wasn’t until he was assigned to be a starter after New Year’s that he really took off. He once again showed those flashes except this time he was one more thing: better.
He was better at attacking the basket. He was better at drawing fouls. He was better defensively.
He was better.
As stated in a previous article, that stretch of games after New Year’s may just have saved his career as a Raptor and in the process, made him boatloads of money.
The key was that it wasn’t just two or three weeks of solid play, it was four months of good-great play.
But, it may have never been if a certain big summer acquisition didn’t get hurt.
O’Neal may have done more for this team than originally thought, even though his play on the court wasn’t all that great in a Raptors uniform. His work with Bargnani, specifically how to play defense as a big man, went a long way in helping Bargnani progress as a player and if it wasn’t for O’Neal getting hurt than Bargnani probably would’ve never been forced into the starting center role.
One man’s loss is another man’s gain.
You can say that he was lucky O’Neal got injured, but the man still performed remarkably well for someone who most fans had written off as one of the worst number one picks in NBA history.
Don’t get me wrong, questions still remain about him, like if he’s better suited playing center or power forward. But, you can only start one power forward a game and that’s not going to be him as long as Bosh is here.
Which brings me to Bosh, how long will he exactly remain in Raptor red, white and black?
The decision is entirely up to him because, well, he’s deserved it. He’s been here long enough, through the good times (just one season) and bad (every other). He’s been the face of this franchise even though sometimes it seems like he’d rather not be. But, at the end of the day, if you’re the best player on a team, be it good or bad, you will be portrayed as the face of the franchise by your team and maybe more importantly, the media.
But, just because he deserves for the decision to be up to him, that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be traded. He could be the biggest name available this summer if Colangelo allows it. Bryan might be wise to pounce on this opportunity and make draft night 2009 one for the ages.
If Bosh does come out and say that he won’t re-sign this summer, the decision to trade him just got a whole lot easier because there is absolutely no chance you can lose a talent like that for nothing, nada, zero, zilch.
It’s not like fans of Toronto sports teams haven’t been in this situation before. They went through this with Vernon Wells of the Toronto Blue Jays recently, and more historically, Mats Sundin of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Vince Carter, who actually both re-signed in the same summer. Boy, those two careers took different paths after those contract signings.
Rumors were rampant that Wells wanted to join his buddy Michael Young in Texas, but alas he re-upped with the Blue Jays, I’m sure he loves Toronto but I’m pretty sure he loves money more.
Gotta love those greenbacks... maybe that’s why green is my favorite color.
Love my opinion or hate it, you can’t disagree with the fact that it makes the most sense to trade Bosh this summer if he’s not coming back.
It’s much better for Bosh to leave in a trade now rather than sign a long-term deal and then decide he wants to leave a year or two into it. Remember Vince? Yeah, the guy who said he wasn’t going to dunk anymore. He was loved much more than Bosh because he was the first marquee guy the Raptors ever had. Oh, you ask what happened to him. Let’s just say all that love turned into hate ...fast, real fast, Flash fast.
But, at the same time, the Raptors were in a downward spiral to the ineptitude's of nowhere.
Many on this site are supporters of fanboygear.com and they have a shirt that best portrays how most fans of Toronto sports team think. It shows the downtown scenery with the words ‘City of Hate’ and on the back of the shirt it says ‘Fire the coach. Trade everyone.’ A mentality that is torturous some nights.
With that said though, Colangelo would probably like to re-sign both, which is no doubt the safe route, to long-term deals with Bargnani obviously getting a less luxurious extension.
Raptors fans get ready, coming summer 2009, ‘Bryan Colangelo: Guts and Glory or No Balls and Backlash.’
It could be a blockbuster ...or a dud.
Notes: Rogers and TSN2 FINALLY worked out an agreement, just in time for the Jays/Red Sox series. Too bad they couldn’t reach an agreement when there were all those Raptors games on TSN2 night after night. At least a deal is in place now so fans should be able to watch all 82 Raptors games on TV next season. Who do you think was at fault: TSN or Rogers? Email me and let me know what you think! Congrats to the Clippers for landing the 1st overall pick, I’m just glad that a Western Conference team will be drafting Blake Griffin and not a team who can build around him in the East. Even with Griffin, the Clippers are going to be hard lucked to make the playoffs next season in the tough West.
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