Andrea Bargnani - Do you Believe in Magic?

Andrea Cassini

Andrea Bargnani - Do you Believe in Magic? image

September 2nd 2011 – Šiauliai, Lithuania: FIBA EuroBasket. It's 8 P.M. and Andrea Bargnani has just played his best ever game for the Italian national team. His 36 points places his performance in the top ten all-time Italian scorers for a single game. (Carlton Myers sits at the same mark, while Antonello Riva still holds the record, with the 46 he scored in 1987 against Switzerland.)

 

This incredible Bargnani performance was the kind of game that revealed just how he had earned the nickname ‘Il Mago’ (The Magician). On days like this, when he was at his best, this was the perfect moniker for Andrea Bargnani; able to conjure points out of thin air, defy his physical stature with agile drives to the hoop, and he was the possessor of an otherworldly shooting touch. The problem with magic, however, is that it is fickle. Just as quickly as it can empower you to seemingly impossible highs; if you stop believing, it can leave you mortal just as quickly. And that is how the story of Bargnani unfolded.

 

Bargnani’s career-best 36 points for Italy came in a tough game against Latvia, and Italy needed every single one of those points to win by a nine point margin. To put this into perspective, while Latvia was still a tough squad in 2011, it didn’t yet possess the fearsome lineup it has today with Bertans and Porzingis. Italy's chances to get through the 2011 EuroBasket group stage, already slim, vanished two days later when they came up against France. Still not done, the final defeat of this disappointing campaign would come against Israel. Italy’s coach, Simone Pianigiani, in an infamous timeout rant televised all over the world, desperately tried to challenge the pride of the team that seemed incapable of gelling as a unit.

 

Italy's new generation of talent, with the likes of Bargnani, Gallinari, Belinelli and Datome had inspired Dream Team-like visions for Italian basketball fans. This lineup just never lived up to these grand hopes however, failing to qualify for both the FIBA Basketball World Cup and the Olympics.  Even compared to those disappointments, many Italian basketball fans actually view the performance at EuroBasket 2011 discussed above as the team’s worst disappointment in recent years. It's ironic that this dark memory corresponds to the prime of Andrea Bargnani's career. It is a painful metaphor for the individual career of Andrea Bargnani, a player who shone brightly at his best, but also experienced real low points. 

 

Gallinari Belinelli Bargnani FIBA

 

At his best and going into the EuroBasket 2011 tournament, Bargnani had become a cornerstone for the Toronto Raptors of the NBA, a team that had recently parted ways with Chris Bosh. No one disputed his offensive prowess: he scored 21.5 points per game, and had become the first and only Italian to breach the 20 ppg mark in the NBA, along with 5 rebounds and a decent (for a big) 34% from three point range. On December 8th 2010 he scored a career high of 41 points in the most high-profile setting, Madison Square Garden in New York.

 

That Summer he also became the undisputed leader of the Italian National Team. It was evident how his experience in America had made him a more rounded player. He had become an imposing presence beneath the basket, and had also diversified his game by having grown accustomed to playing the center position. Between exhibition matches and qualifiers, he suited up for 20 international games in a two-year span.

 

Italy gained a spot in the 2011 EuroBasket by the skin of their teeth, overcoming what the Italian media perceived as a ‘not so threatening’ group stage, thanks to back to back victories against Latvia, Finland and Montenegro. Bargnani scored 30, 24 and 34 points in those win-or-go-home games. Despite these victories, it was clear that Italy's national team was somehow performing worse than the sum of its parts. But even in this scenario, no one challenged that it was Bargnani's team. They didn't call him the magician for nothing. To inject confidence in to that troubled team, it was indeed, a kind of magic.

 

 

To look at the development of Bargnani as a player, let's jump back to December 2005. It's sunday, noon and Virtus Bologna is playing host to Benetton Treviso in the Italian league. Bargnani was born in Rome and raised by the famed Stella Azzurra club. Then, in 2003, he moved to Treviso after a gentlemen's agreement that distributed the nation's three best prospects (along with Belinelli and Datome) between Benetton Treviso, Virtus Bologna and Mens Sana Siena.

 

For Bargnani, the third season was the charm. He was finally ready to compete at a high level after gaining a couple of inches in height, and he flourished under new coach, David Blatt, who arrived in place of Ettore Messina. He ran a Princeton Offense, which turned out to be a great fit for Bargnani's skill set: he was the blueprint of a tweener, with the body of a 4, a little bit too lean to fight in the paint, but with the finesse of a 3. In the 2005/2006 season Benetton Treviso had no clear-cut centers and played a brand of “positionless” basketball, foreshadowing a trend that is now taking hold all over the world. It will become important to remember this as being the context in which Bargnani flourished.

 

Let's go back to this game in Bologna. During the first half, Bargnani received the ball in the corner, faked a shot, drove to the basket and dunked all over Virtus' defense. It's the highlight of an excellent game: not the kind of play you'd expect from a 213 cm tall player. American scouts, who were watching very closely, start to call Bargnani a seven-footer, a loaded phrase in US basketball circles – at this time still associated with back-to-the-basket, physical play.

 

It became abundantly clear that Bargnani would leave Treviso after the season ended in June, but his stock kept rising from being a NBA draft lottery pick, to many thinking he was worthy of being picked in the top 3. With strong showings in the Euroleague (11.5 points per game and the Rising Star Trophy as the best Under 22) and a streak of victories in his domestic league (Benetton win the championship and Bargnani would be named the best youngster) his stock was rising by the day.

 

In the final series, it was a Bologna-Treviso match up again, with Bargnani stealing the show. Coach Blatt let him play more minutes than ever, sharing the center spot with Travon Bryant, while swingman Marcus Goree provided some much needed help with effort plays and protecting the glass. The offense, though, revolved around Bargnani and the veteran, Siskausas.

 

Ettore Messina was the first to recognize what would become a recurring theme in Bargnani's career: he was going to be the first, rightful heir to Dirk Nowitzki, considered a once-in-a-lifetime athlete up to that point. Wunder Dirk himself had high praises for Bargnani when he first faced him with his Dallas Mavericks, stating that the Italian was more developed as a player than him at the same age.

 

 

The Toronto Raptors had selected Andrea Bargnani with the first pick overall in a 2006 - a fact that would create a huge spotlight. This was the same year that Portland drafted Lamarcus Aldridge and Brandon Roy – another huge talent that would prove to have awful luck. Maurizio Gherardini, the General Manager for Benetton Treviso, had just been hired as the new Vice President of the Canadian franchise and he wanted to bring along Bargnani as his protégé – it was an easy guess.

 

Bargnani Italy FIBA

 

After sizing up his new setting, Bargnani started making some noise. He scored 23 points against the (aptly named franchise) Orlando Magic, surpassing the previous record for an Italian player in the NBA of 18 by Vincenzo Esposito. He then collected his first double double and a couple of Rookie of the Month awards.

 

On offense, Bargnani was a mismatch nightmare who loved to go to work facing the basket. If left open, he could shoot from three point range with great accuracy. If the defender closed out, he could beat him with his first step and then read the defense for a layup or a mid-range jumper, even off the dribble, like a guard. Young Bargnani was flashy, very fluid and agile, light on his feet. He was aggressive when slashing to the basket and was able to take off and attack the hoop. Some of his dunks were highlight material, akin to magic tricks that showcased his dexterity in midair.

 

It was defensively where the problem for Bargnani lay. Just as his ability to play in the margins between positions was an asset offensively, it was also his weakness defensively. Too slim to contest true centers, yet not quite fast enough to stay in front of the top guards and forwards in single coverage. Even despite the impressive offensive output displayed from Andrea, Coach Sam Mitchell struggled to find the perfect spot for Bargnani on the court, much like Messina and Blatt before him. Bargnani didn’t play like a traditional ‘seven footer’, but neither was he playing at a time when unorthodox or non-traditional playstyles were fully factored into team styles of play outside of rare exceptions like Nowitzki.

 

Offensively at least, Bargnani was a “unicorn” before the term had even been invented – the missing link between Nowitzki and the young players we see today such as Kristaps Porzingis, Karl Anthony Towns, Anthony Davis and Joel Embiid. Those four show the same, refined skill set of the young Italian, but they combine it with a physical prowess that was simply unavailable to Bargnani.

 

After the Toronto coaching staff experimented with a very tall starting five, signing veteran Jermaine O'Neal and moving Bargnani to the 3 spot, it was deemed a failure, and the decision was made to go all-in on Bargnani evolving into a static 5. The idea was to add long range shooting from the five spot: much like Turkey’s Mehmet Okur.

 

It was common at this time to bring young players to the gym and make them work hard to gain muscle mass. Trainers weren't yet focusing on increasing strength without bulking up players’ frames. Instead, Bargnani gained significant weight in a short amount of time, putting his joints and muscles at risk; the same problem that occured with Yao Ming and that, later on, would plague Danilo Gallinari's career. After two big-time seasons in 2010 and 2011, Bargnani's health would fail him.

 

 

Along with the question of his best position, injuries are the other great “what if?” in Bargnani's career, a blank space one can only fill with questions. Bargnani’s first setback was an elbow injury, after a gruesome fall: an accident that would undermine his confidence both in shooting (his percentages would drop) and in driving to the basket. Then came a seemingly endless streak of muscle strains, overlooked by the press but very limiting nonetheless. Between 2012 and 2013 Bargnani suited up for less than 70 games, while the Raptors went into full rebuild mode.

 

European players are accustomed to more intense, emotive seasons, and tend to grow restless when their team is laidback and has little to play for. Every match he did play, Toronto's fans started to yell about his lucrative contract and boo him towards a trade that eventually felt inevitable. He was shipped to New York, but the Big Apple turned out to be a very poor spot for him.

 

Bargnani continued to endure nagging injuries, especially a calf strain that would bother him for years to come, and after a disappointing stint in Manhattan, he eventually signed for the Brooklyn Nets as a free agent. He was now struggling to keep his career together because his reputation had been damaged and the seasons were starting to pass him by as his health failed him.

 

Many mistakenly labelled Bargnani as ‘soft’. He wasn’t the alpha-male stereotype of what many people perceive a leading player needs to be. It is true that he didn't necessarily express himself in this way, and he was never the greatest rebounder or defender, but these are limited ways of quantifying Bargnani. At his best, Bargnani was much closer to a small forward than to a center, but was forced to change his playstyle due to his team’s needs.

 

In the right environment and with a focused mindset, Bargnani proved himself to be a fierce competitor: dueling with Dirk Nowitzki and Kevin Garnett, for instance, but never more so than when wearing his national team's jersey. These were perhaps the most magical periods of Andrea Bargnani’s career.

 

Bargnani jump shot Italy FIBA

 

International-responsibilities, evidently, represented an extra-motivation for him. FIBA EuroBasket 2015 in Germany, the last tournament he played in, is a lucid showcase for this feeling. Bargnani wasn’t healthy, he was still nursing a calf injury and was willing to let Gallinari, Belinelli and Gentile run the show. He stayed ready though, whenever the coach called his name and he didn't shy away from defending Pau Gasol all over the court.

 

His teammates rewarded him for the effort, granting lots of touches and looks at the basket on offense. His numbers were higher than expected and Italy overcame Spain as the underdog  to achieve fifth place overall. Not a result to tell stories about, but still one of the best performances in Italy's recent history.

 

Fast forward to February 26th, 2017. Bargnani steps out onto the court in Zaragoza, wearing Saski Baskonia's jersey, in what would turn out to be his last (at time of writing) professional game. His European comeback had lasted just a couple of months. He’s showed flashes of his old self (a 26 point outburst against Anadolu Efes for example) but in the end, he surrendered to nagging injuries that forced both parties to terminate the contract.

 

For some time, rumours ran wild. Teams like Virtus Bologna and Reggio Emilia seemed to be interested in signing him for the remainder of the season, but then Bargnani himself takes to social media, a communication channel he has never loved, to answer the curiosity of his fans. He writes a lengthy post from Hong Kong (a detail that tells how much is life has moved on from basketball) that doesn’t declare his retirement, but states that basketball is no longer on top of his priorities.

 

The new coach of the Italian national team, Meo Sacchetti, has spoken on this matter too. He promptly interviewed Belinelli, Gallinari and Datome to try and recruit them for his squad, but from Bargnani's side of things, everything has been silent. Sacchetti would love to get in touch with him before deciding every roster spot, because he knows the sheer talent that Bargnani possesses, but he feels like Bargnani, for now at least, doesn't want to play basketball.

 

At 32 years of age – just like that, it may already be time to retrospectively evaluate the career of one of Europe's greatest basketball talents and the number one pick overall in the 2006 NBA draft.

 

The Italian basketball legend, Riccardo Pittis, was the first one to come out with Bargnani's nickname back in Treviso, when they were teammates and Bargnani was a young prospect. “Il mago”, the magician, because it sounded right for his personality and play. “Il mago Bargnani” sounded like a joyful circus performer. Perhaps, in his own mind Andrea Bargnani thought of basketball in the same playful way, just like a magic trick. Like everything that's imperfectly beautiful though, perhaps he shone more in the hopes and dreams of Treviso fans, than in the face of raw, unfiltered reality.

 

He eventually lost the lightness in his feet and his spirit, in exchange for broader shoulders. He needed the strength this provided him with to compete in a world that was all about business. Playing through injuries, fan angst and out of position, this was a colder reality than the one in which he had initially dazzled as a prospect. This exchange perhaps also stole from him what had made him special in the first place.

 

As an offensive player he was before his time. Removed from the unrestricted, positionless basketball of Treviso and from the responsibilities of representing his country, he too often found no place for the sublime, no place for a ‘seven footer’ to show the unbridled imagination and fun that drove his identity as a player. No place for his brand of offensive wizardry.

 

In the end, perhaps even the magician himself – stopped believing in magic.

Andrea Cassini