TORaptor4Ever

Yep. Exactly.

Hibbert is one of the biggest guys in the league and a borderline all-star C (can't remember if he made the team last season or not). He's going to give A LOT of teams problems. Expecting Val to shut him down is idiotic. What impressed me about JV is that he didn't BACK DOWN from the challenge and still continued to stick his nose in there against a solid IND team that was one of the best in the East last season.

Compare that to Bargs' first few YEARS in the league when he just wilted in the paint as soon as things started to get tough.

Jonas has BALLS. Big ones. The same way that Lowry does.... and when his skill (and his body) catches up with his desire you're going to see one hell of an NBA big man.

'trane

if that's all the stuff you ever wanted out of Bargs you probably should have looked at a scouting report before settling on that list.

bjjs

Valanciunas looks fucking awesome

International play had me skeptical this summer, but his style of play was meant for the NBA. He has been great. For every hook Hibbert knocked down, V battled him into a miss.

If somebody thinks Grey should be on the court instead of V, that's a very interesting opinion, and although I respect somebody's right to have that opinion, it's a very silly opinion to have.

bjjs

I thought Bargnani looked pretty good tonight

TORaptor4Ever

If playing hard, being tough and rebounding the ball are too much to ask from a starting NBA 7fter then I don't really know what to say.....

LET'S GO RAPTORS!!!!!

he scores dude, that's what being a big in the nba is all about (hint, just a hint of sarcasm)

thought

Agreed. In all honesty I think he'd do we'll to shed some mass, it has affected his mobility making moves around the rim. There's no doubt he's gained a lot of muscle since his first year, but its not even like he's using it to bang down low more than he ever was.

'trane

lack of strength, poor rebounding, confidence issues and questionable intensity were known attributes before he was even drafted. i don't see how you can say you expected stuff he never was known to be good at.

LET'S GO RAPTORS!!!!!

nobody expected him to be good at it, they just expected him to improve a bit.

bjjs

I agree - he's got some decent size without the added bulk to hold his ground against other PFs.

He was slow defensively on few key possessions today, and he took a couple bad shots - but he played with passion and heart.

TORaptor4Ever

1. I recall BC raving about some test the Bargs took that ranked his confidence "off the charts". Unfortunately, I think that BC confused "confidence" with "apathy".

2. Why in God's name would you ever draft a player that displayed so many poor qualities? Just because he was 7ft and could shoot a 3?

Ball Don't Lie

I saw the stats after the series was over, it was pretty crazy the difference when Hibbert was on and off the court. When he left the game, Miami just pounded it inside. When he was in the game, Indy was building leads. If someone could find it, it would be appreciated.

Yes, we have a small margin for error, but we're not going to come anywhere close to the playoffs with Amir or Gray starting and playing a majority of the minutes at center. Jonas' size is such and quickness on help defence, as well as rebounding on both sides of the ball is huge. Neither Amir nor Gray can provide both. I think Val can consistently if he gets the time, and that provides a big impact in the game even if hes not scoring.

Your logic is crazy.

Dario

JV all day budday

killabee

i totally agree

LX

Confidence was supposed to be Bargnani's greatest strength when drafted. Remember that calliper test and the ice running through his veins?

I liked how Bargnani payed for the most part tonight. He was running the floor, and he was playing basketball. But there are always stretches where he infuriates me and tonight didn't disappoint. In the third, or start of the fourth, he had the ball at the top of the key. He attracted the defense. Valanciunas was unbelievably left wide open to the left of the basket. An easy pass meant an easy dunk. He chucked up a lazy miss. Then he goes down to the other end a little slow and got stuck in no-man's land and let West get started on his run with a drive to the basket that went unchecked.

My dream is to see Bargnani play 25-30 minutes on nights like these, and not necessarily see the court down the stretch. Ed Davis' energy in limited minutes made a big impact. We were getting stops and stretching the lead. Maybe West would have lit him up as well, but I would have liked to have seen that as the approach. There was too much emphasis on Andrea as a primary scorer, and he got thrown off his game far too easily to be able to fill that role. This team needs to find another guy to score, play Andrea fewer minutes if they need to get stops, and go from there.

Rimpianto

So, you want a player like Val, doing things that Val does and then you want another identical one?
Is it that bad to have an energy player around the rim and a finesse one on the perimeter?

West got 2 rebounds yesterday, I bet nobody is complaining about it on Pacers forums. And Bargs boxing him out has nothing to do with it, sure. It's only important to find the stat that can give you rights to shit on Bargs.

Before people complained about Andrea not driving, yesterday he did. No block? 3.
If he'll start rebounding they'll start talking about attitude, after that I don't know, hairstyle?

But the best part is that none of this is important, the same people will always complain about him and surely will always find a way to diss him.
Real true fans who care for the whole team...

carp

JV is going to be better than AB... but we need that. AB was coming off the flu and his conditioning showed it. First half he looked much better, and three blocks isn't bad either. He got tired. It's one game. If JV can be our best player, we're in for a good season. We've lacked that since Vince. The defense by JV was awesome to watch, especially the adjustments he made coming out for the second half.

'trane

fwiw, this is from his nbadraft.net profile in 2005:

Calgary Jazz

JV got lots of rookie treatment no calls by refs as well. With time he will earn respect and at least 5-6 trips to FT line every game. Did he made mistakes? - absolutely. But even if Hibbert scorred on him a lot in first half he made adjustments and forced him into lost of bad shots during second half. Actually for rookie playing all star center on his first game in NBA and basicly drawing even it is quite a success I would say. Hibbert is a tough cat to play and Jonas did more then ok.

moremilk

hibbert was huge in the first 3 games, but they bottled him up after - he wasn't that effective in the last 3.

as far as my logic, unless you consider JV better than Amir or Gray (against big centers) RIGHT NOW, not sure what's wrong with playing him fewer minutes until his positives outweight the negatives. It's only one game and we'll have to see how this plays out, but if the strategy is to let JV start,log off serious minutes and let him play through his mistakes, that's not the optimal strategy if playoff is the most important outcome. Amir is much more polished offensively, just as good of a rebounder/shot blocker and he's very mobile and less prone to mistakes.

With fields and JV, we're playing 3 on 5 offensively, and the starting lineup will suffer, especially in crunch time when defenses tighten.