Nets Sign Andrea Bargnani for No Good Reason

The Nets announced today that they have signed Andrea Bargnani to a two-year deal for the veteran’s minimum, with a player’s option for the latter season. This move won’t kill the Nets, but it is 100% indisputably absurd, given Bargnani’s lack of skill, upside, durability, fit and basketball I.Q. among many other things. 99 out of every 100 days I will be reasoned, search for nuance, explore every side to every story. That one day is when the team I cover signs Andrea Bargnani against all that is logical and sacred in this beautiful game.

Clearly, I’m not happy. I made that evident when I first learned about the news and took to Twitter. But because I’m proud to say this blog carries with it strong analysis and owes it’s readers in-depth coverage, I’m going to share both my hasty (though accurate) all-caps tweets and an explanation of why I said those things. Let’s begin.

The Nets were having a really good offseason, at least considering where they stood coming in. Billy King got rid of Deron Williams’s contract and crafted a much younger and more athletic roster. This is especially the case in the frontcourt, where through the draft the Nets picked up uber-athletic power forwards Cory Jefferson and Chris McCullough in back-to-back years. Brooklyn has also taken fliers on Thomas Robinson and Willie Reed, two relatively young big men with upside.

Despite all this, they signed Andrea Bargnani. Let’s continue.

Old? Bargnani is going to be 30 once the season begins.

Injury-prone? He hasn’t played a 70-game season since 2010. He played in 29 games last season, 42 the year before.

Can’t jump over a credit card? Okay, maybe this one was harsh.

Seriously, though, Bargnani moves like he’s in quicksand and doesn’t have much verticality in him anymore.

Lionel Hollins likes defense. Bargnani doesn’t play any. As for taking minutes from young bigs, well, the Nets have trailed behind nearly every other team in the “young, developing player” department for years now. After collecting a great deal of them this summer and possibly moving towards rebuilding, it’s really not the time to be giving a washed up veteran minutes that could be going to raw, young big men that need development through in-game experience.

Bargnani’s not a good basketball player. Maybe two years ago it made a little sense for Knicks fans to be saying that he could bounce back from some down years, but it’s become the norm now.

He’s averaged over two assists per-36 minutes just twice in his career. His vision is atrocious and he simply doesn’t look to move the ball. His rebounding rate has eclipsed 10% three times in his career, he’s not going to help on the glass at all. He’s primarily a “floor spacer” on offense, but three-pointers have made up under 25% of his field goal attempts in four of the last five seasons. When he shoots from deep, he connects on 30.2% of them over the past four seasons. Half the time he can’t even threaten defenses with the long ball because he stands around in the long-two area. His usage rate over the past four seasons, and throughout his career, is consistent with that of a team’s secondary scorer. Defensively, he doesn’t move, can’t do much when he gets to his spots and doesn’t communicate. The only good he’s done on the defensive end is allow centers to try and post him up and stand his ground pretty well.

The. Freaking. Kings.

Silver linings, folks.

We went over that.

More positives!

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention his +/- numbers. The Knicks were outscored by 17.5 points per 100 possessions with Bargnani on the floor last season. They only got outscored by 8.2 with him on the bench. No other Knick had worse numbers. Note, this is the team that won 17 games last season and consistently played: Travis Wear, Lou Amundson, Ricky Ledo, Cole Aldrich, Jason Smith, Lance Thomas, Quincy Acy… you get the picture.

His 2014 numbers weren’t much better. Opponents had a 6.2-point leg up on the Knicks per 100 possessions with Bargnani in the game. The Knicks had the advantage by 1.4 points with him out. Bargnani wasn’t the absolute worst in this occasion, but still at the very bottom alongside Shannon Brown and Beno Udrih.

A partially guaranteed one-year deal would have made this easier to swallow.

That would have made sense.

I think we should wrap up there. Again, this won’t destroy Brooklyn’s season so long as Hollins doesn’t play him 30 20 10 any minutes a night. But boy is this a humbling way for King to end an otherwise positive and fruitful offseason.