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At the far end of the Toronto Raptors' practice court yesterday, Andrea Bargnani was working on his signature shot: the three-pointer.
As signatures go, it's a toddler's scribble these days — at some points lovely and clean, and at others a jumbled work in progress.
The second-year Italian's season has been just that — strangely inconsistent, with more struggles than triumphs.
His team's season has been no different.
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And while it's unfair to say the sixth-seeded Raptors' opening-round NBA playoff series against the third-seeded Orlando Magic somehow rides on Bargnani's shoulders when it opens tomorrow, it is fair to suggest the playoffs are an examination of the current vision of the Raptors as a team on the rise and Bargnani's place with team.
For now, the Raptors' cold soup 41-41 regular-season mark can be rationally explained away by injuries and some mild chemistry problems brought on, in part, by those injuries.
The bright spot between a sluggish start and woeful finish was a respectable middle. The Raptors were 15-10 in January and February, which projects to a 49-win pace over 82 games. And this was while T.J. Ford was out and, of course, the season-long injury to Jorge Garbajosa.
That's the team the Raptors think they are — better than their record.
Bargnani's situation is similar. After a solid rookie season, he's flat-lined, if not regressed. Wide-open shots are an adventure, defensive focus occasional, competitive hunger not always apparent.
There are, of course, explanations. A knee injury in December, off-season surgery awaiting him after he was drilled in the face in March. There's an Achilles problem, apparently, and the always handy umbrella: He's 22, just a baby in NBA terms.
Taken as whole, it all sounds so reasonable, so understandable.
Which makes these playoffs — and particularly this playoff series — so perfect, so ideal.
Bosh is fit, and Ford is healthy. Jose Calderon is running the second unit. In the Magic, they drew the playoff matchup they'd been hoping for privately all season.
Now they have a chance to prove that all the variables that made them a 41-win team and not a 50-win team were reasons, not excuses.
"Do we wish we won a few more games? Yeah," head coach Sam Mitchell said. "Do we think we could have? Yeah. … But the reality is over the next few weeks — whatever happened during the regular season — if you go into the playoffs and play well, no one thinks about that."
Not to rain on any parades or anything, but the cold light of past performances suggest that to upset the Magic, Toronto will have to play like another team.
One that doesn't have an alarming tendency to leave three-point shooters unattended, to allow opposing forwards to run to the offensive glass unimpeded, to provide easy access to the paint and to get too casual down the stretch of close games.
Those who have been around the team all season can still find enough sweet juice in the bottom of the cup to believe than can do just that — become the team they're supposed to be, beginning tomorrow.
But their 82-game sample size suggests they won't, just as Bargnani's actual performance suggests a playoff resurgence is unlikely.
In conversation, Bargnani, who comes across as shy — or is it aloof? — in two languages, doesn't seem worried that he can't deliver on the most basic of his admittedly beguiling tool box of skills.
"I don't know the reason why I'm not scoring from three," he said yesterday, his brow dripping after his shooting workout. "It's not a big problem, I just shoot the ball. The last month, I shoot very bad, it's just basketball."
Which, of course, raises the question: Can you call someone a good shooter if they make only 38.6 per cent of his shots, or if they don't know why they're in a three-month slump?
Similarly, is a team good if they don't win games?
Publicly, club president and general manager Bryan Colangelo has been unwavering in his opinion that circumstances have held his hand-picked club back, that a team built on sharp point-guard play, skilled shooting, steady production from Bosh and the heady potential of Bargnani is just some additional time and talent short of being one that dot's their i's and crosses their t's.
Just because they haven't yet this season doesn't mean they won't, the thinking goes.
And now they have seven games against the Magic to prove themselves capable of their own signature moment.
