There's nothing like a little hand-to-hand combat to help a guy earn the confidence of his coach. With his team struggling - 2-7 and freshly hammered in a Nov. 18 game in Denver - coach Sam Mitchell figured he'd find out just how tough his team was.
He took a group of the team's big men, including rookie Andrea Bargnani, to a health club in downtown Denver on a Sunday morning before a flight to Salt Lake City.
He broke them into groups of two, put a ball on the floor under the basket, and told them to go get it. No rules, no fouls, no whistles, just a battle of bodies and wills.
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| FRANK GUNN/CP |
| Andrea Barganani can run, jump and jam with the big boys. |
Chris Broussard details the episode in a feature story on Bargnani in this week's issue of ESPN The Magazine; Sam Mitchell told us in Houston on Wednesday it was an eye-opening experience watching the kid go against P.J. Tucker, who might be the strongest Raptor of them all and certainly one of the toughest.
"I saw something that day," Mitchell said. "It wasn't that I was surprised, but I saw something. He probably doesn't realize what it did for me and my confidence in him. After that, it showed me this kid wants it. He's willing to do whatever we ask him to do to get on the floor.
"I told him, you want minutes, show me that when the game gets dirty that you're going to get in there and get dirty with it. And he did."
Not surprisingly, Bargnani had his best game of the season - and got his longest run - the next night in Utah and even though the Raptors lost that game to fall to 2-8 on the season, it was the start of a dramatic turnaround in Bargnani's fortunes.
Now, he's a beast, as he showed in a 20-point effort against the Rockets on Wednesday.
"Bryan (Colangelo) and I had a conversation after that practice, we were leaving for Utah, and he was like, 'what did you do?' I told him what happened and he asked how Andrea did. I was like, 'Bryan he was unbelievable,'" said Mitchell.
"Bryan said, 'what did that do for you?' I said it gave me more confidence in him and I think right after that, my confidence in Andrea just took off."
And so did Bargnani's game.
Related:
ESPN The Magazine: Meet Andrea Bargnani (ESPN)
Bargnani's daggers bring down Rockets (Toronto Star)
Doug Smith
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