Andrea Bargnani Calls The Raptors "Pretty Much The Worst NBA Team," Which Is Pretty Much True

Andrea Bargnani did an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport, an Italian newspaper dedicated to sports, in which he said some harsh words about the objectively awful team that employs him. Raptors coach Dwane Casey cautioned the press not to blow what might be a mistranslation out of proportion, explaining to CBC Sports that he's wary "because we've all travelled and I've seen some crazy articles come out, a lot of it's lost in translation. I don't know what his intentions are or what he meant by his statement, but I'll ask him." This, he has presumably had plenty of time to do, so we're going to go ahead and assume Bargnani meant exactly what he said, which would be logical, because what he said made sense.

What did he say? Well, thanks to the handy and always hilariously just short of coherent Google Translate, we can tell you straight from the primary source, sort of:

He was hurt in a negative moment, both team and personal: what's happening? "It did not work anything this season. We pretty much the worst NBA team. The summer market was made ​​to build a winning team, but we are not winning. We are below all expectations. Nobody used to play with anyone. We won 4 games: it's a tragic thing, from whatever side you look at it is a desperate situation. 4 years that I keep losing . In order to improve the only thing for now is to win and we did not. "

Google Translate may have difficulty extracting meaning from full sentences, but "tragic" and "desperate" are pretty easy to interpret. Later in the interview he's asked whether he would want to play in Mike D'Antoni's system in Los Angeles, and he responds, again quite logically, "I've never played, so I do not know what to think. Surely at this time is not working very well."

The Raptors aren't literally the worst team in the league—that would be the Wizards, who at 3-17 have a worse winning percentage than Toronto (5-19)—and the Cavs are sitting ugly at 5-19 as well. But relative to expectations, they may well be the worst. Some thought Toronto might sneak into the playoffs this year; instead, they're practically mathematically eliminated a quarter way through the season, and seem to be in about as deep a spiritual funk as anyone west of the Staples Center. Bargnani himself is shooting terribly, the front-office is relying on inexperienced big men to produce consistently (they aren't) and the team couldn't guard the staff of the La Gazzetta dello Sport. The story here? Andrea Bargnani knows exactly how badly the Raptors suck, and Dwane Casey might not.

La Frustrazione Di Bargnani "Siamo I Peggiori Della Nba" [La Gazetta Dello Sport] Andrea Bargnani Calls Raptors 'Pretty Much The Worst Team In The NBA' [CBC Sports]