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Since the Raptors have had to play without Chris Bosh in their last two games and since there's a possibility he might not be a Raptor next season, it's got me thinking about whether or not Andrea Bargnani can take over as the first offensive option on this team, if necessary. One of the things I look for in an alpha dog scorer is the ability to get to the free throw line, so I charted the field goal attempts per free throw attempt numbers for all the NBA players who average at least 17 points per game and have at least 750 field goal attempts. Bargnani has 17.5 PPG and 752 FGAs, so it seemed like a good baseline. Let's see how Bosh and Bargnani have peformed in that stat this season.
It's no surprise that Kevin Durant, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony all get to the line a lot — it's one of the main reasons they're battling for the scoring championship this season. Kobe Bryant doesn't get to the line as often and that's directly related to his advancing age. His FGA/FTA stat this season is the highest of his 14-season career — when he won back-to-back scoring titles in 2005-06 and 2006-07, his FGA/FTA over those two seasons was 2.48 — much more comparable to this season's top three scorers.
Let's look at these 29 players when they're ranked by their FGA/FTA numbers.
Chris Bosh is at the top! Very impressive. It's also intriguing to see Brook Lopez and Tyreke Evans in the top 10 — that bodes well for their potential to become stars.
Dirk Nowitzki's solid FGA/FTA is noteworthy because he's the most comparable to Bargnani of all these players in terms of size and style of play. Dirk has always made it to the free throw line substantially more than Bargnani does — his career-high FGA/FTA was 3.21 in his 1999-00 sophomore season and he averages 2.57 FGA/FTA and 22.9 PPG over his career.
As for Bargnani, he had been making progress in this area over his first three seasons as his FGA/FTA went from 4.40 in his rookie season to 4.29 in his sophomore season to a fairly respectable 3.60 last season. For whatever reason, he's regressed significantly in this area in 2009-10 and has the highest FGA/FTA figure of his career. To his credit, he has the highest True Shooting Percentage of his career in spite of the fact that he appears to be even more of a jump shooter than ever.
But the question remains. Is it wise to rely on this kind of player as your top offensive option? Bargnani defenders are sure to point out that Joe Johnson gets to the line even less often and he's the first option on a top four team in the East. But Joe has lots of offensive support in the form of Jamal Crawford (17.5 PPG, 3.42 FGA/FTS), Josh Smith (15.4, 2.16) and Al Horford (13.9, 3.02). Needless to say, the Raptors don't have that kind of offensive depth after Bargnani.
So can Bargnani succeed if he's the first offensive option? Probably not on this team. Flame away, Bargs-lovers.
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