With the NFL season done Gareth, Producer Robert Gibson, Jack of all trades Corey Struthers and myself will be turning our full attention to the Cansino Rama Grill Room Blog.

To get things started I went to the Kings/Raps game the other night. With Mike Bibby, Ron Artest and Brad Miller coming back form injury I figured I’d check out the game to see where each team was as we are nearing the half way point.

Here are the eight main observations I took from the game:

(1) No way was there 17,760 fans in attendance last night. Toronto is a solid basketball city but there is no way you can convince me that 17,000 fans were at the game last night. It was a Wednesday and Sacramento is not exactly a marquee team in the NBA so I can’t blame fans for staying away.

(2) Mike Bibby is a fraud. Is that statement a little harsh? Well yes it is and it certainly is filled with a knee jerk reaction on my part considering he just came back from an injury, but hear me out. Bibby is a great shooter, no question about it. But is he really a guy that can lead a team? I say no. The team quit in the 3rd quarter and looked lost for most of the night. The blame has to fall on a point guard considered by many to be among the best in the league. He is too small for the “2” but Bibby doesn’t have the court awareness to be considered an above average point guard. Basically he is an undersized “2” playing the point. The guy played 29 minutes last night and didn’t have a single assist! Are you kidding me? How does that happen when you’re the point guard? Did he just graduate from the Tyronn Lue school of basketball?

(3) Does anyone really know what kind of team the Kings are? Beyond Kevin Martin’s quirky greatness I just don’t think this team has any direction. Bibby is miscast. Artest is a great player, but how long will it be before he wants out? Brad Miller plays well for stretches but it bothered me that he seemed disinterested for much of the second half. He had 14 points in the first half and only two in the second. Not sure how much of that is on Brad and how much is on the PG’s for not getting him the ball.

(4) The smartest player on the floor for the Raptors was Anthony Parker. Parker was always one step ahead of the defence. His feel, his anticipation for where the ball was going led to three steals and a number of deflections. Parker was a force defensively. Throw in his 12 points, 5 assists and 50% shooting and you realize just how important Parker is for the Raptors.

(5) Joe Dumars is a brilliant GM but what was he thinking getting rid of Carlos Delfino? It’s not like Detroit has had a great bench over the years. They couldn’t find a spot for a great lockdown defender who is shooting over 40% from beyond the arc?

(6) The best part of Chris Bosh’s game wasn’t the ridiculous number of dunks he had. Rather, it was every time in the second half when the Kings even remotely looked like they had a pulse Bosh would take over and just drive to the net, get fouled and hit his free throws. Beyond everything else that is what you want from your best player. A guy who will take the ball and ram it down the other teams defence when your own team is sputtering offensively.

(7) Jose Calderon is as important to this team’s success as Chris Bosh, at least until TJ Ford comes back. When Calderon and Bosh left the floor the Raptors were up 44-35 with 6:49 to go in the second quarter. By the time Bosh had come back the score was 46-43. With that said the team can get away with Bosh being out, but not Jose. The drop off at point guard between Calderon and the frightening combo of Juan Dixon and Derrick Martin is massive. Dixon has no clue how to run a team and to be fair that really has never been his game.

(8) All right lets get to the 40 ton gorilla that we haven’t talked about, Andrea Bargnani. Now I don’t want to be one of those crazy reactionary types who claim the sky is falling after a couple bad games but it needs to be said, there is something horribly wrong with Bargnani right now.

-Forget about the fact that Kris Humphries outscored him last night.

-Forget about the fact that Bargnani was slow on his defensive rotations last night.

-Forget about the fact that in the months of December and January he has more fouls than rebounds.

All right that’s enough of that. But there is something rotten in the state of Italy. Bargnani looks lost on offence, tentative when he has the ball and his shot is no where to be seen. He is shooting .378 for the season and was horrible last night. During one stretch in the first quarter Bargnani took three shots in a row and missed everyone of them. To make matters worse teams are not exactly scheming to stop him. They are leaving him open and he is still missing his shots. Detroit did the same thing two nights ago.

Listen the Raptors will make the playoffs even with Bargnani giving them 25 minutes of nothing. Toronto could actually win more games without Bargnani playing. But for this team to go deep into the playoffs, for this team to become a year in year out threat to win the East Andrea is going to have to get better, much better.

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