<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">When Sam Mitchell stopped Andrea Bargnani outside the Raptors' weight room after practice yesterday afternoon, the American coach spoke to the Italian rookie briefly and animatedly. And he spoke loudly enough so that the gaggle of media a court-width away could hear him. The gist of the speech: Basketball must be Bargnani's No. 1 priority. The coach waved an index finger not far from the player's face to emphasize his point. "Without you becoming a better basketball player, all those other things won't be there," Mitchell was heard telling Bargnani, who only nodded in response. Those "other things" are presumably the many demands on the 21-year-old's time. Bargnani, in part because his home country is revelling in his unprecedented status as the first European picked No. 1 in the NBA draft, has been inundated with publicity requests this autumn. Yesterday, for instance, he was headed off to pose for a photo shoot for an Italian magazine. He has also been doing about a half-dozen phone interviews a week, not to mention talking to visiting crews from Italian TV, and filling the notebooks of North American-based reporters who file stories to Italy's sports dailies. About the only thing that hasn't taken up a lot of his time is on-court action. He played just six minutes in Wednesday's win over Philadelphia. He is averaging 9.3 minutes a game. And while you can argue the wisdom of burying him on the bench, Bargnani, judging from Mitchell's words, may not be making a sufficient case for himself with extra work in the gym.</div> Source "P.J. Tucker always comes back (to the gym after practice)," the coach said. " Again, PJ Tucker was a steal for you guys.
It's a misleading article. The Globe wrote one about the exact same set of circumstances and quotes and it didn't come close to projecting this primadonna version of Bargnani. Mitchell praised the effort of the rookies (Bargnani and Tucker) in practice, but then made a point to warn Andrea not to get caught up in the media circus that's been following him around. The dude's a hard worker, though.