It will be interesting to see who lasts longer in Toronto: Raptors forward Andrea Bargnani or president and general manager Bryan Colangelo.

Because with the Raptors off to a humiliating 4-17 start, it’s clear at least one of them has to go.

The smart money, in fact, has neither of them in Toronto by this time next year: Bargnani and his $10 million contract are likely to be traded soon as the team begins trying to salvage some semblance of dignity, and Colangelo’s contract won’t be renewed after it fails to do even that.

It wasn’t supposed to work out like this. Bargnani and Colangelo have been joined at the hip since 2006, when the Raptors’ new, rock-star GM made the big Italian the first overall pick in the ’06 NBA Draft.

Colangelo saw Bargnani as the foundation of a team with a distinctive European flavour. He enlisted Italian Maurizio Gherardini as one of his assistants and quickly assembled a roster full of Euros like Jose Calderon, Jorge Garbajosa and Marco Belinelli. The idea was that Bargnani would eventually grow into the next Dirk Nowitzki and the Euros would adopt the strong team-based game that had beaten the Americans at the 2004 Olympics.

It was a good idea. American athletes have notoriously bristled at the idea of playing in Canada but for Europeans, Toronto is an appealing option. By the same token, those players might better appeal to more fans in the culturally diverse Canadian city. And because Euros had a reputation around the NBA for being soft, Toronto could probably assemble a decent squad pretty quickly.

Unfortunately, it just didn’t work out. The bulk of Colangelo’s European contingent came and went for little in return, never really able to adapt to the rough, loosely officiated NBA game. After a trade for Turkey’s Hedo Turkoglu turned into an unmitigated disaster in 2010, the Raptors’ GM put the blueprint aside and has been recycling a variety of low-value spare parts with the same dismal results that cost his predecessors their jobs. The fact of the matter is that the Raptors have been no better off under the much-hyped Colangelo over the past six years than it was under laughingstock Rob Babcock.

Through it all, Bargnani has been viewed as the centrepiece of the team, the guy who would be the long-term face of the franchise once he put it all together like Nowitzki did in Dallas.

Unfortunately, Bargnani is 27 now and it’s clear he will never be as good as Nowitzki. He’s averaged only 15 points and five rebounds per game over his career, and defensively, he can’t stop a chair. He’s never developed the physical strength he’s needed to play aggressively in the paint and made less than 30% of his three-pointers last year.

So far in 2012, Bargnani is having his worst season statistically and because of his inability to hit critical shots or defend in crunch time, has been blamed for the team’s late-game collapses. It’s obvious Bargnani isn’t the superstar Colangelo had banked on – and he’s not a player the Raptors will be able to build around going forward.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many teams out there interested in the lanky Italian’s spotty resume or the $33 million left on his contract to the end of 2015. So Colangelo will either inherit another team’s problem or get the equivalent of 65 cents on the dollar in any deal for his former No. 1 draft pick.

Neither option will help the Raptors turn around this dismal season nor earn Colangelo an extension on his contract, which expires at the end of the year. And the 2012-13 season – which began with such optimism and growth potential in a year without NHL hockey – will be just yet another lost year in the franchise’s seemingly endless rebuilding process.

It’s a safe to assume that neither Bargnani nor Colangelo will be around for whatever happens next.

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