After losing to the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday night, Andrea Bargnani opted to hide out in the treatment room post-game.

For all he knew, and for all we knew, it was his last night in Toronto colours. It didn’t turn out that way on trade deadline day, but the way Bargnani handled that last night does go some way to explaining the way he’d like to leave — anonymously, no goodbyes.

Upon returning from injury two weeks ago, Bargnani started off with some spirit. In his first game against Boston, he looked exhausted five minutes into his workday. He was lustily booed by a large contingent of the ACC crowd upon entering the game. That didn’t bother him. Very, very little bothers him. But he is a scorekeeper. He heard. He won’t forget.

The Italian is not a great perspirer, but on that first night back, he was immediately soaked. The fitness had not fully returned, but the intermittent desire was back. He was down in his stance on defence, hands up, helping out, putting his hip into people.

The feel for his mid-range shot was also a small work in progress, but better than expected, given the way he’d turned over his right elbow in injuring it. He finished five-for-10.

A couple of nights later — the night Rudy Gay tucked himself into Toronto hearts with a buzzer beater to win it in overtime against Indiana — Bargnani was once again a factor. It felt like a revelatory moment for a player forever looking for the square hole for his square peg. He’d become a complimentary piece, a floor extender. He was seven-for-10.

The 245 consecutive games he’d started for Toronto were now well behind him. Andrea Bargnani — No. 1 pick; sixth or seventh man.

Then the appearance of caring began burning off like morning fog.

Bargnani has become a peripheral figure on this team, the sort that may help, but is not depended on to do so. On the aspirational pecking order, he’s fallen somewhere between Alan Anderson and John Lucas III.

There have been many small nadirs on a graph dipping downward like Florida real estate. Bargnani only competes against his latest dip in form, and so every once in a while seems like he’s ticking upward.

Another low was reached against Memphis, when Bargnani found himself momentarily the only big on the floor with Marc Gasol entering. Instead, it was left to Landry Fields, giving up five inches and 50 lbs., to try and stop the Spaniard. It didn’t go well.

Where Bargnani’s offence has always been the last finger gripping the ledge, that’s dematerialized as well. He’s taken only 19 shots in the last four games. He’s made seven. Against Memphis, he had no points in more than 21 minutes.

Many charges have been leveled against Bargnani, but lack of confidence had never been one of them. Suddenly, he looks scared out on the floor.

That he was not traded does not mean there were no efforts to do so. He’s been featured in the freezer like a three-day-old fish for weeks now.

In deciding not to drop him for a bag of balls, Bryan Colangelo has taken an enormous risk. Make no mistake — trading away his signature Toronto acquisition had become the easy way out for the general manager. The depressingly obvious animus to Bargnani has grown so malignant, no return would have been judged too small by the fan base. Not immediately, at least.

But Colangelo remains determined that if Bargnani no longer fits into the Raptor template, he’s still worth something. The problem is getting the player to play as if he is.

No one can know this guy. People around the team will tell you that. He’s unknowable. That’s the source of both his continuing fascination and the attendant frustration. Several bright men have spent all of seven years digging around in the wires behind his breastplate trying to find the right connection. Whatever trust Bargnani initially put into coach Dwane Casey — and it was significant — has demonstrably faded as he works his way out of consideration.

That’s on the player, not the coach. Casey came here wanting to turn Bargnani into Dirk Nowitzki. That was always his point of reference — Nowitzki. It’s been a long time since that German’s name has found its way into Casey’s scrum lexicon.

Now Bargnani faces another downward fork in the road. He’s got 27 games left in Toronto. That’s it.

Colangelo is headed toward a one-year re-up in the off-season, and part of that gesture of faith will be breaking with the Italian.

Bargnani has the chance to do this organization the solid he owes them for all their trust in him. He can start playing like it matters.

They’re handing him a smaller plate than he’s used to, but he’s still capable of serving himself at the buffet. He’s getting paid either way, still owed $23 million (U.S.) over the next two years.

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Amongst the many maddening things about a very decent young man is that you do not get any sense that he cares. New York or Sacramento? Chicago or Charlotte? You’d care. I’d care. He doesn’t care. He is an unmoored ship drifting through his NBA career, content to smash into a dock somewhere, before drifting for a little while longer.

If you knew him, you’d wish him luck.

Odds are, you quite understandably wish your team more.