I love Nicolas Batum. Well, not romantically, but I love an awful lot about his game. When I watch him play for France (or Nancy) I think this guy is tremendous: he can be the best player on a team without having to score all the points - but he can also score in bunches when he wants. He's Lebron James if he had Tayshaun Prince's body. So, you've got to keep that player, especially on a talent-starved team such as ours. ANY team wants THAT player. (Hell, the Spurs really want him, and if that's not a sign of a good player, I don't know what is.) But. He hasn't been able to be that player for the Blazers. Could it be that he can't handle the better players of the NBA? I don't think so: he's shown enough flashes to make us think otherwise. Once in a while he'll get that "I'm going to dunk on Pau Gasol again" look and go off. So what's the deal? He hasn't worked out his role yet? Well hurry up! What do you need? This is a particular problem, of course, because he's a RFA, he may command a shitload of money, and his agent's being a total tool. Plenty of people on this board want to S&T him, because what we need is a wing scorer. There are players out there (Deng, Iggy) who we might be able to get and which (say these people) make Batum redundant (particularly at the price). I don't want to get rid of him. But I'm getting tired of him NOT having a break out season. Here's my suggestion: 1. Re-sign Batum. 2. Sign Freeland (and maybe Claver) That's it. But then you focus on making Batum your best player. I know, I know: Aldridge is really our best player, and he can continue to do what he does. But if we run things through Batum more, we can build Batum up without knocking Aldridge down. I think Batum was relegated to the sidelines with Roy and McMillan, doing a fraction of what he can do. That was sort of okay, because Roy was so good, and McMillan wanted to win in a mistake-free way, so he didn't want to have to rely on Batum's not-quite-stellar handle. But now we're in full rebuild mode, and we have a rookie at PG, to whom Batum should not have to defer. And a rookie, what's more, who's a scorer more than a distributor. So I say: Batum should be our #1 Free Agent target (as he is with other teams) and we should actively recruit him with the promise that he will get to play his France role here, and it's a new day.
I thought that last year, we'd finally get to see of Batum was going to live up to everyone's expectations, or continue to be a middle of the back SF. And last year, he was pretty mediocre. I know some people on this board love him for this and that, but face it, how many teams with 2 legit all-star quality players miss the playoffs? Btum is invisible much of the time, and even though we needed his scoring last year, he failed to reach double figures 13 times. (look at the game log, and it's kinda funny how many times he scored exactly 9 points.) Now some team is going to give him a big contract because of his percieved potential and skillset, and we'll probably have to match or lose him, but I think we'll have buyers regret if we do so.
It all depends on the coach. McMuffin didn't help Nico's game or confidence at all, or take advantage of Nico's skill set beyond camping him out for a couple of ice cold threes a game. Olshey will bring in a coach with the mind set of playing and developing our young talent, and that means letting them be aggressive and play through mistakes. Nico will be given a bigger role on this young team, told to be more aggressive, and not be punished for it. We can't afford to lose an asset like Batum for nothing, even if he is never an all star. Not every contributing player is an all star. If I'm running the Blazers I let it be know we will match, and then I'd match. The market will dictate his payday. Not signing Batum because he might not be a cornerstone of the team is like not signing Lillard because he might not be the PGOTF. Dumb.
Look, I know some teams make stupid offers and fall in love with crappy players. But look at the teams that are interested in Batum: number one is the Spurs! They don't make mistakes! If they like a player, it's because he's worth liking!
I really feel like every player on the team deserves a mulligan and a year with a new coach to give us a good view of their true value. Hell, I'd want Bayless back, too, just to see if he would play better under a different coach. So yeah, definitely resign Batum, sign Claver and Freeland, sign Barton, sign Hickson, sign every-fucking-body, and let the coach figure it out.
We've had several opportunities to see him play with Team France and he wasn't dramatically different with another coach. He's still inconsistent and lacks the killer instinct that we keep waiting on. I like Batum as a role player, but he's looking to get paid like a star. If he gets an offer north of 8 million, I'd let him walk.
IMO, he's not a player you should expect to take over a game. Or ever trust that he will take over a game. If he's that kind of player, it would have come out already. I'm not even sure I would even anoint him a pillar as this GM has. But...He is still a terrific player. And will make a big difference on a playoff team as a 'role' player because of his D and offense.
I know I'm being paranoid, but why do I have this unshakable feeling that we're "damned if we do, damned if we don't" with Nicolas? I mean I've been one of his biggest proponents for awhile, and I love his versatility, but goddamned he's got a passive mentality at times. I've wanted to excuse his fading away as immaturity, but after last year I'm not so sure. Sure you can say playing alongside a chucker like Crawful and Raymond "Larry, Curly, Moe" Felton didn't do him any favors, but he also never really demanded the ball and he never exerted himself over his teammates -- admirable qualities in a diplomat but in an NBA small-forward? Meh. So it looks like we're either going to give him an Andrei Kirilenko level, stupid contract or we're going to let him walk and then it's a steady diet of Luke Babbitt. Ugh.
I think the best course of action for how to handle the Batum's situation - for all parties involved - is to work out a S&T. He's clearly not happy, nor thriving here. Wants (and will very likely sign for) more than we want to pay him, and if we DO pay him, essentially hamstring our salary cap situation for the forseeable future. The best option would be to get a 1st draft pick along with ideally a cheap, young player with potential and a TPE. From there we should use our cap space this season on 1-year veteran rentals. We should target starter types who will be able to put up good #s on a team that essentially only has Lamarcus and look to trade them at the deadline for more assets. This approach would keep us relatively competitive (hopefully keep LA from going postal) while accumulating cheap/young talent, assets for next year's draft, and holding over a significant amount of cap space for next year's free agency (which is a remarkably deaper pool, btw.) I get the whole "cap space is a myth" complaint, but with LA in his prime, a talented young PG, hopefully a few more nice young pieces acquired by then and more draft picks, in another year Portland could be an appealing free agency destination...
His agent has made it clear he doesn't want to help the Blazers out even it Batum was still part of the future. Why would we think he would help the Blazers out with a sign and trade when he wouldn't be part of the team? If there was a team he wanted to go to and they didn't have any cap space, then maybe that would be an option. But there are enough teams who have room to sign him without giving up talent in a trade that would help Portland. Bottom line is a sign and trade is highly unlikely IMO.
Seems pretty simple to me... Cap Space or no cap space, because we have his full bird rights, we can sign him for more money and an extra year that other teams cannot. Show me an agent that advocates for his client to take less money and fewer years, simply to stick it to their former team, and I'll show you a fired man walking. It's fun to pretend to be all malcontent, but when the actual dollar amounts start flying, I think $55M for 5 years will sound a lot better than $44M over 4... I have to imagine that Nic will want that, he hasn't made enough money, nor has he been successful enough in the league to opt for a lesser sum (which we'd match, btw) just to play for a specific team. I think, at the end of the day it's going to be tough for a team to offer enough outright that we wouldn't match and STILL find the right fit where Nic wouldn't want that extra year at that amount... All else fails, what did we really do to piss Nic off so much? If Olshey really wanted to turn the screws on Nic and his agent, we can go their route and take the issue to the media. Professional? Probably not. Childish, yep. But at the very VERY least, it could save a little public face with other free agents.
Sign and trade him for whom? I know somebody suggested Leonard, but I'm not sure the Spurs do that (Leonard's too young and cheap). If they did, I guess that wouldn't be terrible. But who else?
Let's get something straight here, Nic is not his agent. To say Nic is not happy is simply an opinion. And to say he has not thrived or is not thriving in Portland is also quite the stretch. He's grown up so much here and has a special bond with the city. Without a doubt Nic wants the Blazers to match any offer, the real question is how much will the market demand.
Maybe not who (specifically) but what?... If we're faced with getting nothing or getting something for Batum, you take what you can get... The most appealing assets to pick up in a Batum S&T are fairly obvious - young, cheap talent, 1st round draft pick(s) player at similar/equal talent/age/value/contract... But we can also pick up a sizeable traded player exception which, along w/ cap room could facilitate a lot of movement at the deadline or next year's draft. You could also look at getting a vet or two with expiring contracts. Obviously those aren't as sexy as a 1st round pick or a Kawhi Leonard, but those could come in handy at the deadline as well...
The good news is that only a hand-full of teams have the cap space to offer him a "big" contract. We can always match it and send him "Nene" packing in December!!
One of the changes in the new CBA is that sign-and-trade deals are limited to a maximum of 4 years. The only time a player can get a 5 year deal is if he's re-signing and staying with the team that has his Bird rights.
I love Batum, too. The problem of Batum? You need 3 absolute studs who can take a game over on your team. Batum is tantalizing, but he hasn't shown that he can be one of those. The problem of course is that his agent wants him to get paid like one.
Last season, Felton was justifiably criticized for slightly-off passes. But Batum contributed to making Felton look bad with lazy, slightly-off pass receptions a couple of times per game. He was too passive and lazy to move a step to make it into an accurate pass. Batum deserves some of the blame Felton got.
