Nicolas Batum Suffers Ankle Sprain In Eurobasket Warmup

Great... he played in those games.... but he played like shit the second half of the season because of a wrist injury. He should be resting, not hurting other parts of his body.

 

OMGERD he dint play against GEORGIE!!

 

Weren't you piling on LMA a few years ago for bowing out of the Team USA camp to go home with his mom?

 

I know you're not new to this board...

 

Batum has missed 16 games, total, over the last three seasons. One of them was a 64 game season, but he's on the court more than many "stars".

 

He knows this because of his knowledge of FAX MACHINES and the NBA FA moratorium. Why anyone takes what he says seriously baffles me.

 

Link? I've never really cared about, nor supported international play for our guys. Do you support your blasts with evidence or do you just throw out accusations willy nilly?

 

Played like shit, huh? If only all our players were that good when they "played like shit". Imagine how many championships we'd rack up!

 

Relax. It's not as if the team has ever misled us over player injuries.

Oh.....wait.....

 

How many of our players are being paid 10+ million per year?

What were his averages for the second half of the season? Did he deserve to be our second highest paid player?

 

I don't really get this line of argument. Players don't wear their salaries on their uniforms. To me, contract terms are of interest during the off-season or when trades are made, other than that, what a player makes is irrelevant to how he plays. Batum was really good early last season and then he suffered his wrist injury and never really got it going again. Until we see what he does after a summer to heal, I don't think it's fair to judge his value to the team going forward. If he can't produce at a high rate this fall, then he'll be one of those bad contracts that every team has one or two of. OTH, if he plays consistently like he did last fall, his contract will be a good value.

 

Blue said that he wished all our players played that good when they were playing like shit, and I was pointing out that all our players aren't making 10+ million per year. If Will Barton plays like shit, I don't care because he's getting paid table scraps. Nic Batum is eating up a huge chunk of our cap space on a contract that he hasn't truly earned. He's our second highest paid player, is he our second best player? Our third? This isn't the NBA from ten years ago. We can't just throw around money like it means nothing. Team's can't afford to have guys making 10+ million and not producing. He isn't missing games, but if he isn't giving himself a chance to heal, how is that affecting our team? Do you think Paul Allen is paying to have Nic Batum at 60%? 75%?

He and Wes are tough guys, they'll play with injuries, but I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be better to sit and let themselves heal so that they're closer to 100% when they DO play.

 

I don't seem to recall somebody putting Olshey's nuts in a vice an forcing him to match Minnesota's offer sheet. Contract decisions are for GMs and agents to haggle over. Players either make the GMs look smart or stupid by their play. So far, I'd say that Batum isn't doing much for Olshey's reputation as a decision-maker, but I think it's also fair to say that it's early and Batum may yet prove that Olshey was wise in deciding to match.

 

I don't know, I think Olshey's nuts were squarely in a vice created by Kahn. Either they pass and let a promising 23 year old forward walk for nothing, or they match and are stuck with a huge contract for a guy who hasn't proven he can consistently contribute. Paired with the fact that Paul Allen is still paranoid of another Jermaine O'Neal happening and you have our current situation.

Contracts aren't just something for GM's and agents to haggle over. They do a lot of psychological and longterm damage in some cases. Some players can't handle the added pressure of a big contract. Some players develop animosity over one guy getting paid big bucks and one guy getting less. It affects a team's ability to acquire new talent. You don't want to be sinking a ton of cash into a guy that isn't doing much for your team, so my whole point from the beginning is that I don't think the team should have to deal with their second highest paid player getting hurt playing overseas. It's an unnecessary risk.

If your company invested significant time and money training you, and rewarded you with a huge contract, would you think it was unfair if that team asked you not to take unnecessary risks?

 

You make some good points, Nate, but I'm still in the camp of waiting and seeing if Nic can produce this year. If not, he won't be the first or last player the Blazers have had who didn't perform up to his contract value. Look around the league and you'll find lots of examples. As far as a player wanting to play on his national team in the off-season goes, if the NBA wanted to end that practice they could simply write it into the CBA. They won't because the exposure they get from players competing in these off-season events is good for drawing a worldwide audience to the NBA. Players risk injury anytime they play...including pickup games at the gym (see Elliot Williams). Goes with the territory.

 

You make it sound so simple. But what counts as "unnecessary"? Can they stipulate that the players can't eat donuts? That they can't drive their own cars? That their contract is voided if they're caught without a helmet on their bikes? We know they already do ban things like snowboarding, but expanding it to something like national duty? I think that works well on players who aren't used to the idea that national duty means anything.

Now, some teams really do seem to put pressure on players - the Bulls for example have pressured Deng and Noah. But Deng has still played, and who knows how much Noah really wanted to. Mark Cuban has been a bit hypocritical - he's complained about it for some players but let Dirk do it because he loves Dirk so much. But I think the idea that teams "own" players because they've "invested so much in them" is bullshit. Funny how it only ever applies to low level employees: you never see demands that CEOs take care of their health because of how much time and money a company has invested in them.

 

If you want to go down the slippery slope so be it, but there are some things that are considered "no-no's" and things like motorcycles, sky diving, etc are some of them. Wouldn't it be reasonable to consider playing summer ball overseas an unnecessary risk? That much physical activity can put undue stress on the body, and could cause significant chance for injury during the NBA regular season, especially with our team, where guys like Nic, Dame, and Aldridge were logging huge minutes last year.

 

That's one of my biggest beefs. He is our second highest player and he doesn't play like one. His contract is eating 11 mil of the 58 mil. That's 18% of our cap space. He plays like our 3rd to 4th best player.

If Nic was actually healthy all season, he could be our 2nd best player. That's what pisses me off.

 

To be fair, our second best player is on a rookie contract; he'd make way more than Batum if he weren't.