Fully agree. We want a team of hard workers. A Matthews - Lillard - CJ type. See how Batum 'decided' to play in the play-offs. He obviously flipped a switch ,the intensity he played with was much greater than during the season. I don't want to see a player coasting like that, during the season, on our team. It's sets-up the wrong attitude and environment for success. An attitude of 'I can just turn it on when I need to" is what gets the Blazers into so many holes early on in games, and is a bad example for younger players. Also see where he had an run-in with one of our coaches in the last playoff game when they tried to give him advice - and he angrily responded " He knew what he was doing". Arrogance that he fully believes the way he is playing and conducting himself - is the correct way for the teams success. Team plans and philosophy be damned. More than anything - I want this guys bad influence GONE from the team next season.
Olshey should buy a cushioned purple throne for Batum to watch the games from France on the internet, so that he won't feel the lumps.
Agreed. Look at his stats on a per game basis to analyze his inconsistency. That will tell his whole story.
Nic was consistent these past TWO seasons. Last season he was consistently good. This season he was consistently bad.
Hopefully the blazers never make it to the finals again 'cause that would be way too many extra games for our fragile players.
Do you two want to get better or not? Nic spent the entire year if not coasting, loafing. Why are you aight with this?
Not alright with it. Neither is Nic Batum if you listen to his presser. IMO the best way to get better is to keep a team intact and slowly add to the core.
If Nic is healthy, which he wasn't with his wrist injury (and whatever was going on in his head) there are just a small handful of better SF's in the league than him.
Resting a healthy player for more than a game is a bad idea. He would get out of game shape and be more susceptible to injuries. If we want to limit his minutes to 30mpg and have him sit out back to backs it could work well. It would improve our defense if the guys could be more intense the minutes they are on the court. I'm doubtful it would happen but I would be very intrigued to see it. Another change I want is stop having LaMarcus play an entire quarter. They went away from that in the playoffs since he was tired defending Zach. Let's see him bring that defensive effort in the regular season with an extra breather in the first and third quarters.
Why do we rest Nic Batum? We freaking pay him a ton to play for us, not gallivant around in other leagues. If we rest him, he deserves to take a cut in pay!
He's beat down by the time training camp starts. Conflict of interest here with Team France. Nic has no problem cashing his checks though.
I hate batum like everyone else but isn't he resting from now till August? That's like damn near 3 months. What's the big deal if he plays for two weeks in France that's not even starting in another 3 months? I don't get what the big deal is? Lol
The big deal is he always complains to the media about him being tired or not having enough rest because he doesn't take enough days off after the NBA season. (When asked why he sucks). I may be paraphrasing there , but that is the general gist of it.
I don't hate Batum. I do think Nic has let himself get run down by not having taken any time off since he was 19 years old (or before), and playing competitively overseas every year. And I am well on record as saying I don't like it. But I agree with you that if he does in fact take some much needed time off, the couple of weeks of playing in France shouldn't be a big deal. Moreover, he is going to need some run to get in shape and get tuned up for training camp.
In previous years, Batum does more than just play 2 weeks in the world games. He said that there is a lot of pre-training events that he did as well. If he only played the 2 week series, I don't think anyone truly has a problem with that.
I suspect that as Nic gets older he'll play for France less and less (see Tony Parker). This seems to be the first year that Nic will actually be taking a (small) step back from his national commitment. We'll see how it pays off next season - I suspect he'll be much better than he was this past season. It would be foolish to trade him now. However, if he comes back next season and is still shooting 30% then we can trade him at the deadline - he'll have just as much value then as he does now, and possibly more. I'm not a fan - AT ALL - of NBA players playing for their national teams. But a lot of you have a double standard, where you laud Lillard for playing (or wanting to play) for Team USA but vilify Nic for playing for France. Can't have it both ways.
