He can improve and probably will. But Batum is 3 years younger, so has more development left (unless he or Ariza are unusual) and the difference between them is not that large.
2008-9 FG% FT% 3% TS% NB - 0.446 81% 37% 56% TA - 0.460 71% 31% 54% Trevor was in his 4th year, Nic in his 1st... not exactly the sort of offensive polish that jumps out at me STOMP
Except that Ariza is good enough to be on the floor in crunch time. Batum is too much of an offensive liability to be at this point.
remind me of the Lakers other crunch time SF options... he was in there largely by default. Batum won't be a rookie next year. STOMP
We don't know if Nico was good enough to be on the floor at crunch time. We know that Nate trusted Travis more. Just sayin'...
yeah but at times Nic also proved that he didnt deserve to be in there for more than 6 minutes in a 3rd quarter.. why would he be deserving of crunch time minutes?
Because he's Nicolas Batum, that's why, untradeble piece of the big four. How can you be so stupid as to question him?
And at times he showed himself to be the team's best defender with a great stroke and handles. It's called a being a rookie. What's your point?