http://www.columbian.com/weblogs/bl...batum-bayless-miller-shooting-during-mondays/ Just for fun I called "swish" everytime Nic shot the ball and "clang" everytime Bayless shot the ball and I was right about 90% of the time
I wont go that far. Bayless has shown spurts. So yes I'm a little less high on Bayless.. but nowhere near the jump in how high I am on Batum.
Man, Nate really needs to see if he can push Batum into being a 34 mpg player, at least in non-back-to-back games. If he can play those kind of minutes in the playoffs without giving anything up on defense, it'd be huge for this team. He's such an efficient scorer.
I don't have any evidence, just a suspicion, but I truly believe that Rudy is getting PT no matter how badly he plays because upper management fears he'll become disgruntled and make enough of a fuss to force his way out. Part of his suckiness might be due to the strained quad and some kind of lingering back issue, but one thing is patently clear, he's no better than Webster on offense and is frequently worse on defense and it's hard to justify just why he gets so much rope with which to hang himself.
Some of it also might be because when he is "warming up" all he does is shoot one handed, left handed 3 pointers rather than practice shots from where he will be taking them on the floor during the game. If he is practicing the same way, there is little need for explanation as to why he is sucking ass from the outside.
I'd be happy seeing all our starters play 40mpg the rest of the way, with Howard getting 20 of the 40 available bench minutes.
I wouldn't go that extreme. Batum is such an active defender that I don't really know if he can handle that many minutes at this stage without losing a little of his impact on defense. Batum is still only 21. Battier, Artest, Bowen--most of the good wing defenders in the game didn't start logging 36+ mpg until they were 25-26. I want more of him, but only as much as he can handle. Also, Camby has never really sustained more than around 33 mpg in his career. I don't want him playing tired, where a sloppy move results in yet another injury. Miller, Roy and Aldridge, though, should clearly be getting 37+ mpg right now except in blowouts.
We have 6 games left in the regular season, and likely no more than 7 more after that. I doubt that either Batum or Camby would be severely taxed by 40mpg over the span of less than a month, especially considering the light workload they've experienced heretofore.
It's a matter of game by game. I want Batum with plenty of legs left at the end of the game to slow down whoever the best player is on the other team that day.
Maybe because Nic missed about half the season injured Nate does not want to play him really heavy minutes?
Hmm, I'll have to go back and watch it more closely ... maybe I got he and Miller crossed up a couple of times. Regardless, my OP wasn't any kind of hard hitting analysis, it was pretty much a throw-away comment.
