Nate wants Nic to develop his post game (and more updates on Batum's summer)

Yes, he absolutely should. Just like he absolutely should have, but didn't, during games 2 - 6 of the Phoenix series. Why does it take our head coach until the off season to finally see the same thing casual observers saw the instant Alvin Gentry put Steve Nash on Nic Batum?

BNM

 

Ok? You said he was better than Prince was at any stage in his career. That is false.

I love how Batum is making big strides as an offensive player yet McMillan is using him completely wrong. Sorry, that doesn't match up. He's just not relying on a young player that can hardly create his own shot. Batum still needs to prove he can. I don't buy that McMillan is just completely ignoring some ability Batum has shown in practice.

Anyways, back to what you originally said, you said Batum was better than Prince ever was. That is flat out false. Will he be better? Who knows. But right now he is not better than Prince ever was.

 

Leave to Assclown to maximize the skills of the players he has? While that is a good point, when did you become a fan of McMillan's?

 

In your opinion. I disagree. You have done nothing to prove that Batum is not better than Prince was at his peak. Your counter argument was small sample size of 37 games. Batum's true shooting percentage as a 21-year old second year player totally blows away anything Prince had doe in his 8-year NBA career. It's not even close. Big deal, Prince can create his own shot. A lot of good it does if he doesn't make it. Creating a shot and making a shot are two different things and Batum makes his shots at a much higher percentage than Prince ever has. If we grow the sample size to include Batum's rookie year (116 games), his shooting percentages still blow Prince's away. Batum has a career TS% of 0.594 vs. 0.530 for Prince. Batum shoots better from everywhere than Prince:

Batum:
Career FG% = 0.477
Career 3FG% = 0.387
Career FT% = 0.825

Prince:
Career FG% = 0.463
Career 3FG% = 0.370
Career FT% = 0.771

And Batum is improving and still years away from his peak.

Most of Batum's offensive improvement was a result of his play, and increased role, on the French national team and working with Monty Williams during his long rehab. His shooting percentages were way up because he worked on both his shooting and ballhandling. I'm not sure how Nate, who hasn't run a set play for Batum yet, should get any credit for that. If anything, he deserves criticism for not taking advantage of Nic's improved offensive skills - especially in the Phoenix series when he was being guarded by the other team's worst defender. This is also the same coach that told Greg Oden, after leading the team in scoring in the preseason, not to worry about scoring, to just focus an defense and rebounding. Nate has a history of ignoring the offense talent he's been given and sticking with his predictable, easy to stop one and two man offensive sets.

In your opinion. I disagree.

BNM

 

But you have to admit he has a higher ceiling then Prince.

 

In my opinion, Batum's floor == Prince's ceiling.

BNM

 

He is a special player who I would put money on that Monty Williams wishes was his starting 3! He does a little bit of everything well, and not to many players can say that about......... and th e best thing is he's young as hell!

 

did you miss the part about him posting up when he's being guarded by PGs on purpose? Why post up LA when he's being guarded by a similar sized Big when Nic is enjoying a considerable size advantage? LA is a solid outside shooter who should be primarily on the high post to facilitate the attack... thats his forte. A solid outside shooting High Post player pulls another Big defender out of the paint helping post play and drives to the hoop and gives the guards a big body to run their man off on pick and rolls/pops. I'm sure if the opposing coach has their SG guarding LaMarcus, Nate will similarly be clearing out a side for him to take advantage... thats what happened last year. Of course if they are guarded straight up it will be Greg primarily on the low block in their sets and the other players spacing the floor around him.

I know some of the fans here really enjoy getting their hate on, but advocating stupidity just to take another swipe at their favorite target is just silly

STOMP

 

Not it wasn't. My argument was Prince has more ability on offense than Batum does, combining that with some of the years he was really good defender. That alone makes him better than Batum, who you said was better than Prince ever was. Sorry, that statement you made it still false.

This has nothing to do with your original argument. I agree, btw. His ceiling is hopefully more than Prince, but probably not too much more. Prince is a pretty skilled player on offense with high basketball IQ and is a good defender. That sounds about what Batum could be.

Ah, Oden, the other young player on the team that showed great improvement in his game, yet it's still McMillan's fault. Funny how that works. Oden was only averaging 15pts/G over his last 7 games before injury. Not happy with that I guess.

Also, I don't fault McMillan for not building his offense around a guy who was always in foul trouble and could be a turnover machine. Considering Oden's abilities and his playing time and what he was averaging over his last 7 games before injury, I'd say he was coming along more than fine. Besides, pre-season stats, really?

 

Baloney. Batum's shoulder was jacked up and he was ineffective on offense because of it. It didn't matter who was guarding Nic which is the primary reason Gentry switched Hill to Miller.

 

Most definitely.

 

I'm really excited to see a healthy Nic play next year. To be able to build a chemistry with the starting 5 from the first day of camp! He will be a 2nd team all-defensive at the end of next year in my opinion.

 

I guess that's why his TS% was only .0605 in the Phoenix series - highest of any Portland starter.

So, after Batum scored 18 points in game 1, Gentry knew Batum was useless on offense and switched Hill onto Miller. What complete and total bullshit. Gentry swictehd Hill onto Miller:

a) to stop Miller who torchaed Nash for 31 in game 1
b) because he knew the Blazers didn't have a single set play for Batum in their playbook

You can use Nic's shoulder as an excuse, but it doesn't hold water with me. Seriously, it's not like Nash is some big physical defender. All Batum had to do, with his length is catch and shoot over Nash. But, the Blazers NEVER even tried to exploit the Batum/Nash mismatch once in five games.

BNM

 

If Batum wasn't raw on offense it would have helped. If he had the ability of Prince to create his own shot it'd be different.

Batum is not a guy you can count on to beat his man 1 on 1 regularly right now. Hopefully next years he keeps on improving and shows that he can.

 

Define "more ability on offense". I already proved Batum is a better shooter from everywhere than Prince has ever been. My definition of offensive ability includes being able to put the ball in the basket, and Batum does that across the board (high TS%, higher FG%, higher 3FG% and higher FT%) at a much more efficient rate than Prince.

That would be the first two years of his career, when he had DPOY Ben Wallace backing him up. After Wallace left, Prince no longer looked like an elite level defender. At this point, he's actually a liability on defense.

You sure like to state your opinion like it's an indisputable fact. Well, guess what, it's not. Prince's best two years on defense were his first two. Those also happen to be his two worst years on offense. About the time he developed into an average to slightly above average offense player, his defense started to slip.

I don't see a single season in Prince's eight year NBA career where he was indisputably better than Nicolas Batum during his second season. Yes, it's a small sample size, but in his second NBA season, Nic Batum was better than Tayshaun during any one single season of his career. Feel free to disagree and call that "false" all you want, but unless you can come up with something other than your opinion to back up your argument, you're just blowing a lot of hot air. So, go ahead, Show me one single season in Tayshaun Prince's career where he was indisputably better on offense and defense than Nicolas Batum was in his second NBA season.

Personally, I think Prince's 3rd season is close enough to Batum's 2nd season to call it a draw. Prince put up bigger raw numbers, because he played a lot more minutes, but Nic's pace adjusted per 36 numbers blow Prince's out of the water, with only one exception (passing). Batum shot the ball WAY better than Prince. He also had higher STL%, BLK% and TRB% numbers than Prince. I just dont' see any single season in Prince's career that is unequivocally better than Batum's second season.

BNM

 

He can create his own shot and run an offense. Batum has shown no ability to do this. High shooting percentages because there's no one in his face is nice, but that's all it is. Batum was astd on over 80% of all his shot attempts, 89% on jumpers.

I'm using my own two eyes, you're relying on strictly numbers. Watch them play - Prince has more ability.

Doesn't matter where/when/what/how/why. Batum at no point has been as good as Prince has in his best season(2004-2005), and this is with Prince being at best a 3rd option. He could have easily averaged more pts, and that goes with the rest of his career. Again, stop relying on numbers.

Watch them play.

Using your statistical argument, statistically Prince had his best offensive season in his third year, and his drtg was 104 compared to Batum's 107 last year.

2004-2005

Also, his whole career minus his rookie season and his last two seasons. 2003-2004 is actually as close as it gets, and Prince had a 98 drtg.

And Prince is much more capable of putting up bigger numbers. He put up what he did in his limited role with Billups/Hamilton/Sheed on his team. His numbers his whole career have been lower because of it. If you want to use all your per36 crap shit, I'll use my argument of Prince not getting the opportunities he'd get on other teams.

 

RoyToy, your dangerously close to overtaking Kingspeed in the pedantic argument department ... who gives a shit about all this fucking minutae between Prince and Batum, they're both very comparable at early points in their careers, Batum has a lot of promise and Portland should be happy to have him. For fucks sake.

 

Really. The coach of the French national team respectfully disagrees. Who ran their offense, and ran it very well, last summer during the Eurobasket tournament when Tony Parker was out? Batum, that's who. You're confusing ability with opportunity.

Translation: "in my opinion".

No I'm not, although I admit they make my case a lot stronger than yours.

I have. I've watched Prince since his days at Kentucky. He's an excellent role player. Nothing more. Never has been, never will be.

I'm sure if the numbers favored Prince, you'd be using them too. But they don't. So, you can't. So, you prefer to ignore them.

I have - a lot. And, it just so happens my opinion differs from yours. That doesn't make you right and me wrong. Especially when I've used my "own two eyes" AND the numbers favor Batum.

Yep, and Prince's best offensive years was inferior to Batum's second season. So, better offense for Batum combined with better defense from Prince = draw in my book.

I can easily make the same argument for Batum. He's an afterthought (at best) in Nate's offense and his individual numbers suffer because of it. At least Prince gets more minutes and gets to handle the ball. He has a lot more influence of his own production than Batum does.

Ah, I see, any stat that favors Batum is "crap shit". Nice. I get it now. I guess it's just a coincidence that good players post good stats. We should totally ignore stats and just accept your opinion as gospel. Is that how it works? Prince has had a lot more opportunities than Batum, both when the Pistons were good and especially after they dumped Wallace, Wallace and Billups. So, how has he stepped up during what should be the prime of his career (age 27 - 29). His offense continues to be very average and without Ben Wallace behind him, his defense has suffered greatly.

BNM

 

You do realize Batum injured his shoulder in game 2 don't you?

 

I'm worried about the NBA, not international basketball. Rudy was a good international basketball player. This is as pointless as using pre-season stats. Patty Mills was good in international basketball as well. Sorry, this argument is terrible on your part.

Damn straight.

Ha.

You sure don't think much of a player Batum himself has said he's trying to be.

I've always said #'s don't tell the whole story. That said, yes, in 2004-2005 the numbers favor Prince compared to Batum last season. Remember, your argument was Batum was better than Prince was in any season, which is still wrong.

Well then you are wrong.

Sigh...

You're assuming Batum has this ability that you've never seen. At no point has Batum ever shown he can break his man down 1 on 1 and create his own shot. That's why he's assisted on 80% of his shots. Webster in comparison is only 70% on close attempts. Rudy is 63%. Batum? 86%

Yeah, the Pistons traded Billups for who? Allen Iverson, that's right. Rip was still there, and Sheed was still there last year, combined with Stuckey. This year they had shot chuckers in Ben Gordon and Villanueva.

Drtg is like PER for me, and I don't think it's close to being a be all end all stat.

The formula is: Defensive Rating = (Opponent's Points Allowed/ Opponent's Possessions) x 100. The result is the expected amount of points that an individual player will allow on defense over 100 possessions. This stat can be significantly influenced by the defense of a player's teammates.[/QUOTE]