Game Thread Sorry... My first negative thread!!!

His shot will come back eventually. Getting impatient, but I am not too worried about that. It happens.

What bugs me is his passing. He is out there trying his best, but someone has to tell him that his bounce passes are just too risky. Defenders know it is coming. He needs to be more fundamentally sound. Hit his teammates in the chest (Unless it is an ally oop) or don't try it. Stop making the same pass to bench players that you do to starters who are used to playing with you. Nic is in a bad slump...no doubt

 

I think the excuse that he's been playing for the French National team has affected his play is not valid. Both Gasols have been playing for the Spanish National team haven't missed a beat. Marc is having a MVP caliber season and Pau is having a renaissance year.

 

Did he bang this wrist up playing for France?

 

I think Stotts should give Crabbe a few starts and reduce Nico's mins until he is back to 100% Have him lead the second unit for a bit.
I would like to see them give mins to Victor as well because I think he is great on defensive rebounds and he couldn't play worst then Nic at the moment.

 

I agree. Blaming it on his Summer is kinda weak. He plays for them every Summer. I also distinctly remember posters in here lauding his off-season play due to his new found ability (at the time) to run the pick & roll. You can't have it both ways people...

 

Typical. The turnover stat doesn't measure his many lazy screw-ups per game. This has been going on his whole career.

Batum thinks he's a point guard. Aldridge thinks he's a wing shooter. Both of our forwards refuse to play their positions conventionally.

 

You can agree, but the cognitive dissonance between the original post and your following statements are profound. How, if you could extrapolate, is his continual participation in the Euro games not a factor? What does his inability to function in that vein now say about said talent in the NBA? It is the mental make-up and commitment to his NBA team that is in question... not his basketball IQ or potential talent. Nico is a finesse player, not an inside banger. He needs to choose between the NBA and his national team... pure and simple. He came into the season saying he needed rest, but guess what, to late. I still have hope Stotts will rest him, but (you know BUT) that should not be necessary for a pro being paid what he is. Think back to what Parker told him during the finals for France. Tony knew he couldn't afford to put out more and laid it on Nico's shoulders. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate what Nico can do on the court, the problem is HE hasn't brought it for damn near half a season when in uniform for the Blazers.

 

Yup, right towards the end of their championship run. Then again in December:

http://www.columbian.com/news/2015/jan/15/whats-up-nicolas-batum-blazers-portland/

 

That's just the thing, one side of you wants to say, ok, you suck now, let's bench you for awhile and if rest is what you need, hopefully you'll come back to form. But why should a guy take a break while he's getting paid millions when he's supposed to rest during the offseason.

 

I get what you are saying but my thought is we have to do what is best for the team even if it means a player is getting paid to rest when he should be playing. Lose the battle to win the war

 

Good for them. What someone else does has no bearing on how Batum's lack of time off over the years may be affecting his effectiveness. Individual results may vary.

And don't forget Batum's wrist injury and that he got Ariza'd pretty good a couple weeks ago. Even Wes is struggling now that he's banged up.

 

And btw I've been complaining that Batum needs to put the Blazers first and the French team third for years. I don't want any Blazers playing international ball.

 

This is pretty much my opinion, except I disagree with the bolded part. His offense has been off all season long, yet we've won most of our games. If his bad shooting is the reason we've lost a few lately, then we should have been losing more games on a consistent basis throughout the course of the season.

For the past month or so I've thought it would be beneficial to rest Nic for a stretch of several weeks. He's still a damn good player, and he'll be invaluable in the Playoffs when we need someone to guard multiple positions. Trading him for someone who might score better would be a big mistake - we don't need more scoring in our starting unit, we need someone with the diverse set of skills that Nic has. But we need to make sure Nic is fully functioning about 2 weeks before the POs start, and I think resting him now is our best bet.

And as a bonus, resting Nic would also increase the likelihood that Crabbe will be better prepared for the POs. Win/win.

 

True, perhaps I should reword it and say that it makes our offense harder then it should be to run when he is really bad (especially in combination with Wes' bad nights) and think how much better it would be if he was at the least shooting the 3 like he has in the past.

 

I can agree with that. And I still fully expect his shooting to come around by the time the Playoffs start - but I'd feel a lot better about it if we rested him for a few weeks.
I also think it's the coach's job to change the offense when it's not working as well as it should. And since Terry is suppose to be an offensive genius you'd think it'd be easy for him to come up with new ways to score. I don't understand why people are blaming Nic rather than Terry. Nic's handful of missed shots each game isn't the reason for our losses.

 

I don't doubt he'll get it together, but it sure would be nice if he does so starting tonight. The fact is that most nights we should have the best small forward on the floor, and too often this year that hasn't been the case. Once it is, we're unstoppable.

 

Bam-o.

Yes, the team that is paying him the big bucks needs and needs him now. As a matter of fact they could have two less losses had he had proper rest and took care of himself in the offseason. Who knows, had he had proper rest in the offseason. We might have been able afford to rest Wes now.

Now look at what we are working with.

 

I think we'll see more Crabbe and CJ leading up to the allstar break. Both Nic and Wes need rest. After the break we should have Rolo and Freeland back and they really help the chemistry of the starting unit.