Trade for who? Forget the recent shooting slump. As frustrating it is to watch players lose their confidence, we know at some point it will return. If you are asking should we trade the Nic Batum from last year, then again I would want to know what we are getting in return. It needs to be a player who compliments Dame and Wes. I love Wes but his strength on offense is his 3 pt shot and posting up. His weakness on offense is finishing and passing on the fast break. He is Ok as a ball handler but compared to teams now that use a two PG line up, our back court does not have the best handles. (And our bigs compound the problem-Please stop dribbling in traffic Chris!) So to compensate for it, IMO we need a SF who does have good handles. A Jeff Green would not have helped this problem. Cory Brewer in hindsight would have been a good fit, but is he a starter? So if you keep Wes, then you need a SF who can help Dame out with running the offense. Unless you move Wes to the SF and go small. Wes showed last night he can guard SF's. I think he prefers banging with bigger players than chasing smaller ones. But this team needs more ball handlers. Barton showed how he can help when under control but that is not the answer for the starting unit. If you trade Nic you need to bring someone back that will help with our weaknesses. Is there a Scottie Pippen out there?
Yeah, let's trade every player because they are injured. That will work out well. I'm pretty sure taking 1000 jump shots is not the remedy for an injured wrist. Although it may seem counter-intuitive, I think this may be a good time to sit him. With Aldridge, Lopez, and Freeland out, and Nico and Wes playing banged up, we aren't going to be winning games against good teams anyway. Sitting Batum while he rehabs during this run of injuries isn't going to cost us any games. Especially with the way he's playing. Just fix his freaking wrist already.
I think Batum is the same player he's always been, he's just shooting 10 less % from 3. I've always thought everything about his game was terribly over-rated by Blazer fans.
