What stats do people expect from the SF position?

No matter what Nic does in the regular season people say he sucks and that he needs to do more in the playoffs.

Nic does do more in the playoffs, then people say he sucks because he should have done the same in the regular season.

You know who raves about Nicolas Batum? Coaches and ex coaches. They must all be idiots.

Nic had an injury plagued season. He is not a featured scorer on this team. He fills his role, whatever it happens to be on a given night.

Nics stat line is just what I want from our number four option in the starting lineup.

 

He DOES put out consistent effort. Consistent effort to avoid scoring, to cowardly try high-risk passes when he's near the hoop and should drive. If he had spent a couple of summers putting on muscle like Aldridge did years ago, he could use all those drive options he passes up when he's 10 feet out and passes out to 30 feet. He uses up energy being all over the court on defense, and has nothing left to stand still, post up, and show grit on offense. It would help to learn these skills one of these summers, as Aldridge did, and put on muscle so he doesn't have to chicken out whenever someone's between him and the basket.

A synonym of "Batum" is endurance. An antonym is toughness. His eyes always look like a deer in headlights just trying to survive the game, not a bear turning around to kill you. He'd be a good marathon runner.

The bottom line is, when Aldridge and Lillard aren't scoring, unreliable $12 million Batum is unable to take up the torch. Is this Stotts' fault for not designing plays for him? Or is it Batum's fault for always passing off, and passing up, his own options on plays?

Of course, Stotts designating Aldridge as Princess Shothogger doesn't leave many shots for Batum. But then we get to the root cause of all our problems...

 

I expect someone that shows the fuck up every god damned night. Not just every three games for 7 fucking years, while they get paid 10s of millions of dollars.

Fuck Batum. The guy gave us mediocre effort for his entire Blazer career, probably the only thing he was consistent with.

 

He had a wrist injury last year too. It's constant excuses after excuses for this guy.

France National team, extra basketball, no rest, injury, injury, injury, now divorce, bla bla bla, fuck it.
Dude needs to go somewhere else.

 

all of them..but I'll be happy with 15/8/9

 

Damian's struggles on the defensive side isn't due to a lack of effort. He gives it. He just doesn't have it. Nic is inconsistant on offense because he doesn't care of enough. It doesn't matter to him and doesn't give the effort.

 

I'll answer your question only if I can use my stat to answer it.

 

This only sorts for all forwards, not just SFs, but you tell me how you see that Batum is #1 in A/TO by a long shot. Did you just make it up?

http://stats.nba.com/league/player/...15&SeasonType=Regular Season&PlayerPosition=F

 

thats an interesting site, i never would have guessed that john salmons had so little pie

 

This site doesn't have A/TO, so I had to get creative. Batum's Asst% divided by his TO% is 1.206 (= 20.5 / 17.0). Here are all players at the positions of F or F-G (but not G-F, F-C, or C-F, or you'd see a lot more listed who are better than him) who played more than 1000 minutes (or you'd see a lot more listed who are better than him) who exceeded Batum in Asst% to TO% ratio. Note that of the 18 forwards with a better Asst%/TO% ratio than Batum, Batum is by far the worst in TO%.

http://bkref.com/tiny/9f1FC

Again...Did you just make it up (that he ranks #1 by a mile in A/TO among SFs)? What is your source?

 

I see it. You're looking at the tail-end of Salmons' line.

 

The question is tough to answer but to me it all depends on the system that Stotts is coaching. The Flow system has built in opportunities for all players to be the one scoring but because Nic is being asked to not only inbound the ball plenty of times he is also being asked to be the facilitator in a few different looks. He is usually the first or second guy to have the ball. That means he is sometimes the guy that sets up Aldridge who will usually put the ball on the floor and move to a better spot to shoot. When he takes that shot it is no longer an assist if he didn't catch and shoot within a step or two. He is quite often the guy that comes around to take a pass and move into a pick -n- roll with Rolo.
Just these few situations alone makes Nic tough to gauge and gives him more assists than many other SF's. The thing is it also makes him vulnerable to a few turn overs but if you look his TO/ASST rate is one of the best in the league.

The scoring for Nic is where he really had a tough time. His average dropped from 13 to just over 9. Most expected him to continue to progress. He went from 12 in 2011 to 13 in 2012 to 14 in 2013 and then the problems started. He got a much bigger role with the French national team and the next two years we have seem a dramatic drop. 13 in 2014 and then this year he is way down to 9 pts avg. If we were seeing 13-14 per game i would be a huge Batum fan again. The difference is a simple 3 and a free throw a game. Maybe a lob or even a mid range that could fall. But really when you are talking about losing 4 points from your projected total points as a team that is HUGE!

Nic made up for a lot of his scoring problems by getting rebounds. But still he is down nearly 2 a game this year from last. Again people are seeing him drop off dramatically. The thing is that 5.9 rebounds a game put's him at 10th in the NBA for small forwards but 7.5 like last year would have put him at #2 in the league for his position. Again losing 2 rebounds a game from what you expect from your core is HUGE!

How many points/rebounds/assists do i want from my Small Forward is pretty clear. I want the player they signed to a 4 year contract at $12 million next year. That player averaged 14/5/5. If he can't do that then it is time to look for another option. 9/5/4 ain't cutting it. If he wants to pick up his game and make a bigger impact in the playoffs fine. But do it from a season of 14/5/5 instead of the lesser....

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/batumni01.html

 

we already have him

 

I always thought it was interesting how many 9s Nic put up in a game. He had a couple 9/9/9 games over the last couple seasons but often would get 9 boards or assists and not go for the double double. Unselfish team guy in my view. I realize I'm in the minority when it comes to liking his game and yes, he had a rough season offensively.

 

I don't think you are really in a minority here. I really think that if Nic had put up his average there would be very few that are complaining. He did have a tough year and for that i can give him some slack for sure. The guy also did play 71 games after playing 82 last year and 73 the year before. I personally think his numbes would have been better had he taken a few more games off and recovered from a few injuries this year. You mentioned in an earlier post you would have liked to see him play less minutes. I would have like to see him play less games when he was injured.

 

Sly it's "not bad" but like some others he was very inefficient in the scoring aspect as he shot a poor 34% overall and 33% from 3, his numbers were like LMA's - very inefficient on offense

 

Can CJ realistically play SF?