It does appear Nic's nonstop play in every offseason is effecting him. Hard to know for certain but he has had a number of major to minor injuries over multiple seasons here now. It's going to hurt his market value on his next contract so if he wants to lose $20 million because of less productivity than I guess its his choice. If I were an owner I'd want better insurance options and the ability to cut a player and only pay half their salary but that's a different discussion. Isn't a torn ligament going to take months to heal and possibly need surgery? Their aren't very good details on his prognosis but I can say the Batum we've seen the last few months is crap. If Aldridge was this ineffective I'd want him to get surgery. Aldridge looked great last night though. I hope Nic shuts it down and gets healed now. It'll give Crabbe/Wright/CJ a chance to gain some experience and then Nic can come back for the playoffs.
This will sound negative; but as an observation I'm not sure how intelligent Nic is. At times he even seems to be a very dumb person to me. Hey the world needs ditch diggers too so I still love rooting for the guy and wish him the best. But a number of stories of his are puzzling. The problems he gets into with his ex-wife; the illogical stance's he made in free agency. Its odd because usually when a player shoots well and passes well he is regarded as a high IQ player and thus we think of him as intelligent. Maybe Nic is just a highly skilled but less intelligent individual. Am I ignorant of him being from a different culture? I don't think so but I can see where that could be the case. Maybe its because someone with his physical abilities and basketball skills seems as though they should be a superior player. Then on top of it you have career decisions such as this injury that make little sense. If LMA struggles that bad when injured for a week I bet he gets surgery right away. Nic doesn't seem to make the right choices with simple decisions.
I see there are a lot of you supporting Nick and his way of managing his biz away from the Blazers. So some of you find nothing wrong with what I posted above then?
As I've said, offseason these guys don't have to live in a bubble. Dirk spent a summer hiking the outback in Australia and could have gotten snakebit. Nico is basically Dame's age, he's not Tim Duncan's age. He stated that he played for team France because he love basketball and he also stays connected with up and coming players as he has invested in a team in his hometown in France. He plans to be a GM there when he retires. So what? Diversity..go to Los Angeles in the offseason and you'll find Melo, LA and lots of superstars playing pickup games all summer. Sometimes they get injured. Nico's last injury I witnessed and it wasn't playing for France. If we get this fragile about athletes, players from years and decades gone by would scoff at the idea. What bothers me most is that folks far removed from a celebratie's life think they know who, why and where about that person. A lot of these guys play pick up hoops all year round. I'd venture to say Will Barton played more off season ball then Nico.
For those of you saying he got hurt playing for France, how come he isn't wearing a brace in this video?
He was wearing one of those top of the line invisible braces. I heard he spent his entire 2014-15 salary on it so that he could hide the injury from the Blazers staff. The real shocker comes when you find out that he only plays for team France so that he can get injured and rest during the NBA season.
Nothing in the article about whether just rest will heal the injury, or he needs surgery. If it's rest, then let him sit for however long it takes. Just get healthy for the playoffs.
I think he has to get surgery. I don't see how rest would fix it, aside from having the swelling go down. But as soon as he plays and bangs it again....it's right back where we started.
You can't argue that NBA players should be kept from playing international ball in the summer, because the CBA specifically forbids the NBA and/or any team from even recommending that a player take the summer off.
But is there a way to opt-out of paying them in case they get injured from the result of international ball?
I don't think so. IIUC, there's some sort of insurance coverage should a player under contract with an NBA team suffer a career-ending injury, but I'll be damned if I can find where I read that...
True, but Cuban has suggested that the rules should be changed in thw future. I'm happy with the way things are now. These posts about Nic not being rested or having injuries from playing with his national team are BS, imho. These guys are highly trained athletes. They don't sit on their asses in the summer. If they're not playing for their national team, they're playing somewhere else. Play and work on your game or get left behind.
100% agree. There's plenty of other international representatives for various countries that play during the off-season. They seem to do ok, and even add to their game.
I agree with this. But, it is probably important for some players to have the mental break, and I think Nic is one of them. His problems this year look mental more than physical to me. Tired-looking start to a lot of games, lack of urgency, not playing with energy or any kind of edge to his attitude are all signs of this.
There is much difference with working on your game and playing full contact professional games. Some players will take a year off to recover from a long and grueling season.
Iron Man Andre Miller never played ball in the off season. Just sayin'. (Cool WWF name, don't you think?)
