Link? Saying he showed a bad image for France is in no way an admittance to intentional cock-punching. I don't encourage cock-punching unless it's against Spain or Carmello Anthony. They deserve it. Watching Spain is like watching soccer. If you're going to act like a girl, then let us bash your testicles in and complete the process.
Adrian Wojnarowski @WojYahooNBA I asked Nicolas Batum why he hit Juan-Carlos Navarro in the groin. "I wanted to give him a good reason to flop," Batum said.
The level of twittered and printed vitriol over this is over the top, IMO. It's 'brutal', 'viscious', 'gruesome' etc. I've seen many really scary flagrant fouls over the years that could have been career threatening. This wasn't one of those. And the vast majority of flagrants are forgotten almost immediately. Or lauded (as someone else pointed out) if it's one the NBA darlings doing it. It's like some guys hold some kind of a religious reverence for that part of the body or something.
I don't think that's admitted he was going for the nut shot. I think he knew he was going to foul Navarro and went in viciously in the area the basketball was, which happened to be near Navarro's groin.
Pretty sure that Navarro is the one who needs to worry about (re)growing a pair. New Spanish dish: Huevos Navarro served flopped on a plate.
I hate getting hit in the beanbag, but I hate Spain more, so that's my way of saying evil for a good cause is totally good times.
http://espn.go.com/olympics/summer/2012/basketball/story/_/id/8247527/2012-summer-olympics-spain-beats-france-reaches-men-basketball-semifinals Arm?? Looked a little lower than that to me.
I hope batum is ashamed and won't do this again, but I also hope that this is just the start of more emotion from batum, just better directed.
I hope the negative backlash doesn't slow his roll. I want this aggressive Batum on my team. I don't believe it is his nature to be a dirty player. But I think he does need a chip on his shoulder.
Seriously. All the pearl clutchers in the audience need to realize that we've been too nicey-nice as a team for too long. We need some balls. Nic just got a pair. ...too bad it wasn't his own.
LOL at Ed O. and a few others comparing Ariza's flagrant foul on Rudy to this silly nut punch while going for the ball.
That was definitely bush league. It was also seven years ago and Paul was 19 years old. Teenagers are quite often less mature than guys in their early-mid 20's. Ed O.
The team's problem hasn't been that it's been too nice... it's been that it's been too bad. I don't equate Batum taking a cheap shot out of emotion with him being a better basketball player. Ed O.
