As the start of the NBA season approaches, I’ll be breaking down each Trail Blazer expected to play a role in the team’s chances for success. Today, we feature the Glue, Nicolas Batum. (Stats provided by NBA.com.)
How Did He Do Last Year? We can start with this: Nicolas Batum played 82 games for the first time last season. Given his issues with nagging injuries in previous years, that fact by itself registers as a plus, even if he was dinged up quite a bit by season’s end.
Before the 2013-14 season began, I read an article about him in The Oregonian where he mentioned that he wanted to average 15 points, five rebounds, and five assists a game, essentially being a Swiss Army Knife on the basketball court. Although he fell short of his points benchmark (coming in at 13 PPG), he did average 5.1 assists, and he blew away his rebounding goal to the tune of 7.5 RPG. That mark placed him amongst the best rebounding wing players in the league.
Batum’s field-goal percentage last year was 46.5%, his highest since his second year in the league, but since he played only 37 games that year, 2013-14’s mark is a more accurate career-high. His 3PT% fell to a league-average 36%, not optimal for Portland’s offense (especially since he took 402 of them, almost five a game). He did keep up his defensive impact last year, hounding whomever Damian Lillard couldn’t guard or whomever Wesley Matthews was too slow to stay in front of.
In the playoffs, he did bump up his scoring average to 15 a game while keeping his other numbers steady – perhaps a response to Chandler Parsons saying he was, “The best small forward” in the Portland-Houston series last year. His defensive assignment went from Parsons to Jeremy Lin to James Harden, while on offense he handled the ball, shot three-pointers with decent accuracy, made several clutch baskets (what’s forgotten in Game 6 of the Houston series is that Batum made a tough fadeaway over Dwight Howard, after driving around Harden, to tie the game), and served as a secondary initiator of offense when Portland needed to reset.
What’s His Role For Next Year? I’ve heard and read plenty of opinions on Batum that say he needs to take a greater role on offense. The gist is basically that HE NEEDS TO SCORE MORE! I can understand why those opinions are out there; if you want to be a championship-caliber team, your third-best player can’t be scoring 13 points a game while bricking 257 threes. Given the other things Nicolas Batum does for this team, however, I’d like to enlighten and educate those people.
His raw talent may make people think he can take over a game whenever he pleases – his last two games for France at the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup were displays of that talent. But his personality, the existence of LaMarcus Aldridge and Damian Lillard, and the malleable nature of his game means he’s cast as the jack-of-all-trades on the Blazers and unlike other observers of the team, I’m fine with that.
Batum is a somewhat polarizing player, the kind of guy that exposes other people’s methods of thinking. There were plenty of nights last year where Batum had nine points, nine rebounds, eight assists, and three steals in a game. Some folks would look at that line and focus on the fact that he scored only nine points, that he overpassed, that he ran too many pick-and-pops with Aldridge that ended without a good drive, or that he ran too many pick-and-rolls with Robin Lopez that ended with a miss or a turnover because he passed to Lopez instead of taking the shot off the dribble or behind the screen. They look at Batum’s FIBA performances over past summers and think, “Why isn’t he that guy in America?”
Conversely, other folks look at that same stat line and marvel at it. They think he’s a walking near-triple-double, that he’s the ultimate role player, that his quirky numbers and laid-back attitude fit great with a city that keeps it weird, that his ability to create and initiate offense provides a vital counterpoint to the defenses focusing on Lillard on the perimeter, as well as another guy who can get Aldridge his shots in rhythm.
Honestly, I like to take a centrist view in almost all of my thoughts and opinions; I can see valid points on both sides. The bare truth about Nicolas Batum the basketball player is that he provides exactly what his team needs in a particular game.
If Lillard’s shot is off, or if Aldridge’s impact is limited because of foul trouble, Nico will drop 18-20 points to make up the difference. If Lopez is too distracted tangling with opposing bigs to corral rebounds, Nico will sneak in and snag them for him (that’s how a small forward not named “LeBron James” can average 7.5 RPG). While Matthews is busy guarding the opposing team’s top perimeter threat, Nico’s busy checking point guards for Lillard and providing weak side defense when the situation allows. When Portland coach Terry Stotts has to turn to his anemic bench, Nico’s one of the guys Stotts leaves out there as an anchor.
We as sports fans tend to look at guys like Batum and think they’re wasting their potential. We condemn their willingness to stuff the box score without any eye-popping numbers or highlights. We look at Batum’s relaxed demeanor and smooth movement on the court and wish he’d take the passive out of passive-aggressive. Some Blazers fans look at Batum and think, “Why doesn’t he do everything?”
Nicolas Batum does do everything. Some folks just don’t notice it.
What Are His Strengths? I think I hinted at them up above. Batum is one of the most versatile players in the NBA, a player that every team would love to have and few teams actually have.
Batum makes about $10-11 million a year. I bring that up because Chandler Parsons signed a three year, $45 million deal with the Dallas Mavericks this offseason, several days before the Utah Jazz matched a four year, $62 million offer the Charlotte Hornets made to Gordon Hayward.
Like Batum, Parsons and Hayward are touted as 3s (small forwards/big wings) who can do a little of everything on the court. The slight problem for the Mavs and Jazz is that Batum is a version of Parsons that plays good defense, or Hayward without a turnover rate that induces vomiting. Parsons and Hayward are going to make substantially more money than Batum in the near future, but it’s Batum who’s actually the best player of the three, and at 26 years old, he’s just a couple years older than the other two. By the time they’re all ready for their next contracts, they’ll all be in their prime years.
What Does He Need To Improve On? Batum’s accuracy from the 3-point line and the free-throw line hit career-lows last year, and while you could chalk that up to his wrist/hand ailments in 2014, it could also be due to him playing a full NBA season for the first time ever. Put simply, he wore down.
So the obvious thing for him to improve on would be his conditioning and durability. Batum stands 6-8 with very long arms, yet Wesley Matthews was often the one that guarded opposing small forwards last season. Batum’s skinny frame gets too beat-up going against the likes of Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James and the bulkier 3s in the NBA, which led to his injury troubles. As Kevin Durant got stronger in recent years, Batum was even switched off of him in favor of Matthews.
Batum doesn’t have the frame to allow for bulging muscles (neither does Durant), but adding another 15 pounds or so while managing his diet and workout habits more closely could help keep him pain-free and effective. It’s also helped that some of the guys that play his position, like James and Anthony, have slimmed down drastically, which plays right into Batum’s hands. Less weight won’t make those guys easier to defend, but they probably won’t be able to shove Batum around like they have in the past.
As long as Batum stays healthy, and if the Blazers can afford to cut his minutes from 36 per game (his average last year) to about 31-32, his accuracy issues will take care of themselves.
Summary Batum fulfills all the roles the Trail Blazers need him to; he’s a secondary ball handler, floor spacer (along with Matthews), great defender, opportunistic rebounder and playmaker. Whether he needs to score more or show more assertiveness is a debate that no one amongst the Blazer faithful or media will ever be able to solve or quash.
What we can agree on is this: as long as Nicolas Batum continues to be the ultimate Glue player, the Blazers will be just fine. Whether the team takes the next step to contender status will be up to him, but no more than it will be up to Aldridge, Lillard, or one of the myriad young bench guys Portland is hoping will take “The Leap” this upcoming season.