Nic as 8th Man?

that Batum is not an effective offensive player on his own. Mathews and Crawford have the ability to create and therefore are more of an asset when scoring is needed. Batums defense is awesome, but he is still a limited offensive player.

Felton – Batum – Wallace – LMA – Camby/Thomas

Crawford, Oden, Camby, Wallace, and Felton could all leave if they wanted to.

Batum will most likely re-sign, and Blazers will look to bring Freeland over if Freeland agrees to the price.

Batum will get his time to shine and start at some point, especially if Wallace decides to leave. At this point Wallace is still the better player, but Batum does deserve more minutes especially given this grueling schedule.

No one can say Nate is not fair with his rotation. Batum does nto consistently get to the hoop, either to score or get rebounds. His game is finesse for the most part and that lends itself to a role off the bench…and a limited one at that.

Any production in the French League has zero credibility in the NBA….any overseas league for that matter.

and is unlikely to persuade anyone of anything.

Batum’s primary position, and you play your better player. Batum started at 19 because Webster was injured, and Outlaw did not perform well, as you may recall. Nate’s only option is to give him minutes behind Wallace, and then play him at the 2 or the 4 based on what the other team is doing on any given night. However, Batum is not naturally either a 2 or a 4, and will never start at those positions. And blaming Nate isn’t entirely fair, given that the Blazers front office picked up Wallace knowing very well that this would put Batum into the backup slot at his regular position, and that fewer minutes would be the result. As such, this was a management decision as much as a coaches decision. I suspect that next summer some of this will get resolved, as the Blazers have a series of personnel decisions to make. Batum, Wallace, Felton, Crawford, Oden, and Camby are all going to have to be dealt with. And I, for one, doubt that they’ll all still be here given the new CBA and the fact that we will have to keep Felton, and will have to deal with the Oden and Camby situation at some point.

Last night was a perfect example. Sure, it was exciting, sure, you love the never-say-die Blazers storming back… But you got the exact same result in the standings as you would have had you played the scrubs once you were down 20+. But your stars expended a great deal of energy just before embarking on a 6 game trip. And you neglected an opportunity to give others some burn.

I love the way the Blazers are playing. But they can’t run 8 guys into the ground every night and expect fresh performances. The beauty of this team is that it has some decent depth, and clearly players like Batum and Crawford and our two new backup bigs have to get big minutes on the second night of a back to back.

I mean, for the playoffs, I get it. This is the 8 man rotation. Excellent! Should be fun, if they’re all still healthy. And sure, then you play to win every game, and run just those 8 guys out there.

But when you’re down 20 – in the second half… I’m sorry, it’s time to pull the plug. The evidence was pretty strong that your first unit was just, as a group, beat. Batum and Craw had energy, Luke didn’t embarass himself… let’s see more Nolan and EW and Rhino and CJ, too!

In short, I’m very much in favor of the Blazers extending the regular rotation to 10 guys during this compressed regular season. Save these 8, as much as you can, for the playoffs… And by all means, play Batum enough to know if he deserves a big fat contract! Lean on the young guys!