FanPost

One of these players is not like the others.

I just started becoming aware of and interested in the advanced ESPN proprietary stat Real Plus/Minus.

Would you believe that we have 4 of the top 6 players at their respective positions?

The cream of the crop according to this metric, is Damian Lillard who comes in 6th OVER ALL IN THE LEAGUE.

Damian is 3rd among Point Guards trailing only Stephen Curry (who leads the league) and Chris Paul. That's some heady company, especially considering this metric states that Lillard has had a better season so far than LeBron James and Kevin Durant! I think that in the case of Durant, his small sample size negatively impacts the metric as I note both he and Westbrook are far lower than they clearly are in terms of value to a team. Now I'm not ready to crown Dame as on par with those two MVP players in LBJ and Durant, I'm just trying to point out how very well Dame does in this category.

Next up we have our other All-Star LaMarcus Aldridge. He comes in at 36th over all (Which blows my mind) and 6th among Power Forwards. His relatively low ranking is puzzling at best and puts the whole metric into question IMO. However, I'm going to continue just to make a point.



Next up we have our beloved Rolo. Robin Lopez also comes out really well in this metric. He comes in 42nd overall (just 6 behind LMA!) and he is 6th among Centers.



Switching over to We$, we can see that he ranks very well in this metric. We$ comes in at 32nd overall , four ahead of LMA which means his impact this year has only been exceeded by Dame. I find that very interesting and lord knows We$ won us some games this year. He's also rated 6th among Shooting Guards which seems about right.



Our final starter is Nicolas Batum, who is ranked 121 (!) in the entire league. Which means he is one of the worst starters in the league with only 29 guys in the league who start that are worse than him. That's embarassingly bad. He's considered the 21st best SF in the league.



Nicolas Batum is our second highest paid starter after LMA and he is tying up a ton of cap space. I know he does the "little things" but I think if there is a single starter we can afford to trade it's Nic. The problem is we would need a SF back. Another way to look at this that is more conservative and acknowledging of Nic's entire body of work, the "he's in a really bad long slump" line of thinking, if Nic perks up this team is going to be an absolute juggernaut!

I've said some perhaps controversial things, but that also helps stoke conversation. Is Nic in a slump? Are his habits/injuries starting to pile up? Is it something mental? Is it fixable? Is it time to part ways? Is he under-appreciated? Are the collective memories of the forum short? Sound off below!