FanPost

Aminu outshines Batum at NBA Africa game

Team World rallied past team Africa in the NBA Africa game yesterday to win 101-97. http://www.oregonlive.com/nba/index.ssf/2015/08/nba_africa_game_team_world_ral.html

This was a nice chance to compare Al-Farouq Aminu and Nicolas Batum since they played similar minutes for team Africa.

Aminu: 21 min, 2/4 (2P), 1/3 (3P), 10 reb (Def), 5 reb (off), 2 ast, 7 pts, 14 eff

Batum: 19 min, 2/5 (2P), 1/3 (3P), 2 reb (Def), 1 reb (off), 3 ast, 7 pts, 6 eff

Granted this was a fun exhibition game, and Aminu has family ties in Africa giving him way more motivation to play hard than Batum. But, I still thought it was great that Aminu led the entire game in rebounding by a nice margin (second highest rebounder was Evan Turner with 9). It seems to show Aminu's consistent aggressive mind set when his is on the court vs. the stand-back-and-watch style we often saw with Batum. Again, summer exhibition games mean nothing, but I like seeing the effort from the Blazers' new starting SF.

Box Score: http://www.nba.com/global/africa-box.pdf