http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/9540148/nba-projecting-top-10-small-forwards-warp-2013-14 1 Durant 2 Pierce 3 Kawhi 4 Iggy 6 Paul George 7 Granger 8 AK47 9 Korver 10 Parsons
Yep that's all I ask from him. He would be a beast if his outside shot was closer to that 40% mark and he got to the line more from attacking the basket.
Batum got off to a great start last season. He was definitely more aggressive and was showing off his all around game. Not sure how much of that was Stotts' system and how much was just a more aggressive attitude. Probably some of both, but his PER through the first two and a half months of the season was hovering around 20. I'm not sure how much of it was the wrist injury (a lot, I suspect), how much was fatigue and how much was just reverting to his old ways (old habits die hard), but his overall production plummeted after mid-January and he finished the season with a rather ho-hum PER = 15.7. Notable Observations: Batum's performance definitely declined substantially after the 10th of January. His top 7 overall games (as measured by GmSc) all occurred between opening night (31-OCT) and the 35th game of the season (10-JAN). Ditto for his top 6 scoring games - all between Game 1 on 10-OCT and Game 35 on 10-JAN. Not sure how that correlates with his wrist injury, but I'm guessing they line-up pretty closely. Even with the downward trend as the season wore on, his 4.9 AST/game was a career high, by far. It was over 3x his previous career high of 1.5 AST/game. Here's his career assist totals by season: AST Total: 2008-09 - 74 2009-10 - 44 2010-11 - 123 2011-12 - 84 2012-13 - 360 AST/game: 2008-09 - 0.9 2009-10 - 1.2 2010-11 - 1.5 2011-12 - 1.4 2012-13 - 4.9 But, he also played a career high 38.5 MPG. So, lets look at his AST/36 and AST% numbers. AST/36: 2008-09 - 1.8 2009-10 - 1.7 2010-11 - 1.8 2011-12 - 1.7 2012-13 - 4.6 AST%: 2008-09 - 7.8 2009-10 - 8.0 2010-11 - 8.1 2011-12 - 7.9 2012-13 - 20.3 A couple things are clear. Batum's role under McMillan really was stand in the corner and wait for the kick out. Batum's play making ability and overall game really was severely underutilized in McMillan's system. Stotts' system really takes advantage of Batum's play making skills. His 4.9 AST/game and 20.3 AST% aren't quite PG territory, but they are close and extremely good for a small forward. Hopefully, he will comeback rested and strong and we will see a full season of production comparable to what he put up through the first 35 games of last season. If we do, we are sure to make the payoffs. In fact, I'm confident that if Batum would have been able to sustain that production all season long, we would have made the playoffs last season. In fact, I just checked and last year on the 10th of January, the Blazers were a season high 5 games over .500 at 20-15. They then lost 6 games in a row and fell out of the playoff race. BNM
I just checked and Batum injured the wrist during a practice on January 19th. In the 3 games prior to the injury, Batum scored 21, 22 and 23 points. The night of the injury he scored just 7 points on 2-9 shooting. His scoring and FGA/game both dropped off dramatically after that. Prior to the wrist injury, Batum scored 20 or more points 15 times in 38 games. After the injury, he only scored 20 or more points 4 times in 35 games. He was definitely a different player, and the Blazers a different team, after the injury. BNM
If we see the Batum before January this season; we will be in really good shape! The greatest thing is having Wright be a legitimate back-up. No more heavy minutes for Batum! That's a good thing!
Nice, BNM. Can you run FGA for pre/post injury? I seem to remember that Nic really didn't want to shoot after the injury, but was still quite good at setting others up. So it'd be interesting to see if, and by how much, his shot attempts declined.
Great work, as usual BNM. To those who blindly hate on Batum without considering the circumstances I say:
Interesting how Indiana is going to have a lineup with 2 small forwards Granger and George. And I believe if they did it by true "position" LeBron would be a PG since he played a lot of PG on O. And on D, didn't he primarily guard SFs? So I'm not sure how his usage makes him a PF. Anyhow, this list a joke. I'd be shocked if this was even remotely close.
Something very interesting about that list jumped out at me when I first saw it: Look at the draft position of those 10 guys. It seems recently in the NBA, finding a sleeper Small Forward has been the way to go in the draft. 1 Durant #2 (Honk Twice!) 2 Pierce #10 (famously dropped in that draft) 3 Kawhi #15 4 Iggy #9 5 Batum #25 (dropped due to heart rumor, still would have been a value pick) 6 Paul George #10 7 Granger #17 8 AK47 #24 9 Korver #51 10 Parsons #38
Interesting. Back in the 1980s, 90s and early 2000s, it seems like SG was the easiest position to fill with a lower draft pick. Seems like everyone had a good SG that could score back in those days. Clyde was a 14th pick, and we already had Jim Paxson, an all-star SG. For a long time, guys like Jeff Hornacek, Michael Redd, Reggie Lewis, Latrell Sprewell, etc. seemed to be available as late 1st round or second round picks and back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the leading scorer on most teams was a SG. At the time, the best athletes (Jordan, Clyde, etc.) in the game were SGs. Now, it seems like SF is the new SG. Look at the best athletes in the game these days, and most of them are SFs. And I include LeBron as a SF. The author may want to consider him a PF now, because Miami lacks quality big men, but he's always played SF up until now and was always guarded by Gerald Wallace and Nic Batum when the Blazers played the Cavs/Heat. I don't remember LaMarcus ever guarding, or being guarded by, LeBron. Other than an occasional fluke, like Yao, centers haven't really gotten any bigger in general. Most are still in the 6'11 - 7' range. Hell, we had a 6'9" starting center last season. But the average player size continues to increase. Small forwards aren't as small as they used to be. LeBron is huge, Durant is crazy long. Maybe it's time to stop calling them small forwards. Maybe something like Shooting Forward or Scoring Forward would be more appropriate these days. At least we could keep the SF acronym. BNM