Blazers officially extended a qualifying offer to Nicolas Batum

[Draco]

He was in a bad situation in Sacramento. Everywhere else he's played, he's been a very solid contributor. As a 21-year old second year player, he was a starter, with a 15.2 PER on a Cleveland team that won 61 games. The following season, after LeBron left, he continued to start and posted a 15.6 PER. With Portland last season, his PER was 20.2 (I know, small sample size), but even with the disaster in Sacramento, he has a career PER of 15.0, which is damn good for a back-up/6th man/spot starter, which is what he'd be in Portland (and several other places). He's only 23 and has proven very durable with no injury issues. After his resurgence in Portland, somebody will make him a significant offer and Portland will either need to match or watch him walk for nothing.

BNM

I agree he has value as a backup. But I don’t think this team is in the position of rounding out the roster with solid backups. We need to acquire above average starters. At this point we have ONE such player, and a RFA who could possibly become another. We need to use all our resources, draft picks, cap space, trade assets, to get a solid second or third above average starter. Using up some of our scarce resources on bench players is a poor strategy.

When we are a solid playoff team looking to take the next step deeper in the playoffs we should be making these commitments. At that time we can use the MLE and possibly trading away late draft picks for role players. Now is not the time. Overpaying role players is how we ended up with a salary cap full of guys like Darius Miles, Theo Ratliff, Ruben Patterson, Derek Anderson, Juan Dixon. It’s a road to mediocrity. Let’s instead put all our resources towards getting legit starters.