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
