Hollinger tooting his own horn in regards to Batum

[axs88]

Link
He has several notes about the Magic game, but this one really stood out for me:

We might be seeing some serious regression to the mean from Nicolas Batum. After a hot start, he's been scoreless in four of his past five games -- a performance that's much more in line with his numbers from Europe a year ago. Tuesday he looked befuddled, and it probably didn't help that Portland's opening-minute play to get him going with an alley-oop instead resulted in a turnover. In 83 December minutes, Batum is 1-for-10 with six turnovers and hasn't earned a free throw.

I think Hollinger is usually all right, but it seems very lame that now he says he was right before and after the draft when he declared that Batum can't play based entirely on his bad Euroleague stats (small sample size and a 18/19yo playing against crafty vets). Of course he was nowhere to be found when Batum was producing early. Even with this huge slump he's in, his PER is still solid at almost 14.

 

[BlazerFanForLife]

I liked this part:
"A few other tidbits from the best game I've seen this season:"

It was a good game untill the end where the blazers had two 24 second violations and couldn't do anything right. They shoulda gone to LMA he was on fire.

 

[Jurassic]

Batum does a lot of things that don't show up in the box score. Hollinger should know better.

 

[Wizard Mentor]

I'm sure Hollinger predicted that Batum would instantly become our best wing defender.

 

[number 10]

Hollinger would be great if only he himself would admit that he and his stats sometime need to be taken with a grain of salt. Seriously, drawing conclusions about a player from only 13 games? Laughable, especially for a stats guy.

Let's look at MSB (Le Mans) in Euroleague last season.
Out of 14 games, they lost the first 12. What complementary player is going to stand out on a crappy team with a fraction of their competition's budget?

Besides, the only aspect of his game that was above what we expected was his shot, and, looking at the stats...
2007-08 in the Euroleague he shot 9/31 (29%) from 3.
2007-08 in the french league he shot 40/113 (35%) from 3.
So in total from downtown in 2007-08 Batum was 49/144 (34%).

NBA 2008-09
In November, he was 18/42 (42.9%) from 3.
In December, 1/6.
20/51 (39%) in all.

So essentially, a 1-6 three point shooting slump over five games is a "serious regression to the mean." I also don't see what's so surprising about a young player improving his shot by around 5% points, even if it isn't the prettiest shot in the world. I'm not going to argue that he's been playing well, but I don't see any evidence of serious regression.

 

[STOMP]

I'm sure Hollinger predicted that Batum would instantly become our best wing defender.

individual D is hard for any statistical model to reflect and it certainly doesn't seem to be a focus on Hollinger's... or, he doesn't predict defense. I'm sure his offensive projections have been proven wrong in individual cases before and will again in the future... the jury is still out on whats what regarding Nicolas.

STOMP

 

[BatumKaboom]

Batum does a lot of things that don't show up in the box score. Hollinger should know better.

Co-sign.

 

[maxiep]

Batum does a lot of things that don't show up in the box score. Hollinger should know better.

Exactly. To look at Nico's impact on the floor in the box score is wasting your time. He's a terrific complimentary players who is only going to get better.