Re: Don't trade Batum!
Upside and potential are over valued to an insane extent.
Agreed.
Sure Batum may very well be good someday, but the smart money is on him always being a marginal player.
That certainly doesn't follow, unless you mean that the majority of NBA players are going to be marginal players, but that would have you saying the smart money is that, say, Derek Rose will be a marginal player.
Portland has had many, many players over the years that seemed like they would end up being Hall of Fame level guys.
Not to me. Certainly not as rookies. I never thought Telfair would do squat, for example, and we haven't really had many high profile rookies until the current administration.
Only one actually was. The rest had careers cut short due to injuries, and/or attitude.
What period are we talking? And why are we only talking about "hall of fame players". Are you telling me you think Wallace or Butler are going to be that? Because if so, one of us is delusional and it isn't me.
Bonzi Wells is an excellent example of this. Remember his first couple of seasons when he seemed like he was unstoppable?
No, because he didn't. He always had holes in his game, and he always had attitude problems. How is he relevantly similar to Batum?
As it turned out, the only player who could stop Bonzi was Bonzi. And thats exactly what he did.
Is this the plot of a "Behind the Music" episode?
Dave at BlazersEdge made a good point at the beginning of the season. The best teams are the ones with the least questions.
That's vague enough to be meaningless. And if it has any meaning, it's false. The Celtics had huge question marks at PG and C last year.
Batum is going to have question marks around him for at least the next two years, if not longer.
He's being stalked by MIXUM!?
Don't we already have enough players like that?
You mean, like Greg Oden? Let's ditch him for a known commodity!
If you're only going to look at one rather dubious attribute, then yes. But Batum is more advanced in many respects than our more established players. He's arguably our best perimeter defender. He's got a better grip of the game than Outlaw. He's got more flying-out-of-nowhere blocks than any other Blazer. He's got positive attributes that none of our other players have. There's a reason he's starting: it's not simple charity. And he's 20 years old. What 20 year old doesn't have some "questions"? Does that mean no team should have 20 year olds?
If you can get a proven guy in the league for a guy that "might" be good someday, you do it.
Depends what they've proven. Have they proven they can be good for this team? To do that they would have to have played a similar role to what they will need to do here, and they will have to have improved the team they've played for. I don't think either is true. A lot of players can "prove" they can put up a ton of points for crappy teams. Corey Maggette, for example. I certainly wouldn't trade for him, no matter how cheaply. And didn't we just get rid of Zach Randolph? He's proven he can score AND rebound! Get him back immediately!
Stop letting the Ghost of Jermain O'Neil haunt you.
Who he?
I never rated Jermaine O'Neal, except by comparison with Shawn Kemp. Arvydas Sabonis didn't think much of Jermaine, and that was good enough for me.
