Re: Minnesota wants Batum @ ~12M a year
He has only played one season in the NBA. He can guard 3's okay, nothing special, but he has all the talent to improve his game given an actually position instead of 3/4.
And what would that position be? I'm guessing 3, although his game is much more suited to 4. I sort of agree that he might make a solid backup 4, but unless Aldridge plays quite a few minutes at the 5, there's not many minutes for him. Especially if Freeland is (a) signed, and (b) worth playing more than about 10 mpg.
Putting him at SF would be silly, I think, because it emphasizes his weaknesses and fails to exploit his strengths (i.e., his strength). His game is Blake Griffin-esque, from what I saw: face the basket PF who takes people off the dribble. Put him at SF and he'll just jack up threes.
He has the range to shoot the long ball,
(a) Just about everybody in the league does
(b) No he doesn't (see below)
(c) Babbitt, Claver and Wes (our other SF candidates if Batum goes) are much MUCH better. And Claver and Wes are better defenders.
Here are Williams' second-half-of-the-season stats, when the Wolves were obviously never going to make the playoffs and so had every incentive to play their prized rookie as much as possible:
Code:
Scoring Statistics
Player Pos G M/Gm FGm FGa PCT 3m 3a PCT FTm FTA PCT AVG
5 williams,derrick PF 33 24.6 118 298 .396 26 92 .283 87 118 .737 10.6
Rebounding Statistics
Player AS AS/g ST ST/G TO TO/g BK BK/g TND OR OR/g TR TR/g
5 williams,derrick 20 0.6 14 0.4 44 1.3 19 0.6 9.8 38 1.2 178 5.4
As you can see, he shot a LOT of threes and was GOD-AWFUL. And his overall FG% is similarly dire.
he has a nice explosive first step
...for a PF. Not for a wing.
and is quiet strong for his position.
...which we still haven't established. If it's PF, then he's pretty average. Perhaps his best use is posting up SFs, but then they'd burn him on the other end.
He is pretty much Antwan Jamison but a little quicker.
That's sort of the problem. Jamison moved over to PF eventually, and put up numbers for perpetual underachievers.
He will most defiantly be worth it to pick him up if were losing Nico. He is one of those players that we can build up a bit and if he isn't a 3 trade to a bad team desperately looking for a player that has the swagger to be the "face" of their franchise for a few years to please fans.
I'd prefer not to use minutes on a player like that instead of Barton (Wes can have more minutes at SF), Claver (SF) and Freeland (PF). Even Babbitt can at least HIT threes. Here are Babbitt's second-half stats, on a team with a one-game better record than Minny:
Code:
Scoring Statistics
Player Pos G M/Gm FGm FGa PCT 3m 3a PCT FTm FTA PCT AVG
9 babbitt,luke SF 29 17.1 67 162 .414 41 95 .432 17 20 .850 6.6
Rebounding Statistics
Player AS AS/g ST ST/G TO TO/g BK BK/g TND OR OR/g TR TR/g
9 babbitt,luke 14 0.5 9 0.3 24 0.8 3 0.1 6.1 15 0.5 82 2.8
In fact, for shits and giggles, let's compare Babbitt's and Williams's /48 stats over the second half:
Code:
Scoring Statistics
Player Min Pts Tnd/48 TC EJ FF PF DQ STA PTS/48
5 williams,derrick 812 349 19.03 1 0 0 56 0 11 20.63
9 babbitt,luke 497 192 17.22 0 0 0 43 0 4 18.54
Rebounding Statistics
Player AS/48 ST/48 TO/48 BK/48 OR/48 TR/48
5 williams,derrick 1.2 0.8 2.6 1.1 2.2 10.5
9 babbitt,luke 1.4 0.9 2.3 0.3 1.4 7.9
