Portland Trailblazer Small Forward Nicolas Batum Finally Allowed to Flourish

March 2nd, 2010 by Busta Bucket Leave a reply »
 

One of my most fervent convictions this season has been that SF Nicolas Batum deserves to start every single game over Martel Webster.

Not only should Batum start, he should be playing at least 20 minutes a game and be present on the court during crunch time and overtime.

Although Webster played a phenomenal January and certainly has the potential to rack up points, Batum has been consistently one of the best, if not the best defender (and it is not even close between Webster and Batum) on the team.

Now, not only is Nicolas Batum playing superb defense guarding the best in the league, he is displaying an array of improved skills on offense. Batum's improved skills allowed him to go off the other night for 31 points, a career high for the man considered at one time to be a D-League lifer.

Although every injury to a Blazer this season has been devastating in one way or another, perhaps the most detrimental was the surgery to Batum's shoulder almost immediately before the season began. The implications of his absence were very clear, as Webster and all his incompleteness on defense was inserted into the starting role to ...

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