Kings trading 7th in larger deal?

[Hoovtrain]

I haven't read all the posts, but the question I would ask, is if Batum is that good, then why would Portland want to move him? I know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but if Portland thinks that Casspi has more upside than Batum, then I have to step back and re-think the whole thing.

When you look at his stats, he went from a role player in 2009/2010, to a major contributer in 2010/2011. His minutes went up, and so did his shot attempts. He went from 268 attempts in 2009/10 to 807 shot attempts in 2010/11. His 3 pt attempts went from 132 to 342. But his overall shooting percentage went from 51.9% to 45.5%. And his 3 pt percentage went from 40.9% to 34.5%. At the same time, his blocked shots and steals per game remained almost the same, despite the additional minutes.

So he definitely took a step backwards last season when given a chance to be a big part of the team offensively and defensively. Now one season does not condemm a career for all time. But at the same time, I'm not doing flip flops all over the place over a chance to aquire him. I think at the right price he'd be worth the gamble. The question is, is he more of a role player than a starter? Of course only time will tell. Could be that last season was just a small bump in the road, or an adjustment period to the extra minutes. He may have been trying too hard to show he deserved the extra minutes. Or not! The question is, how much do you want to pay to find out?

He became expendable once they acquired Wallace and when he didn't improve his game as much as they were hoping (a lot of people thought he was the 2nd coming of Pippen, which was a very unfair expectation for the kid). They are really looked to shore up their backcourt right now with Roy being done and Miller getting older. Now, I do believe that Batum is highly overrated by most POR fans, but I feel he would be perfect for this team. He is what he is right now (which I like), but also has an upside. He doesn't require the ball in his hands to be effective. He can knock down the outside shot, he can defend the perimeter pretty well, can handle the ball and is athletic. Not to mention he is 23, so he would immediately be part of not only the present core, but our future core as well. We've all been talking about a SF for this team that doesn’t necessarily need to be a star. Rather one that fits in seamlessly and knows his role, while bringing the intangibles to the table that we so desperately need. Batum is that player IMO, for the right price that is.