CLEVELAND — Portland Trail Blazers forward Nicolas Batum had a close miss at the end of the first overtime period.
Dec 022012
Dec 022012
CLEVELAND — Portland forward Nicolas Batum’s 3-pointer with :00.2 remaining propelled the Trail Blazers to an 118-117 double overtime victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Saturday night at Quicken Loans Arena.
Nov 272012
To be clear, I’m not saying that the clip below is the first known existing Hasheem Thabeet NBA highlight; there are a number of YouTube clips of the Tanzanian center making nice individual plays, like him finishing this Nicolas Batum alley-oop during his brief stint with the Portland Trail Blazers or slipping a pass through Matt Bonner’s legs back at the beginning of November. They’ve been kind of canceled out by stuff like him getting rim-checked despite being 7-foot-3 and tripping over his own feet while on a “fast” break, or more generally drowned out by his consistent inability to live up to his No. 2-overall-pick-in-the-2009-NBA-draft status, but over the course of his four-year NBA career, Thabeet has made some highlight-worthy plays.
But he’s never really had an actual NBA game in which he’s produced multiple good plays that were worth noting in the form of a highlight package. Or, at least, he hadn’t until Monday night, when the Oklahoma City Thunder so summarily destroyed the Charlotte Bobcats that their fourth big man could get significant burn … and, shock of shocks, he actually did something with it. Enough of something, in fact, for YouTube user DownToBuck to grab it, chop it and upload it. Behold: The best 94-second collection of Hasheem Thabeet’s NBA career:
Nov 192012
Injured or not, Brandon Roy is a key part of Minnesota’s plan … Can coaches overcome faulty rosters? … Nicolas Batum proving his doubters wrong in Portland …
Nov 192012
Wesley Matthews and Nicolas Batum scored 21 points apiece and the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Chicago Bulls 102-94 on Sunday night for their first three-game winning streak since the beginning of last season.
Nov 192012
PORTLAND, Ore. — Wesley Matthews, Nicolas Batum and LaMarcus Aldridge are the veterans, the guys who are supposed to do the yeoman work for the Portland Trail Blazers.
Nov 192012
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Wesley Matthews and Nicolas Batum scored 21 points apiece and the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Chicago Bulls 102-94 on Sunday night for their first-three-game winning streak since opening last season with a trio of victories.
Nov 192012
PORTLAND, Ore. — Wesley Matthews and Nicolas Batum each scored 21 points as the Portland Trail Blazers defeated Chicago Bulls 102-94 Sunday night at the Rose Garden.
Oct 242012
There’s a reason the Portland Trail Blazers insisted on keeping Nicolas Batum during the offseason. For one thing, general manager Neil Olshey knows that Batum’s only shown flashes of his potential in the NBA.
Sep 242012
People do ridiculous things when they’re angry. Michael Nesmith punched a wall. Pat Riley kicked a cooler. Michael Richards used some career-ending language, the dweeb from Green Day yelled something about Justin Bieber, and This Moronic Author may or may not have crashed a guy’s forehead into a marble bar-top when, were it not for my combatant’s uneasiness due to drink and a series of surrounding friends who held him back from me after the crash, he probably would have destroyed both me and my vintage blazer.
Nicolas Batum? In a game that was broadcast worldwide in a setting designed to promote goodwill and sound sportsmanship between nations? He punched a dude in the junk . Former Memphis Grizzly and current Spanish team floater-maestro Juan Carlos Navarro’s junk, to be exact. All because Batum’s outfit from France was behind during a very frustrating 2012 Olympic turn, and Batum needed to foul Navarro to stop the clock.
A few months on, and Nicolas is more than a little regretful over his actions. In an interview that sounds far more in line with the Batum we’ve known as an NBA comer since he joined the Portland Trail Blazers in 2008, he discussed his misstep. From the Trail Blazer website , via Blazer’s Edge :
“I just left London like the next day, went back to my house and got some rest, saw my family and try to see something else,” said Batum. “I went on vacation to Greece, spent ten days in Greece, refreshed my mind, see something else.”
See something else. While I assume that’s not exactly what Nic was trying to say, it perfectly describes what he needed to do after an eventful summer that unfortunately concluded with Batum committing a now infamous foul on Juan Carlos Navarro at the end of France’s 66-59 loss to Spain in the men’s basketball quarterfinals at the 2012 Summer Olympics.
“What I’m mad about is what I showed to people about myself, what I showed about the game, about France, everything,” said Batum. “I feel bad about it because that’s not me. I’m human. I lost it. I just lost it.