Spurs Eyeing Batum

[co_laper]

Chris Haynes, CSNNW.com Trail Blazers Insider (@ChrisBHaynes)

The number I'm hearing Portland Trail Blazers forward Nicolas Batum will command this offseason is $10-11 million per, according to a few league executives when Batum becomes a restricted free agent.

And, I'm being told by multiple sources that the San Antonio Spurs will make a hard push to attain the promising small forward.

If that ever came into fruition, Batum, 23, would love to play for coach Gregg Popovich and his structured system. Keep in mind that Batum thought he was going to be a Spur until the Houston Rockets took him at No. 25 in the 2008 NBA draft, to Batum's surprise.

“I was shocked,” Batum told CSNNW.com. “I thought for sure I was headed to San Antonio. I was talking with Tony (Parker) and the guys and then Houston drafts me out of nowhere. I never worked out for them. They had T-Mac (Tracy McGrady) and (Shane) Battier at that time, and I was confused. Then I was traded to Portland and I was like 'okay, that's better'.”

Tony Parker is one of Batum's closest friends and teammate on the French national team and they've been playing together for years. On paper, Batum on the Spurs would be an ideal fit.

Batum sat out last night's 35-point loss to the Spurs nursing his sore left knee, but took time afterwards to talk about how the Spurs handle business and the uncertainty of his future in Portland.

“The Spurs play well together. They share the ball and do everything the right way,” Batum said. “I don't know what's going to happen with my situation and I'm not worried about it right now. Everything will play itself out.”

The Trail Blazers had a chance to extend Batum's deal at the Jan. 25 deadline, however Batum's agent Bouna Ndiaye and Trail Blazers management couldn't come to terms on a deal.

Negotiations got so heated that it prompted this response from Batum's agent: "When Batum becomes a restricted free agent, we'll look at the other 29 teams before we talk to the Blazers," Ndiaye told CSNNW.com. "The Blazers had their chance."

Back then, Batum's agent was demanding less than what he'll seek for his client this time around. Also, those talks were before Batum was inserted into the starting lineup and became easily the second best player on the team.

The Trail Blazers took a gamble, and it appears that Batum will come out on top when it's all said and done.

Now the question will be, are the Trail Blazers willing to spend that much on Batum?

The other question is, can the Trail Blazers afford not to spend that much money on Batum?

With the way this season has played out, letting go of one of your most likable players can't be a good thing going forward.

What would you do?

Would love Batum, but really unlikely to happen. Batum is restricted. Most we can offer is MLE. Portland will definitely match that contract. I have this fantasy of having all the argentina national team and the french team all play in our team. I mean the NBA guys.. Andres Nocioni, Walterr Hermann, Turiaf, Pietrus, Batum, Oberto, Diaw, Scola... Would be really really nice.

[Nolan]

Would love to have but we just won't have the resources to get the deal done in the summer. Plus as it stands right now i'm happy with what we have at SF.

[Ballings7]

I thought he'd be a Spur, as well... but Portland snatched him and we couldn't trade up...

He was, ideally, the type of player we lacked and really could of used from 2009 and on... plus another long big guy... same could be said about Leonard and Green and Splitter... but that's done and gone, unfortunately

Still don't like that Phoenix loss in 2010, lol

Doubt we can get him unless we do a S/T, he's not close to reaching his peak, still can and will expand his game... what we have at SF right now is quite good, though

[Donald Kaufman]

We don't need a 3 taking minutes off Leonard. I like Batum but not at the expense of Kawhi's development.

[thecouch]

patty tweeted he was having dinner with him the night before portland played and aslo him and tony had dinner the day after to

[Black_Jack21]

Batum would be an awesome pick up for us.

He'd be a great piece to speed up our rebuild process, when it inevitably arrives.

I wonder what moves if any out front office can pull off to actually give us a chance of signing him.

[co_laper]

Batum is watching our game againts Phoenix. He tweeted about the game wondering if Patty Mills will hit 20 FG Attempts before the 3rd quarter.

[SinJackal]

I'd have loved Batum. . .before we got Leonard.

10 million dollars is a waste of money considering that Leonard is far cheaper and has an arguably higher ceiling. I'd rather we spend that money somewhere we don't already have a good player with an excellent contract at already.

Mainly I don't like it because of the gigantic pricetag. If he was only going to command 5-6m or so, you know, I'd be all for that. Dump Jackson's expiring deal, add Batum. Now our SF spot is suddenly dope as fuck. Technically he's getting paid about the same as Jackson right now, but Jackson's deal blows anyway. So did RJ's. I'd rather not take on another large money contract for another slightly above average player.

I'd prefer to get another "real" big, or get a new backup PG like we attempted this year with TJ Ford. We need that more than another wing. We'll have Leonard, Jackson (expiring), and still have Green and Manu who can also play the 3. Don't really need Batum.

If we can dump Jackson's contract for a decent big or backup PG, then sign Batum anyway and a backup PG and hopefully retain Diaw, then sure. . .but that's a borderline pipe dream.

At some point we're probably going to end up trading Blair too since he has plenty of value but probably won't have a huge future here due to being undersized. Some dumb eastern conference team will probably want to trade for him. That conference seems to not care very much about size and frontcourt defense anyway.

[franktony]

Not gonna happen

Even if we wanted him, we simply don't have the cap space to sign him a 10/11m offer. We can't use the amnesty clause on S-Jax and TD has a huge cap hold. After resigning Duncan, we will have only our MLE and I am pretty sure we're gonna spend it on a PF (Diaw if he has a nice playoff run or to bring Erazem Lorbek).

With Leonard and S-Jax, i don't see a reason to sign Batum. 11m/year for a role player is way too much money.