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JDR720 wrote:[tweet]https://twitter.com/WojYahooNBA/status/613844655210430465[/tweet]

Go_Hornets wrote:WHAT THE ****

JDR720 wrote:i am literally speechless

treadmill here we come

mattcampbell wrote:*insert phrase of multiple words that produce a galaxy of stars and breaks the censor here*

JDR720 wrote:yup, im now officially on the fire cho bandwagon

Flip Murray wrote:you know what. Gut reaction I don't hate this and I know i'll be in the minority.

Liver_Pooty wrote:Lol YES

Flip Murray wrote:One day we're either going to look back on this trade and laugh our asses off about how much we robbed portland or we are going to cry in a corner because of how bad we took it up the ass.

There is no in between.

JDR720 wrote:get your helmets fellas, its gonna be a bumpy ride

EwingSweatsALot wrote:I can't wait for the Big Al Kaminsky rim protection.

fatlever wrote:So much just happened on my way home. I am lost. I hate this trade. HATE IT.

fatlever wrote:Wait!!!! Batum only has one year left on his contract? Are you **** kidding me? We traded Vonleh for a one year rental of Batum? Jesus Christ I hate this **** team.

Liver_Pooty wrote:

yosemiteben wrote:Is there any distinction between what we hope Batum brings and what we hoped Lance would bring last year?

Batum is actually intelligent. Lance is just an idiot.

Dame Lizard wrote:Portland fan.

Batum's played SF for Portland, however a few of us feel SG could be his better position, and he'd be a crazy rebounder at the 2 guard. Basically I think he is the perfect 2 guard to allow you to play big wings without exposing yourself to some of the cons of big-ball. Put up some huge 15-20 rebounds when he was filling in at PF for injured LMA as well, could play as a small ball 4 as well.

Last season was one to forget but he had niggling injuries. I'm expecting a big year for Batum. Defensively Charlotte's wings will be insaneeeee. Only downside with Batum is that he loves playing for France in the off-season. Wish he rested a bit more.

I completely agree that he'll be what Lance should have been, Batum is arguably the best playmaking SF not named Lebron.

A very interesting trade for both Portland and Charlotte, for I don't know whether Vonleh was traded in predominantly for his asset value in potential trades or future potential as a Blazer.

USER0023942 wrote:

Dame Lizard wrote:Batum is arguably the best playmaking SF not named Lebron.

There are a lot of things I'd call Nic Batum. "Playmaker" is not one of those things, not by a mile.

thesneakysneak wrote:his last years stats are god awful. Lance-esque. But if he does bounce back, then we have that second playmaker we lost in mcRob and who we wanted lance or Hayward to be.

Fischella wrote:I think he can have a similar impact to Haywards with better D

KembaWalker wrote:

catch20two wrote:

KembaWalker wrote:
He actually seems like a great guy after watching his videos on hornets.com

He almost cancels out the Frank pain for me

Not character wise but stats wise. I didn't even think Lance was that bad other then his flailing of the arms stuff whenever somebody didn't finish off one of his assist. I was talking about Batum possibly having career low numbers but it would be hard for Batum to worst last year based on his career averages. I can see it tho. This is gonna be the most he's had to play SG in the NBA in his career and I wonder how he's going to adapt in Charlotte under Cliff's blah offensive schemes after spending all of those years in Portland with a high flying offense.

Batum is a nice guy. Most french people are nice by nature. Especially the women.

what was funny to me is that he specifically predicted his box score stats saying he expected to replicate his 2 ssn ago 15/5/5 stat line
which would be nice

though if you asked Lance before he probably would have said he was gonna average 20/8/8

Batum doesn't know what he's in for under Alfense

EwingSweatsALot wrote:

BlackOutBuzz wrote:[tweet]https://twitter.com/hornets/status/614489697855913984[/tweet]

"Ayy Boreeees, howw ees the Charleet?"

"Neec, eets wonderful. You cane suuuk un eat all you want un deee maroons will pay you to leeeve un play for suumone else"

"Boreees, I luvv eet already. Bojangles Cheddarre Booo for every meeel."


I have no clue how french people talk. I've been twice and I still think they talk like that cartoon skunk.

JDR720 wrote:

Soon as Nicolas Batum learned he’d been traded to Charlotte, he called fellow Frenchman Boris Diaw for the low-down.

Diaw told Batum where to go and where to eat . So Friday at Batum’s introductory news conference, someone asked Batum if he’d start riding around on a Segway as Diaw did.

“Yes!” Batum joked. “I think I’m going to do the very same thing.”

OK, now we know new Hornet Batum is playful. Coach Steve Clifford thinks can be a lot more than that, a lot more than he was as a Portland Trail Blazer.

Clifford told Batum this trade will expand his role. He’s no longer playing with stars LaMarcus Aldridge and Damian Lillard, standing in the corner waiting to take a 3-pointer.

Batum, by his own description, is coming off a bad season. He had a wrist injury and shot 40 percent from the field and 32 percent from 3-point range, the worst such statistics of his seven-season NBA career.

Batum says he was ready for a change. He seems delighted to get a fresh start with the Hornets.

“I know my role is going to be different and I like that,” Batum said. “I know I can do a lot of things on the court; I’m a very versatile player. So me and Kemba (Walker) can do great things together.”

Clifford has major plans. He envisions the 6-foot-8 Batum, who will start at shooting guard, as a primary scoring option next season. Clifford imagines running offense through Batum similarly to how the Orlando Magic did with small forward Hedo Turkoglu when Clifford was an assistant there.

The Hornets gave up a lot for Batum, sending shooting guard Gerald Henderson and power forward Noah Vonleh to Portland Wednesday night. But with the NBA’s worst 3-point percentage last season (31.8 percent) and the failed Lance Stephenson experiment over, the Hornets had to do something dramatic to fix this.

“I was very excited when I heard Charlotte was interested in me. I felt like I could take this in another direction,” Batum said. “This is going to be a good, good team. Jeremy (Lamb) is a good player. We’ve got Kemba and Big Al (Jefferson) already. And Frank (Kaminsky) was the best player in all of college.”

Batum believes the Hornets will be back in the playoffs next spring and his play will be a big factor in whether that happens. That’s not just about his career 36 percent 3-point shooting. He says he’s good for five assists and six rebounds per game here and he prides himself in being able to guard every position but center.

“Back in the day (against the Dallas Mavericks) I guarded Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd in the same game. Jason Terry, too,” Batum said.

Batum’s development in basketball was quite different than it would have been had he grown up in the United States. At 15 he was essentially an apprentice pro, practicing against adults every day. He signed with a French team at 17 and was drafted into the NBA at 19.

Batum was recruited by Georgia Tech and Arizona, but decided he was better off in Europe playing against the pros.

“When I was 19 I wasn’t afraid of older guys because I’d gone through it. That’s why at 19 I started 77 games” as a Portland rookie, Batum described.

“When you’re a young guy in college there’s an adjustment (to the NBA) because you’ve never played with grown men. I’d made that adjustment two or three years earlier. So that first training camp, when (veterans) would hit me, I knew what to do.”

Now, changing teams for the first time in the NBA, Batum again knows what to do.

“I’m easy. I’m coachable,” Batum said. “I’m able to adjust.”

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/nba/charlotte-hornets/article25668130.html#storylink=cpy

spaceballer wrote:With the JLin thread locked...

yosemiteben wrote:

spaceballer wrote:With the JLin thread locked...

It's ok to post in appropriate places about Lin without pointing this out each time.

spaceballer wrote:

yosemiteben wrote:

spaceballer wrote:With the JLin thread locked...

It's ok to post in appropriate places about Lin without pointing this out each time.

Oh, okay. It's just that I would have normally place it in that thread.

Also, I'm not sure where to post the news clippings and such when he heads over to Asia and there's a torrent of news coverage from over there (or would you prefer that be kept off this site? Not complaining, just honestly asking).

He'll almost assuredly talk about the Hornets and things that happened behind the scenes during the past season at his Christian Testimonial in Taiwan, if he's true to form as the last few summer trips. Often there's stuff in that Christian Testimonial that he hasn't really told the American media but that he brings out when he's in front of god and unguarded. I'm not religious but that's the way it works with him. All his past Christian Testimonials had nuggets of surprising info about his mindset behind the scenes of the most recent season.