If one visits 82games.com, and checks out Portlands top 5 man units (http://www.82games.com/1112/1112POR2.HTM), one can see that Batum is involved in many of our top units. In fact, out of the 13 positive (+/-) line-ups, Batum is tied with Aldridge as being part of 10 of them. Wallace and Crawford come in second with 9 out of 13 of the positive +/- line-ups. Matthews and Felton are in 8 of them. This would suggest that Batum is one of our top contributors, even at a much lower usage than our other main rotation players.

与坎比,有no excuse to be starting Thomas. Batum is the one who needs more minutes, and after posting 29 points, 8 rebounds and 4 blocks last night (as well as the upcoming contract negotiations), it only makes sense to get as many minutes as possible for the young player.

Finally, it is absolutely ridiculous to ignore the hot hand in crunch time. Nate should get his fair share of criticism for going away from Batum at the end of last nights game. Of course theRocketsmade it tough, but Nate ended up using Batum as a distraction rather than a weapon.