Nilanka wrote:
View Post
Announcement
Collapse
No announcement yet.
Free Agency 2012
Collapse
X
-
Apollo wrote: View PostHas he said this?
Ryan Wolstat Tweeted this on January 19:
Batum already said in a French interview that he'd never sign with the Raps because of what happened before the draft...
I think we should give Johnson a chance to continue at the three, he is playing good ball right now.
Edit: here is the article on Batum's workout
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/draft2...ory?id=3454367"Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival."
-Churchill
Comment
-
Nilanka wrote: View PostWasn't there a Toronto Sun article a few weeks back suggesting as such? I can't seem to find it.
Comment
-
yeah he did supposedly say that. i vaguely remember him saying the raps made him look like he had a heart problem or something? and his dad died of a heart problem literally at a free throw line or something? anyways, i guess he argued it scared teams off drafting him. we talked about this like 2 weeks ago.@sweatpantsjer
Comment
-
hateslosing wrote: View PostIt was on here a few weeks ago, apparently during the draft the Rators caught some heart thing during the physical assesment and he was mad because no other teams saw the same thing or some such.
Ryan Wolstat Tweeted this on January 19:
There was a discussion about it on here I think.
I think we should give Johnson a chance to continue at the three, he is playing good ball right now.
Edit: here is the article on Batum's workout
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/draft2...ory?id=3454367
That was a retweet of someone else (jberteraut) that Wolstat sent out. He followed it up with two other tweets.
19 Jan Ryan Wolstat @WolstatSun
RT @jberteraut: Batum already said in a French interview that he'd never sign with the Raps because of what happened before20 Jan Ryan Wolstat @WolstatSun
Back from a Twitter vacation. Re: Batum, don't remeber him ever bad-mouthing Raps, but the team did say he had a heart issue which might ...the draft...Ryan Wolstat @WolstatSun
... Might have hurt his draft stock and was never proven or brought up again IIRC. Plus his dad died from heart issue I believe
What I would really like to find is the actual french interview because the ESPN link has nothing negative towards Toronto:
French swingman Nicolas Batum, projected to be a late first-round NBA draft pick, stopped participating in a workout with the Toronto Raptors earlier this week after a stress echo test -- a treadmill test that measures the health of the heart -- came back in the "borderline" area.
"There is an issue with Batum, and nothing is clear," his agent, Bouna Ndiaye, told ESPN.com on Friday afternoon. "The number [the score on his stress echo test] could be a borderline problem if he had a family history of heart problems. But I talked to Nicolas's mother and she said his father didn't die of a heart problem. His team in France and the French national team test him regularly and said they've never seen any indication that he had a heart issue."
A Sports Illustrated report in February said that Batum's father, Henry, suffered a "massive heart attack" and died at the free throw line while playing pro basketball in France when Nicolas was 2 years old. According to Ndiaye, Batum's father died of an aneurysm, not a heart attack.
Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo, reached by phone, refused to comment on the situation.
Batum was scheduled to be in the three-team workout in New Jersey on Friday, but didn't play. He did take a physical, and Ndiaye said results were similar to those in Toronto. Ndiaye said Batum will undergo another test over the weekend and, if it goes well, he'll be able to begin workouts again next week.
Batum also has canceled an open workout in New York scheduled for Saturday.
"He feels fine," Ndiaye said. "He wants to work out. He's been doing great. This morning he really wanted to work out with Joe Alexander. This is disappointing. I really don't think this is a real issue."
It's unclear whether the issue will affect Batum's draft status. It does come at a bad time. After wowing NBA scouts at the Nike Hoop Summit in April 2007, his draft stock has been on the decline. His play in the French league this year wasn't stellar. Neither was a brief appearance at this year's Reebok Eurocamp.
However, he's had some strong individual workouts for teams and was projected as a potential pick somewhere between 17 and 27.
Comment
-
Matt52 wrote: View PostThat was a retweet of someone else (jberteraut) that Wolstat sent out. He followed it up with two other tweets.
What I would really like to find is the actual french interview because the ESPN link has nothing negative towards Toronto:"Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival."
-Churchill
Comment
-
Nilanka wrote: View PostBudinger seems like one of those "diamonds in the rough" players Colangelo loves to pursue. And he definitely won't demand the type of salary associated with guys like Chandler or Batum.
I prefer Kleiza and he's already signed to a reasonable contract.
Comment
-
Hugmenot wrote: View PostIt's very debatable whether Chase Budinger is a little worse, as good, or a little better than Linas Kleiza.
I prefer Kleiza and he's already signed to a reasonable contract.
The Raptors are set in the front court (assuming they draft a wing).
(JJ, Kleiza, Bargnani, Amir, ED, JV, hopefully Gray).
They need guard help.
Comment
-
Apollo wrote: View PostBatum's career to date doesn't warrant $10M/yr. His upside doesn't warrant $10M/yr. Matt had asked me a while ago, maybe in this thread or maybe another, what I thought was fair and I think I said around $7.5M/yr. I think that holds true. I think that Raptors should get in on the bidding action but there are other
Batum's future expected performance is hard to predict based upon his career numbers; some quite nice numbers and some not so good. I believe a team signing Batum for $10M per year is taking a risk but I would not call it an unreasonable risk.
Comment
-
Hugmenot wrote: View PostBut teams offer a salary based in part upon the player's expected performance for the duration of the contract. Or at least that's the hope from my perspective.
You're suggesting that people are going to offer him a contract comparable to the one Gerald Wallace is finishing right now. Wallace was far more battle tested than Batum when he landed that deal.
Comment
Comment