Player Facts
Height: 6'8"
Weight: 230lbs.
Wingspan: 7'1"
Date of Birth: Dec. 14, 1988
College Experience: N/A
Selections
All Star: 0
All-NBA: 0
All-Defensive: 0
Player Grades
Speed/Explosiveness: 5
Physical Strength: 7
Positional Size: 9
Positional Wingspan: 9
Paint Scoring: 6
Midrange Scoring: 5
Three-Point Scoring: 9
Dribbling: 7
Passing: 8
Perimeter Defense: 7
Interior Defense: 8
Rebounding: 6
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STRENGTHS
Intro
The team-first Batum is a versatile veteran player at forward with great basketball instincts. He has plus size and length to help enhance the skills he possesses. Nic consistently makes winning plays and is a formidable glue guy to pencil in on a winning team.
Lineup Floor-Raiser
Nicolas is a player who raises the floor of almost any lineup he's put into. He can shoot, pass, move without the basketball, make quick decisions, defend multiple positions on-ball, and make things happen off-ball. All the while, he is wholly unselfish and willingly does what the team asks – glamourous or not.
The Frenchman has great size for a non-center, though he can go up a rung to play the five for spells. Batum is just over 6-foot-8 barefoot with a 7'1" wingspan. At various points in his career, he has played anywhere from 1-5.
Spot-Up Shooting
2020-2021 had him return to a contender with a career resurgence alongside superstars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. He proved to be one man in a player corps that included fellow spot-up sharpshooters like Marcus Morris Sr. and Patrick Beverley. Off-ball, it was often Batum's job to set up shop in the corner and make defenders pay for stepping in to help on drives.
In his inaugural Clipper season, he finished top-12 in corner triple makes on the year. Batum nailed these on a flaming 44% clip. He still shot a very respectable 37% on above-the-break looks. Nic adds some surplus-value by being able to shoot accurately off of movement, and by very impressively using virtually zero dip on his standstill jumper.
Cutting to Score & Pass
The experienced wing's cutting intuition is yet another reason why he's so complementary next to attention-getting stars. Nic landed in the league's 87th percentile scoring on cuts in 2020-2021. Additionally, he's an extremely willing passer when he catches it on the move like this.
Dribble Drives
Batum's ball skills allow him to be more than simply a shoot + cut role player on offense. He will make great reads off-the-bounce as he attacks a seam that a teammate helped to open up. Nicolas can score it or make plays for others along this path.
Nic can be an impactful straight-line driver when exploiting a crease in the defense. His 78.8% mark at the iron in 2021-2022 was on a low volume, but Batum picks his spots. Every so often, Batum uses a driving lane to throw down a right-handed hammer dunk.
Skillful Passing
Nicolas' passing prowess is a big boon as an ancillary piece. His impressive 2.79 assist-to-turnover ratio from 2020-2021 was within tenths of backcourt players like Jrue Holiday and Malcolm Brogdon. From his age-24 season on, Nic strictly posted positive AST/TO ratios.
The difference between Batum and other playmakers is that his facilitation tends to be of the off-ball, low-usage rate variety. His passing ability serves as the missing puzzle piece that he can insert into virtually any five-man unit to enrich its production.
Batum is exceptionally patient and skilled when it comes to his pinpoint passing. He uses ball-fakes and look-aways to throw off his opponents and crank open passing windows further. This deceptiveness is rare and his great size allows him to maximize it as he scans over top.
He understands angles and it informs him of exactly what pass type to throw in a given situation. For instance, he understands that sometimes a post-entry opportunity can quickly turn into a spin-out lob chance if the defender aggressively plays the high side. Similarly, he can counter top-locks on his targets with a backdoor alley-oop chance.
His passing plays out of the post and in transition too. The selfless forward can even run pick-and-roll with a pass-first mindset for his squad, something he did voraciously in his younger years. The 6'8" Batum is a premier trigger man as well.
Defensive Deftness
Nic Batum finds himself in a connector role on the other side of the floor also. He is always on time and on point with his rotations, rarely getting fooled. Batum is the polar opposite of the overzealous, hyper-fouling shot-blocker type. Rather, he can adeptly stunt and recover in the right situations.
Nic has great hands and supreme length on the wing which he employs on his ultra-timely digs/slap-downs. These physical attributes work in concert with his high-level off-ball defensive IQ to make him so effective. Batum has a far-reaching impact on the defensive end, not always quantifiable by even the advanced statistics.
One thing that is captured by the box score is Batum's defensive playmaking. The Frenchman has put up strong steal and block rates for his position across his career. 2020-2021 saw him notch 2.1 stocks (steals+blocks) per-36 minutes.
Multi-Position Man Defense + Rebounding
Nic can also handle his own assignment competently in isolation scenarios. What is more, his team can switch almost any action and not sacrifice much on the back end with Batum involved. He amassed over 1000 partial possessions checking guards and forwards respectively (2020-2021).
The stat-sheet-filling veteran does so in part through his rebounding contributions. Even back when he was predominantly playing two-guard, Nic always made it a mission to get in on the rebounding.
He fell below 6 rebounds per-36 in just one season between 2013-2014 and 2020-2021. Batum is also a sneaky good offensive rebounder.
WEAKNESSES
Minimal Scoring Threat
Scoring the basketball has always been the part of Batum's game that has lagged behind the rest. That disparity has only grown as he matures and settles into being a full-time role player. A relative lack of tools like downhill pressure-putting and pull-up shooting have prevented him from being a big ball-screen scorer.
Nic has always been more of a perimeter-oriented player when it comes to bucket-getting. However, this has slid into exaggerated territory during his career's latter stages. 2020-2021 saw him make just 58 paint buckets across 67 games played.
He can be reluctant to initiate contact at the cup and is by no means a physical driver. But he picks his spots well when he does take it inside. The infrequency of his takes is the problem – manifesting as a skeletal free-throw rate, some awkward shots, and a bad habit of resorting to off-balance jumpers.
Defensive Quibbles
Defensively, a rejuvenated Batum in LA has returned to being a low-error team defender. If one were to nitpick, his screen navigation is one of a select few real problem areas. The consequences of such are a 29th percentile placement defending pick-and-roll ball-handlers and a 20th percentile foothold versus DHO recipients (2020-2021).
Nicolas can also look out of place on an island against one's and some two's. He largely positions himself well but as his lateral quicks have left him so too has his elite perimeter man defense. Guards he lined up against in 2020-2021 hit 50 of 118 three-point attempts (42.4%) against Batum.
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Players Appearing Here – Check Out Their Profiles
- Kawhi LeonardOpens in a new tab
- Paul George [PATREON]Opens in a new tab
- Marcus Morris Sr. Opens in a new tab
- Patrick BeverleyOpens in a new tab
- Jrue HolidayOpens in a new tab
- Malcolm Brogdon Opens in a new tab
