Michael Kidd-Gilchrist had never heard the story.
“You punched somebody?’’ he asked Nicolas Batum warily.
Batum was sitting in the third row of bleachers in a small-college gym after his Charlotte Hornets had practiced on the road. Kidd-Gilchrist, a younger teammate, was standing in front of him.
“The game was over,’’ Batum said. “We’re down seven. Twenty-five seconds to go. I was super mad, and he was right there, and I ran across the court.’’
Juan Carlos Navarro of Spain had been running away from Batum to catch the inbound pass at the end of the 2012 Olympics quarterfinal in London. Batum didn’t realize the depth of his own anger until he saw Navarro curling up on the floor as players from both teams ran out to separate them. Navarro had been reaching for the ball just as Batum arrived from halfcourt to throw a punch at Navarro’s groin.
“I was wrong, I was wrong, I was wrong,’’ Batum said, shaking his head. “That play surprised a lot of people, even myself.’’
To this day, said Batum, he is asked by strangers and acquaintances about the sucker-punch. “I was famous,’’ he joked to Kidd-Gilchrist. His outburst endures because it appeared to be out of character. It was stunning that Batum, of all people, had done such a thing.
“I don’t want to think about my stats and myself. I only want the other guys to be happy first.”
Nicolas Batum
“I think that’s why I have no fine or nothing,’’ said Batum in his emphatic French accent. “After the game I was like, OK, I’m going to get fined by the NBA, by the French Federation. But I think I surprised everybody.’’
Batum will never forget the look he received from Bill Kennedy, the NBA referee who was working the Olympic quarterfinal. “He was surprised himself, like, ‘You?’’’ Batum said. “The ref was like, ‘I mean, I got to give you a technical foul but …’ It surprised a lot of people, my doing that. That’s the only time I did it in my life.’’
Even so, his punch revealed that he had a temper, a competitive fire. A truth emerged from Batum’s embarrassment. And ever since then his career has been making more sense.
Strengths, instincts defined Batum
Who was he?
The question had been raised throughout Batum’s life in basketball. The first clues were drawn from the stories of his father.
“We are not the same players,’’ Batum said, laughing. “I am a quiet guy, pretty smooth. He was a big guy, strong, physical and he just banged up people. He was fighting every game. So we are not the same, we are not the same.’’
Richard Batum was a bullish power forward. His son Nicolas, who would grow up to become a 6-foot-8 shooting guard, taller and slimmer than his father, was a two year old sitting in the stands with his mother for a game in the French league when Richard Batum collapsed while shooting free throws.
“I’ve got some flashes and some memories about him, but not a lot,’’ Nicolas Batum said. He remembers the TV cameras converging and his mother crying and the uproar that immediately followed the death of his father.
When the NBA began paying close attention to Nicolas Batum as a teenager with the French club Le Mans, months before he would be chosen No. 25 in the 2008 Draft, he was exceedingly quiet and thin. Days before that draft there were reports that NBA teams were concerned about his heart.
“People were saying that my dad died of a heart attack, and they were saying that I was going to have the same like a heart attack on the basketball court like he did,’’ Batum said. “That was wrong, that was false. He didn’t die of a heart attack.’’
He had suffered a ruptured aneurysm.
“A blood clot,’’ said Batum, nodding.
It would have been easy to dismiss Batum as a 19-year-old NBA rookie in Portland who was infatuated by everything from the fast-food chicken and burgers to the majestic terrain of Oregon. But his strengths and instincts defined him instead. From the beginning he was a strong defender and a promising shooter, with the potential to make every kind of play. After he had improved steadily over the first four years, he was signed to a four-year, $46 million offer sheet in 2012 by the Timberwolves.
“I didn’t see that coming, because I didn’t prove anything at that time,’’ Batum said. “So I’m like, yeah, I’ve got to really step up now. But they didn’t put pressure on me like that.’’
His newly hired coach in Portland, Terry Stotts, turned the dynamic inside-out. As Batum recalls it, Stotts insisted that Batum forget about expectations and instead view his new contract as liberating. “Just play the game you love,’’ said Batum of the message. “You have the best pleasure in the world. You got paid to play basketball. So now it’s easy.’’
There would be ups and downs, injuries and setbacks, and when the Trail Blazers decided to go younger after the free-agent departure of LaMarcus Aldridge, they could no longer afford Batum and the next contract he was going to be demanding in free agency. The Hornets had different needs. Their GM, Rich Cho, who had worked in Portland, envisioned Batum as a crucial addition. Cho dealt lottery pick Noah Vonleh and shooting guard Gerald Henderson to the Blazers in belief that Batum was on the verge of fulfilling his potential. He was about to realize who he was and who he could be.
Willing to adjust
Last summer in Dallas, where he was preparing for contract negotiations as a free agent, Batum ran into teammate Kemba Walker in the lobby. The star of the Hornets had arrived with Kidd-Gilchrist to recruit Batum to return to Charlotte.
“I was surprised they were there,’’ Batum said. “I have been there for only one year with those guys, and to see them come all the way to Dallas and meet with me, to say we really need you to come back because we are starting something together – that was huge. Because they are younger than me.’’
Batum had grown up idolizing Scottie Pippen as a complete team player, and last season in Charlotte he had filled that role alongside Walker on behalf of team owner Michael Jordan. Since re-signing for $120 million over five years – a record contract for any athlete in Charlotte, including Cam Newton – Batum has reinforced himself as the Hornets’ No. 2 scorer (14.7 points) as well as their leading playmaker (5.9 assists) and No. 2 rebounder (7.3). The other four NBA players currently averaging at least 14 points, seven rebounds and five assists are Giannis Antetokounmpo, James Harden, LeBron James and Russell Westbrook. “He does so many things that lead to winning,’’ said Hornets coach Steve Clifford.
Batum has enabled Walker to score a career-best 23.0 while relieving him of the pressure to do everything on offense. At the other end, Batum has provided defensive leadership alongside forwards Kidd-Gilchrist and Marvin Williams – whose versatility and teamwork will be tested Wednesday night when Steph Curry returns home to Charlotte with his prolific Warriors. “All three of them can switch and guard different guys,’’ Clifford said. “So it keeps you out of a lot of rotations.’’
“I’ve played with maybe one other player like him,’’ said Williams of Batum. “Joe Johnson was at his size, physically strong enough and intelligent enough to guard 1 through 3 and some 4s. He is so, so smart when it comes to basketball.’’
Batum has fulfilled Clifford’s hope that he would become a second-in-command alongside Walker, and together they led the Hornets to 46 wins while also winning playoff games for the first time in 14 years. But Batum approached his assignment from a nuanced point of view. He expresses his competitive edge tactically.
“When I got there to Charlotte and I talked to the coach, I said, ‘I will do everything to adjust to them,’’’ Batum said of his new teammates. “I’m the new guy, so they cannot adjust to me. I’ve got to find a way of understanding them. That’s when I’m at my best. I’ve got to find a way to play with them.’’
‘Everything has changed for me’
“Ten years ago I was just a little French guy,’’ Batum said. “Now I’m a dad, and I’ve got a wife and baby at home. So everything has changed for me.’’
He has become a mentoring teammate who realizes how best he can best fulfill this career that he never takes for granted. “I am a good team player,’’ said Batum. “I won’t say I’m a great team player, but that is what I want to be. I don’t want to think about my stats and myself. I only want the other guys to be happy first.’’
At 28, he is embarking upon what should be his ultimate years in the game.
“Time goes by really, really fast,’’ he said. “I’ve got to really enjoy what I can do as a basketball player. Because I know the game, and my body feels right. So the next two or three years are going to be the best of my career. That is exciting, but it is scary as well, because after that I’m going to be a really old guy.’’
When he comes home after a practice or a road trip with his teammates, Batum realizes anew what Stotts told him years ago. As he plays with his baby son, Ayden Richard Batum, he recognizes love and opportunity at the expense of pressure.
“I lost my dad when I was 2 and a half years old,’’ he said. “It’s cool, because now I can really be what I miss the most in my life.’’
His wife, Aurélie, jokes that he must become Ayden’s father more than his friend. “I know this, but I love that kid,’’ Batum said. “I love him.’’
Ian Thomsen has covered the NBA since 2000. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here or follow him on Twitter.
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