Nicolas Batum’s foray into free agency this past summer was beyond brief. It seemed like he agreed to re-sign with the Charlotte Hornets almost as soon as the clock struck midnight eastern time on July 1.
But that doesn’t mean other teams didn’t try wooing him. At least two did, according to The Vertical’s Shams Charania—the Dallas Mavericks and New York Knicks:
Weeks before free agency, several organizations explored Batum’s availability, including Dallas and New York. The Mavericks were anticipating the departure of Chandler Parsons, and the Knicks envisioned pairing Batum with Joakim Noah as free-agent additions to the starting lineup.
Charlotte acquired Batum in a draft-night deal with Portland in 2015, and he slowly cultivated a passion for the city, for the nucleus of Kemba Walker, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and coach Steve Clifford. For Batum, there was no need to move; no need to challenge himself to accept significantly less money and adapt to the ball usages of Derrick Rose and Carmelo Anthony.
Unswayed by the idea of taking less money to play with a crappy Knicks team or an aging Dirk Nowitzki, Batum signed a five-year, $120 million deal to stay with the Hornets. New York and Dallas pivoted; the Knicks signed Courtney Lee and the Mavericks gave $94 million to Harrison Barnes.
Moving beyond the fact that the Knicks would have been hard-pressed to fit Noah and Batum under the salary cap, Batum made the right decision.
The Hornets, by his own admission, allowed him to play how he wanted to last season. He put the stench of an underachieving 2014-15 campaign with the Portland Trail Blazers behind him. Continuity is important in the NBA, and with the money being not only equal, but better in Charlotte, no suitor, it seems, could have ever given him any real reason to leave.
