PHILADELPHIA — Clippers teammates were gathering in the key and coaches were talking in a circle at midcourt, but Nicolas Batum was in no hurry to leave his courtside chair and begin shootaround on a late November morning.
Only weeks from his 34th birthday, the wing turned his eyes toward the empty upper deck of Portland's Moda Center and his memories of the younger version of himself that spent his first seven seasons with the Trail Blazers.
"It's a special place," Batum said. "I grew up here."
