Patty Mills may be banging the drum in Turkey at some point, but for right now, he's just not saying. Photo courtesy of the Oregonian.

Apparently some publications, not just the RCP, were a bit quick on the trigger to say bon voyage to Patty Mills. The speedy, diminutive Aussie is now denying the allegations that he has inked a deal with a professional club in Turkey. Although Patty has pleaded guilty to fielding offers from teams around the world, he has yet to tip his hand as to what his final decision may end up being.

It’s beyond my powers of reasoning to figure out why Patty’s playing coy. Maybe he’s hoping that riding the fence for a week or two might drum up better offers. Who knows. My guess is that eventually Patty will sign overseas, maybe in Turkey maybe not, and that very well might be all she wrote for the Patty Mills era in Portland.

Until that time, Ben over at Blazeredge has all the details of Patty’s stop off on the Bald-Face Truth this very afternoon. Stay tuned for more as this late breaking “story” continues to develop.

Twitter: @mikeacker | @ripcityproject

Nicolas Batum is staying in France to get some burn should the lockout mean no NBA games.

What counts as news in these early days of what might be a season-killing work stoppage? A lawsuit filed by the NBA in federal court in order to head-off potential anti-trust litigation by the NBA player’s association—a lawsuit that named Jimmer Fredette who happens to be a professional in name only? How about whispers and speculation of this superstar or that All-Star taking their game to Turkey, or Isreal, or China? What about Kevin Durant torching a bunch of streetballers at Rucker Park, and the debate that video sparked as to whether or not a guy can establish his street cred on jump shots alone or if it’s dunks that will win the hearts and minds of the schoolyard legends?

Well, lucky for us, in one way or another all of those things are news. Say what you will about the NBA running itself into the ground, NBA writers haven’t gone away just because the game has.

I’ve kept out of it up until now for a couple of reasons, which I have enumerated in my previous post. And since current Blazers have stayed mostly out of sight thus far during the lockout, save for Brandon Roy making brief headlines for hosting but skipping a charity game at the NBA starved Key Arena and some Twitter-based video footage of an absolutely jacked LaMarcus Aldridge flipping tractor tires, there still hasn’t been a lot on which to comment.

That changed today. In something of a rash of player-movement related news today, it has been made official that two Trail Blazers will be playing professional basketball in the upcoming months. They just won’t be doing it on this continent.

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“My decision is definite,” [Batum] said at Bercy, where he watched the French Cup Finals over the weekend.

“I will be present in the French squad for the World Championship. To join the national team again was a big desire after we (I) made our (my) debut at the EuroBasket.

The two clear sides of this are that you want young players getting as much experience against top competition as they can, but you also don’t want them getting hurt or wearing themselves out for the season. I’m not worried about Batum getting fatigued so much as I am about his shoulder. But at this point in his career, you don’t want to start thinking about protecting such a young player, and you certainly can’t criticize a guy for wanting to compete as much as possible.