–Nicolas Batum, Age 3.5–
“Nic, I got you a new toy! Look!” Nicolas’ mom said, bringing out an inflatable rubber ball from behind her back. “You’ll have so much fun!”
Nicolas took the ball from his mother’s outstretched hand. He looked at it, not with delight as his mother suspected, but rather, with mistrust. “You can bounce it and roll it, won’t that be fun?” his mother said, surprised at his lack of excitement.
Suddenly, Nicolas cradled the ball in the crook of his elbow and began to punch it with his free hand. Startled, his mother snatched the toy away from him. “No! Until you learn how to play nice, you’re not getting this back!”
Nicolas did not seem too concerned by the development, going back to his dinosaur coloring book with indifference.
–Nicolas Batum, Age 7–
“Nic, time for dinner!”
Nicolas hopped down the stairs, eagerly anticipating whatever dish his dad had prepared for them. When he sat down at the table, his father brought out fresh, steaming meatball subs. “Something new tonight! I saw the recipe in the newspaper and thought it sounded fantastic!”
While his family ate the sandwiches happily, Nicolas glared at his plate.
“What’s wrong, Nicky? Don’t you like the meatballs? You haven’t even tried them.”
Without warning, Nicolas slammed his fist right in the middle of the sub, pulverizing the meatballs and sending tomato sauce flying everywhere.
“Nicolas J. Batum! That is not how we act at the dinner table! You’re going to have to go back to your room and mull over your actions on an empty stomach. Go on, get going!” his father commanded sternly. Nicolas shrugged and got up wordlessly from the table. When he was out of sight, his parents exchanged worried glances.
–Nicolas Batum, Age 16–
“Okay class, today we will investigate the conservation of momentum as postulated by Sir Isaac Newton.”
Nicolas, sitting in the back of the class, was hardly paying attention. He knew that he was destined for pro basketball. There was no point in wasting his energy trying to understand complicated physics equations.
“I brought a little device that will help me demonstrate this principle,” the teacher continued, bringing out a Newton’s Cradle. Upon first seeing those five glimmering steel spheres hanging from their wires, Nicolas’ attention was immediately focused on them. “Who would like to help me demonstrate?”
Nicolas raised his hand immediately, waving it in the air with an urgency that he usually only displayed on the basketball court. His teacher, having never seen Nicolas raise his hand in class, was eager to call on him. “Go ahead Nic, why don’t you show the class how this works?”
Walking quickly, Nicolas reached the teacher’s desk and grabbed the cradle. “Nic, what are you doing?” the teacher asked. Nicolas made no indication of having heard; instead, he held the pendular balls up in front of his face. After a brief pause of seeming introspection, Nicolas brought his fist in contact with the toy, causing the balls to swing wildly in all directions. He repeated this several more times before setting the device down and walking calmly back to his desk, where he sat down without incident.
The class sat stunned as the teacher said, “Nic, we’ll need to talk after class.”
–Nicolas Batum, Age 23–
Nicolas watched the game slip away from the French National Team, seemingly unable to do anything against the well-oiled Spanish juggernaut. Near the end of regulation, with winning an impossibility, he suddenly became fixated on opposing guard Juan Carlos Navarro advancing the ball. An unseen cosmic force compelled him to cover Navarro, to maybe get a steal.
However, when Nicolas got in position to make a play on the ball, he could only think of one thing to do: slam his fist into Navarro’s nutsack. Which he did.
As both benches, and the whole arena, erupted in chaos, Batum uttered an apology that was only heard by the two of them.
“I can’t help it. I just like punching balls.”