The Tottenham Hotspurs are not having a world-class season. Plagued by injuries, they’ve been stuck in the middle of the Premier League, no longer the top-tier football club they once were. Many aren’t happy with manager Ange Postecoglou, and the once-formidable forward Son Heung-Min is a shell of himself at 32 years old. But they are turning the corner after a win against Manchester United. Now healthier, the Spurs hope they can finish the season strong and enter the summer with a new-found sense of optimism.
At least, that’s what long-time Spurs fan Jamison Battle is hoping.
When I first caught up with the Raptors rookie in December to ask him about his holiday wish list, he left the Raptors 905 locker room sporting a Spurs jacket instead of a Raptors one. I asked him about it; he then spent around five minutes explaining his fandom and his love for FIFA. He asked me who I liked (I’ve lived in Liverpool, and I’m a Juventus fan), and we chatted about footy.
So when I caught up with him again after the All-Star Break, it wasn’t his newly signed NBA contract or the fact that he’s the best shooter in his rookie class that was top of mind, but how the Spurs were doing and what was required for them to become a top-four team in the Prem again.
“I’m tapped in, man.” Battle said after rattling off his team-building philosophy, breaking down what the Spurs lacked compared to Liverpool, Arsenal, and Manchester City and what they were capable of. That awareness — the understanding of what is and isn’t — somehow translates to Battle’s game in basketball.
On the court, Battle knows who he is.
“My ticket is shooting,” he told me when I listed some of his numbers this season.
Of rookies that take at least two triples a night, Battle is first in 3-point percentage, knocking down 42.3 percent of his looks. He knocks down 49 percent of his unguarded catch-and-shoot jumpers and 35 percent of his guarded shots — excellent when comparing him league-wide to other shooters. According to Synergy data, he generates 1.31 points per possession on spot-ups, ranking in the 94th percentile. A shot that ends in a spot-up Battle look is just about as good as any team’s offensive possession can end.
Does any of that stuff matter to him? Battle shook his head when I asked.
“Making shots is one thing you can’t control, but you can control your mentality. You can control your confidence. And I believe I’m one of the best shooters in the world, and having that mentality, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t have that confidence.”
Believe it or not, despite the confidence in his shooting, Battle was actually a late bloomer. He told me he didn’t shoot a 3 until he was in the seventh grade because he was always bigger than everyone else. His father implored him to start playing like a guard, and that’s when his basketball career really took off.
Battle’s jumper helped him become a D1 athlete, and he spent five years in college: two seasons at George Washington, then two seasons in Minnesota (his home state) before finally putting up his best season with the Ohio State Buckeyes, where he became an All-American.
His consistently potent shooting, translated to the professional level over the last 12 months, helped him go from undrafted rookie to Summer League standout, sign a two-way contract, outplay that contract by making the most of his playing time on an injured roster, double-dip between the primary team and the 905 in the G League, and now, finally, ink a three-year deal with the Raptors.
If that sentence reads like a whirlwind, just imagine what it’s been for the 23-year-old.
“I love to stay present,” Battle told me. “I love to stay in the moment. I think about the past just to learn from prior experiences. But I’m not really dwelling on it; just because you can’t let it have an effect on it, but you can learn from it.”
That’s how shooters have to think. It’s a philosophy that motivates both his game and his life. His past experience as a shooter has helped him get this far, but now he’ll have to look beyond it to get to the next level. In today’s NBA, it’s impossible to carve out a real role as a narrow specialist. You need to be multi-faceted in your approach. As elite a 3-point shooter as Battle is, he can still work on his movement shooting (he’s only hit 29 percent of his looks off screens this season), and when teams start to run him off the line, he’ll have to improve as a cutter, passer, and defender to stay on the floor.
This was the main reason he spent time with the 905 this season: to fine-tune all those other areas.
“The biggest thing for me is just defense,” Battle told me when I asked him what his focus was to finish the season. “Impacting the game in other ways, moving your feet, sliding your feet, not fouling, and having an impact on rebounding too. Those little intangible things will help me get more minutes and help the team out when I’m not making shots or when I’m not getting the ball to shoot. I have to expand my game to not just being a shooter, which I don’t think I am.”
We’ve already seen flashes of him being able to do more.
“Offensively, it’s him being able to work on his shooting on the move and finishing at the rim,” Darko Rajakovic said when I asked him about the areas he’s looking for improvement from Battle. “Defensively, it’s just being able to guard one through four, learning the system, and understanding the NBA personnel.”
“We meet with our players every 20 games to see how they’re doing with player development, what needs to be adjusted, where they’re reaching their goals, and there are expectations for him, and what he needs to improve going for the rest of the year,” Rajakovic told me.
There is intentionality to this plan going forward, both from Battle and the franchise. And with the Raptors shifting their priorities to development and Battle and the coaching staff on the same page on areas of focus for him individually — the roadmap is there for Battle to make the most of this season’s final stretch. He’ll get run with the Raptors, he’ll be part of the 905’s pursuit for a G-League championship, and he’ll likely be on their Summer League team in Vegas — three important components in the next few months of Battle’s basketball journey.
There’s also pressure to capitalize on this opportunity. Battle’s new contract is a nice reward for an impressive rookie season, but it is only half-guaranteed for next season and non-guaranteed for the year after that.
It’s a ‘Prove Em’ Deal.
That isn’t some unique circumstance. Plenty of undrafted rookies and two-way players have to earn their keep in the NBA by going through the same process Battle does. But perhaps his approach amid all the uncertainty provides us with insight into what it feels like to deal with the pressure of finding stability in professional basketball.
“I’m not trying to look too far in the future,” Battle told me. “Just staying present, day by day, brick by brick because, in the end, I wouldn’t be in this position if I was constantly looking ahead and looking forward because there are so many different things that you see or you think about and that could have an effect on your every day. If you stay in the present moment and focus on what you need to take care of. It’ll take you far.”
Jamison Battle: staying present through it all.
