[Solomon] Mid season trade disappointed Battier

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With a 3-year-old and a newborn, Shane Battier doesn't have much time to work on his golf swing.

If the NBA lockout lasts into the winter as expected, he will have more free time than usual. But he'd rather not have it.

Battier, a free agent whom the Rockets traded to Memphis in February, knows his time in the NBA is limited. The impact of missed games next season isn't going to be diminished by a long-term contact offer.

"The end of my career is closer than the start of my career," said Battier, who just finished his 10th season in the league.

Though a natural for the broadcasting booth, Battier isn't in a hurry to get there.

"I can see myself playing for three or four more years, then moving on to the next phase," he said.

Battier expects to draw interest from contenders, which is one of the reasons the Rockets elected to trade him. Don't be surprised if the next time the Michigan native takes the court he is spotting up outside the 3-point line for the Chicago Bulls or taking charges for the Miami Heat.

One thing is certain: He won't be with the Houston Rockets.

Battier was disappointed, bothered really, that the Rockets traded him at midseason. With as much as he had put into the organization, he left thinking the job wasn't done.

"I was disappointed that I couldn't see to the finish what I started out," he said. "It would have been nice to go through one more stretch run with those guys. If it didn't work out, I would have been happy with time I put in over the five years."

Even the postseason fun he had with the Memphis Grizzlies, who beat San Antonio in the first round of the playoffs and took Oklahoma City to seven games in the Western Conference semifinals, didn't close the wound.

"I was happy that I went to a place that worked out and we found lightning in a bottle, but it was disappointing in a weird way to see (the Rockets) finish behind us," Battier said.
Telling it like it is

Battier's view of the Grizzlies and Rockets going forward might be somewhat disheartening for Rockets fans. Particularly those who hang on to the shaky glass-half-full thread that Memphis finished "only" three games ahead of Houston in the standings.

"Houston is a franchise in transition. From a talent standpoint, Memphis is going to be a force to deal with for a few years," he said. "Talent wins. You can have all the rah-rah you can muster, but at the end of the day in the NBA, talent wins.

"The Grizzlies are more talented than the Rockets."

See? Sometimes Battier's swing is pretty good.

"Last year, we were just crossing our fingers hoping that Yao (Ming) would be the Yao of old," Battier said. "Had he been the Yao of old, no question we would be a playoff team, a 50-win team. Instead …"

Instead, the Rockets got off to another poor start and missed the playoffs for the second consecutive year.

Now, Yao is retired, and Battier is a former Rocket working on his golf game.
Golfing for a cause

His long and sometimes fluid golf swing will be under added pressure this weekend at the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship in South Lake Tahoe, Nev.

It is not just that a few of those swings could end up on the air to be ridiculed by a national television audience. Granted, with Charles Barkley in the field, embarrassment is a relative thing. The Chuckster tends to dominate NBC's bad-swing quota for the event.

Battier is using his third appearance in the celebrity tournament as a fund-raising opportunity for his Take Charge Foundation (http://www.takechargefoundation.com).

He is calling it the "Take Charge, Save Par" fund and asking people to donate money for every par he makes in the tournament. He will contribute $1,000 for every hole on which he makes par (or better) in the 54-hole event but says any amount fans donate, which goes to college scholarships, would be greatly appreciated.

Battier covers all the administrative costs for Take Charge so that every penny raised goes directly to scholarships. The foundation already has six scholarship recipients (five from the Houston area) attending a wide range of schools, from the University of Texas to Northern Michigan.

"The goal is to make this truly a national program," Battier said. "I had solid grades, but if I didn't have basketball, I couldn't have gone to Duke. I want to help kids be able to go to the school of their choice and make it easier for them to do so."
Incentive to do well

The idea to use his suspect golf game to help the cause came over a couple of beers. He even beat yours truly to the obligatory shot at his offensive skills or relative lack thereof.

"My golf game, while not as terrible as my offensive game (bada-bing), has many, many issues," Battier said. "But now that I'm playing for the kids, I'll have added incentive to do well."

jerome.solomon@chron.com

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