I don't know if it matters to either guy, esp Enes, if he starts or not. Both play about 24 minutes, and realistically that's about the best for both. Now whether or not the TEAM plays better with Enes starting Vs Nurk starting, I think another question to ponder would be who plays better with the bench. My gut says Enes would be able to play better with the bench players, especially now that 2 of those bench players (Trent and Simons) have matured enough to be effective without Dame or CJ holding their hands.
You could take that a step further and keep GTJ in the starting lineup when CJ returns and have a second unit of Nurk, CJ, Ant, Melo and Hood. That would be a formidable 2nd unit.
theres no discussion when it comes to nurk and kanter and quite frankly, its beyond me how can anyone think kanter is better than nurk, an absolute bollocks kanter was a starter in 2 of his 11 seasons, one of those was with the knicks (does that need to be explained lol) and the other was with the jazz until gobert emerged as a starter, in the remaining 9 seasons he was a backup and you can say one coach has no clue what hes doing, but when multiple coaches do the same, it put things into perspective, doesnt it kanter, just like whiteside, puts up good numbers (both better than nurks), but numbers arent everything, its impact that matters and to prove it, ill give you two examples: kanter couldnt win a starting job over theiss with the celtics (i assume brad stevens knew what he was doing, dont you) and then whiteside couldnt win a starting job over holmes and both kanter and whiteside put up better numbers than theiss and holmes as stotts said few days ago, nurk is our defensive anchor, which he is, but you cant have four players that dont play defense and then expect nurk to defend, it doesnt work like that, its team effort, team needs to make it easier for nurk in order for him to make a difference and i remember when the blazers had a good defense with aminu and harkless, but that was one season and then, even with them, we sucked again, which screams "effort" tu put things into perspective, nurk needs help from covington and jones jr (unfortunately collins is out), but dame and cj mccollum need to make an effort too, we all know they cant really defend, but if they put an effort, it just might help a bit... what weve been seeing is opponents having a freeway to the basket and then we expect nurk to make miracles, but it doesnt work like that do you remember how good was nurk (it doesnt seem so) before the injury, he was well on his way to becoming an all-star level player and he was considered to be top 5 or just outside of top 5 center in the league (kanter was never considered to be this good), but after the injury, it passed 16 months before he played a game and you should know how a long lay-off can affect a player and that it requires time to get back on track (see paul george) for the first part of the bubble, nurk looked really great, like the injury didnt happened, but that might be cause he was playing with the adrenaline, just excited to be back playing bball again, but in the second part of the bubble, he wasnt as good and he started looking tired etc, which is understandable after not playing for 16 months when it comes to this season, what weve been seeing from nurk before the wrist injury was not good at all and that was due to him being out of shape and not being focused on bball, which was due to him dealing with familly issue and thats what nurk himself said and you know how familly issues can affect people, not all react the same... hopefully nurk comes back in better mental state and obviously better shape im hopefull that nurk will get back on track and become an all-star level player cause he showed he has talent to become one and i wont give up on him, which some posters seem to have already done, which is shameful... ps i forgot to say that kanter was and is goof for us and he has no problem being a backup, he has a good relationship with nurk (they go to the mosque together) and hopefully we resign him
I don’t know if this was said, but Nurk is also a great screener which helps get the offense flowing. Nurk does almost everything well except finish around the rim but that’s pretty damn important. He needs to forget about the damn 3 point shot and focus on that. In the end it’s nice having two good centers with different skill sets. No reason to pit them against each other
Totally disagree with this. The thing that makes AD and Embiid tough to guard is the 3 point threat. Neither had that shot coming into the league. He needs to continue to work on it. I do agree however he needs to also work on finishing around the rim. Why not both?
If Nurk struggles to finnish at the rim, what makes you think he will become a decent 3point shooter?
It depends upon which Nurk shows up to the arena. Nurk has to have a fg% of well over 50 in order for me to be on board with not dealing him. Plus he is injury prone, sorry but it's true. What good is an injured defensive anchor? Time to move on?
marc gasol didnt shoot threes until he was 30 yo or 31 yo (he did, but it was small number, not worth mentioning), when he started shooting them a lot nurk is 26 yo, he needs to develop 3-pointer and become 30% shooter from deep, so i want to see him shooting one or two threes per game
blazers can move on from nurk, but only if they can find someone as good as nurk or better you dont replace nurk with kanter lol, if you lose quality player like nurk, you better replace him with another quality player at center or some other position (in that case, you can deal with lets say kanter)
There is very little to debate here. Finishing at the rim has nothing in common with shooting an open look from three. Now getting a better look around the rim for everyone on the team has everything to do with your center being able to make an open look from three. See what i did there?
It's not just Nurk. If Kanter could get three's to drop consistently that would be a good thing as well.
collins is 30% shooter from deep, but hes power forward/center perhaps you could deal with collins as your stretch five, but like i said, you still need to replace nurks quality at some other position and that would be either small or power forward i wouldnt give up on collins, i assume we can get him for cheap, you roll the dice with collins for sure
Both in the long run, I agree, but it's about return on time-invested at the moment. If he's currently at around 15-20% from 3 he really shouldn't be taking 3's in games, unless you are willing to risk losing some close games and risk missing the playoffs. If he's not taking 3's in games there is no immediate benefit to 3-pointer improvement whereas around rim improvement has immediate value. I exaggerated somewhat, I don't really have a problem with him practicing 3's now but improving around the rim should be a much higher priority. AD and Embiid didn't have the same around-the-rim problems Nurk has so for them it made more sense.
