This is a good trade. Plumlee developed here but he was still not very good defensively and we needed to improve. Nurkic IMO has more potential as a center and we are even getting a first round pick in addition. We would not be able to extend Plumlee in the Summer anyway.
It will be good to have Nurkic here. But there's no restaurant in Portland that serves his diet of tanned leather and lead ingots.
He is young and talented. There are only a few things that could make this go bad and none of them are talent. 1 would be if he got out of shape, 2 would be if he got hurt, and 3 is if he didn't get along with his teammates/coaches. I hate getting rid of Plums, but we needed more size and if we can combine those 3 draft picks with a big contract to get a talent in return, Neil will have shut up a lot of people who said we had no flexibility. Still a big if.....
Love the value, but it's honestly an odd trade (for both sides). It'll be interesting to see how much Denver offers Plumlee this summer...it has to be 16mil+ I think he fits Denver's style pretty well as a back-up center too, but I find it hard to see him playing more than 15-20 min a game for them, unless they think he can play with Jokic, which I highly doubt. Just don't think a backup center is worth that kind of money.
Portland used to be better. It also used to be a much cleaner city but now driving down I-5 or I-405, it looks like people are using the the freeways as a dumpster.
There's nothing not to like about a defense first...280lb 7 ft 22 year old who can make a layup, chipshot and midrange jumper and protect the lane, block shots..he could be Joel Przybilla with an offensive game.
I remember in the early 80's a friend and I got lost in Old Town for a few hours. It was great training for learning the tendencies of a heroin addict. Of course. then there was the 90's....
