A lot of people here seemed to feel that Nurkic practicing meant he was likely good to go and the Blazers not announcing that was a "smoke screen" to confuse the Warriors. My guess is that Nurkic will be "questionable" for every game, with a small chance to play back in Portland.
I disagree. They have nobody who can guard Nurk, and history shows that abusing a massive mismatch like that can swing a series. I'll go as far as to say if we drop game 1&2 we can still win the series if Nurk is healthy for game 3. I do believe Nurk is one of the best centers in the league and time will show that. That being said I don't buy the belief that we are instantly doomed without him. These guys aren't going to roll over, and if everyone plays their best game we can pull out a W.
Questionable means that they weren't sure, so it shouldn't have been surprising either way. As I speculated, they were waiting as long as they could to make the decision.
I'm already pumped for next season. Let the big man rest and heal and be ready next October to start kicking some ass.
I really don't know the severity of the injury, but as I stated when it happened, I had the very same injury last October. I was encouraged to rest and ice it for a couple of weeks and that it was normal for it to be sore, but that I wasn't going to do much damage to it by walking or running on it after a few weeks. They couldn't do anything but let it heal naturally. It just felt like I had hit my funny bone for about a month. It was more annoying than anything. Nurkic's injury could have been worse, or it could have been less severe. Either way, he should be just on the border of it being okay.
If he's going to play at all in this series, next Saturday is probably the prudent choice. Three plus weeks of recovery instead of two would be far more palatable in terms of PR risk and doing what's right for Nurk.
I'm happy he's not playing if there is even the slightest of slightest chance he isn't 100% We aren't winning shit this year with or without him.
Meh, it's a long offseason. I think there is no substitute for playoff experience. Besides, Olshey could use the opportunity to see which other pieces we need around Dame, CJ and Nurkic to compete.
