hello blazers fans, long time no see... during this playoff series, ive seen a lot of nurk bashing and i simply cant remain silent, as i consider it to be completely inappropriate, considering everything that has happened to him (leg break and death of a close relative) i understand were all emotional and we often say certain things in the heat of the moment that we dont really mean, but when that opinion stucks as a general opinion, then i must intervene as you already know, nurk didnt played bball in 16 months and you should understand how that affects players, their conditioning, game shape, mental state etc in the scrimamge games and first part of the seeding games or four games if you will, nurk looked fantastic, to me he even looked better than he was prior to the injury, but when you consider the second part of the seeding games and this playoff series, its obvious that he excelled due to freshness, but with more games and playing 30+ minutes regulary (which he never played in his career), his conditioning and game shape came to the surface every blazers fan should know that its not easy to come back from devastating injury and straight up dominate, that it will require time for nurk to get conditiong and game shape where it needs to be, but also to clear his head as you can see hes afraid in some moments, but in general, hes mentally in a really good place (when it comes to his leg) then his close relative passed away and it certainly affected him, after all, nurk himself said he didnt want to play against memphis grizzlies in the play-in game, but felt that his grandma would want him to play, so he did and he had a great game in honour of his grandma its pretty much clear why is nurk having a bad playoff series so far: - conditiong/game shape - death of a close relative - matchup issue anthony davis is a nightmare matchup for nurk, but theres nothing wrong with that (so is jrue holiday for dame lillard) and like we know, matchups (both individaul and team ones) matter nurk cant defend davis, but then again, how many players can, i guarantee theres no more than five players (and thats to be generous) in the entire league that can defend him, as hes considered to be top 5 player, top 10 at worst but its not just anthony davis, lakers have arguably best big man rotation in the league with davis, mcgee and howard and all of them are really athletic and theyre showing it with all those offensive rebounds and we know nurk is a really good rebounder himself maybe we could get defensive rebounds if nurk was playing like himself or if whiteside would box-out or if we had collins... but we dont have any of those things, so the lakers are absolutely killing us also, id like to point that the blazers went to the playoffs four times since nurk is here and he missed two of them due to non-displaced leg fracture and compound fracture and played in two of them and unfortunately both times he faced anthony fucking davis in the 8 seeding games, nurk averaged 17.6 pts, 10.3 reb & 4.0 ast which is best in his career so the next season, when he gets his conditiong and game shape back, when he gets over his grandma passing away, well see the "double-beast" he said he would be coming back from an injury nurk is in a rough place right know, but lets get behind him and show him our love, as we know he can do much better than this... also, happy 26th b-day nurk, have a good one!
sure, he was out a long time and that could cause 'rust'. And his grandmother died but since he's returned, he's had games of: 18 - 9 - 5 30 - 9 - 5 18 - 19 -3 22 - 7 - 4 10 -13 - 9 15- 6 - 3 6 - 9 - 0 22 - 10 - 3 22 - 21 - 4 16 - 15 - 3 those were the 8 seeding games, the play-in against Memphis, and game 1 of the Laker series. That's averaging 18 points, 12 rebounds, and 4 assists. That does not look like a rusty player to me now, these last two games, I guess you could offer the excuse of conditioning. He sure looked whipped last night. And he was close to his grandmother, so that seems a reasonable excuse for distracted play but I think he's also having issues with AD, McGee, and Howard. That's not necessarily a slam. I think any big would have issues with those 3 C's. They are all big, they are talented, and each has a different style and setting aside rust, conditioning, and grief, I think it's obvious Nurkic has flaws to his game he needs to work on
im bosnian, but i have to be objective those stats look great considering he didnt play bball in 16 months, but his defense in the bubble has not been good (not just against davis, but in general) and to me it shows he has conditioning/game shape issue, which is understandable and he is also missing way to many easy shots, which he always did, but not this much, no way and that also shows certain issue, whatever that may be, but probably conditioning/game shape after all, nurk was always known for his defense, not for his offense and he clearly improved a lot on the offensive end of the floor, but he will never be as good as jokic, kat, davis or even vucevic, that much is clear... but theres nothing wrong with that, like i said, he was always considered defensive center and he developed into two-way center which is a great accomplishment for him a lot of blazers fans consider him to be our second best player and thats for a reason
I am one of Nurk's biggest fans. He is my favorite player. But, even I can see. He is gassed. He is over-matched. There were about 10 times last night where having good position, Nurkic didn't even jump for the defensive board. I mean, his feet never left the ground. That is zero effort. That is NOT Jusuf Nurkic.
This doesn't add up...... you said he is "gassed" How do you think he got that way? Because he's out there giving it his all. You can't say he's gassed and then complain that he is giving zero effort. Thats not how it works.
First off...I am NOT complaining. I gave an example of zero effort caused by extreme fatigue. He has worked his ass off in Orlando, (and the months prior). There is no shame in stating the obvious.
Don't hate, but - the best Blazer team of recent memory excelled with Kanter at center and Nurk out. I still can't believe they opted to keep Hood, dump Kanter, and then brought in Mr bad attitude to replace him. You can argue over stats, but anybody watching the game can see Kanter had better on-court chemistry!
Question: I agree that AD is a nightmare matchup, but why can't he dominate McGee or Howard? Even against Kuzma he struggled. If you are that good, you have to dominate these fools, he has not so far
Gotta be tough where he is right now. They need him and he is giving it his all. There does however need to be some looking into the way they are using him. He has to go strong to the hoop. This has been a problem since before the injury. When he does he does well. When he doesn't it doesn't end well.
Yes, a guy who is only 25 and missed over a year of basketball still has things to work on in his game. That seems obvious to everyone. Also, playing every other day is going to wear down bigger players. It’s why I don’t see the Lakers winning the title or even making the Finals. LeBron is older and AD has always worn down. That seems obvious, too.
I definitely consider Nurkic to be the 2nd best player for Portland right now. He's quite a bit better than CJ and has a much bigger impact if it was Dame/Kawhi/Nurkic or Dame/PG13/Nurkic or Dame/Butler/Nurkic, Portland would be a real contender. That shows where I think the weak link is, if my posting history somehow doesn't. Obviously, adding that other elite player is a very difficult task, but it's impossible when the GM holds players the level of CJ and Zach untouchable in trade talks
Nurk will be fine...our starters have worked their asses off to make the playoffs only to face a 7ft defensive player of the year and the best player in basketball first round...and we took game one...I'm proud of Nurk and confident he'll bounce back and have better games in the series...I like Nurk as the franchise center moving ahead ..he's a keeper and he's still really young...
"theres a lot of things on my mind" means he has a personal issues and he cant be focused on bball as much as he should be