The thing that makes me upset with nurk is those loosey-goosey flip shots he takes... especially when he's got an advantage on a defender. You'd think after years he'd understand when he's got a mismatch.
how about 2018/2019 season when he was having the best season of his career and when he was considered to be the blazers 2nd best player by the majority of the blazers fans and considered by the nba fans to be around top 5 center, behind guys like jokic, embiid, kat, gobert, pretty much those four were undeniably better and then there were a couple of players where it was just a matter of preference, nothing else) then the injury happened and he didnt play bball for 16 months until the bubble and during the bubble his grandmother died... so not only he needs time to come back from the injury (paul george wasnt the same player when he came back and it took a lot of time to get where he was prior to the injury), he has to deal with the family issue and those are his words, not mine him coming to the training camp out of shape was unprofessional, no doubt, but not all people have the same psyche, its obvious he struggles with it (hopefully he gets over it) and that he wasnt focused on bball about that 1-8 record: lakers won the chip pretty easily, so without nurk it wouldve been the same or worse, it couldve been 0-4
Drives me bananas. It's the same thing as when LMA wouldn't take it to the hole and rely on the midrange. I know that's his bread and butter... but if you want to be ELITE you use that to your advantage and punish them. He was so soft.
It's worse than Aldridge because Nurk does take it strong to the hole, could easily get the dunk and then just flips that shit up. At least you could see the logic with LaMarcus because he obviously thought he was better from midrange than inside but Nurk gets inside and refuses to finish strong.
Other notes The money we did not pay Mason was wasted. We still have money on our salary cap from our spending fiasco. Mason makes in the three year contract he just signed what Nurkic makes this year and next. We made our deepest playoff run without Nurk. It is also debatable whether Kanter is a better fit. Personally, I do not want to hear any talk of Nurk being in the top tier of centers until he learns to finish around the rim. It is downright frustrating to see him miss open short range looks year after year.
I was just using LMA as a comparison cause he was equally as frustrating. But your point still stands.
Is it? I haven't heard that offered up by anyone, at least not anyone in the media or any of the talking heads - clearly not by the coaching staff or players. Look, recency bias is fun and we're all frustrated by injuries - but we're all also hoping for a speedy return because we all know it makes us a better team.
I understand the idea, and it doesn't have zero merit. However, if you want to take injuries into account, then you have to consider the case of anthony davis. According to bball-reference, he is averaging 23.9 ppg - but that only counts games he played in, not games for which he was paid, yet didn't score. Making these all zeroes, then his average is quite a bit lower. 23.9ppg*551 gms played = 13169 points/career games paid = 8 season * 82 games/season + 32 games this season = 688 games paid So, his career average = 13169 point/688 games paid = 19.1 points/game paid which is fine, but not amazing. Obviously, Bill Walton is quite a bit worse.
like I said, that 20 game stretch of Nurkic fever in Portland was almost as good as 2018-19 2016-17: pts 15.2....reb 10.4....ast 3.2....blk 1.9....stl 1.3....TS% .545....FTA 4.9....FT% .660....FG% .508 2018-19: pts 15.6....reb 10.4....ast 3.2....blk 1.4....stl 1.0....TS% .570....FTA 5.1....FT% .779....FG% .508 his shooting became a little more efficient, mainly because of his FT%. His winshare/48 and BPM went up quite a bit but most of that is a function of playing for a 54 win team in 2018-19 vs a 41 win team in 2016-17 sure, he was better, but the improvement was incremental and I'd expect a little more from a player aging from 22 to 24. Maybe that's an unreasonable expectation as far as his stature in 2018-19, I'd add Vucevic to the list ahead of Nurkic. Statistically, Clint Capela was better too maybe he'll come back after the all-star break better than ever. But he sure was a shell of what he was to start this season; and his fall from what he was in the bubble was pretty drastic
An alternative (less emo) title for this thread would've been: "nice to see Plumlee playing well - good for him!"
I have a good friend who grew up in Denver and lived there a few years after college, He's a giant Denver Nuggets (and Broncos) fan he's convinced that Denver's biggest issue isn't missing Jerami Grant (Porter and Green are filling the role) or Torrey Craig (who only averaged 5 pts & 3 rebs). That Denver is missing Plumlee...a lot. Nobody can fill his role; he gave the Nuggets a lot of quality in 21 minutes a game last year when he averaged, per36, 13 pts, 11 rebs, & 5 asts while playing solid defense. He is one of a few big men in the league who could step into Jokic's role when Jokic rests
Interesting to note. Even with the games missed by Nurk, he's scored more points than Plums has, over the same stretch. Same with rebounds. Plums has more assists, but also has played 80 more games.
damian lillard, some would say superstar, has also won 20 playoff games in his career im not really sure how this works, is lillard not as good as people think or is plumlee a superstar too cj mccollum has 15 playoff wins (technically 16, but he only played less than 7 minutes, so i wont count that), 5 less than plumlee, what does that mean...
Well, he won't be playing in any more any time soon. I say this as someone who lives in the Pistons catchment area.
