Exactly. The lumbering Big man is going the way of the Dinosaur because teams hunt mismatches with the high pick and roll to get the matchup they want. While Portland has featured multiple defensive sieves to go at, we've seen teams do this with Nurk a bazillion times. An agile Big like Adebayo or Ayton are highly valued in part because they can reasonably stay with an iso'd guard/wing so teams have to direct their attack elsewhere. Their agility also allows them to protect the rim help defending... thats huge! Unless there are red flags I'm missing, I have a hard time seeing how Duren slips to #7. STOMP
I'm going on 20+ years in this chat group of beating that same drum for the front court. Bigs have to defend. STOMP
Quite a few ways to interrupt that. It could mean Joe would do whatever it takes to get him, or it could mean Detroit will do anything it takes to trade him for the TPE, or anything else in between. I could be wrong but I certainly would not interrupt that as we will give up the 7th pick in the draft for him. Just that we have two willing trade partners.
and notice I said "get a all-star level PF and play him at C"....that fits Adebayo to a T. He was measured as only 6'8.75 at the draft combine. He has the handles of a wing and he's very good defending on the perimeter because of his stretch-4 mobility. Rasheed Wallace spent his career as a PF but he would have been a nearly perfect C in today's NBA. So would Maurice Lucas and Larry Nance and Tom Chambers. AD would be an elite C (and has been), but he can't stay healthy. Jokic & Gobert got eliminated in round 1; Embid in round 2. If you look at the 4 teams in the conference finals none of them are spending any real money on traditional C's. this is a big reason why I don't want the Blazers to spend more than 15M on Nurkic, and would prefer him closer to 12M. The only reason I'd pay 15M is because of the Dame/Nurkic P-n-R and needing Nurk's rebounding and paint presence. But all that isn't worth 18M IMO, and I don't believe for a second he'd get much more than his current salary, 12M, on the open free agent market. guards-wings-stretch-4's....that's the new NBA and a good team not only needs several, most need to be 2way players
Yeah it feels like Nurkic is going to get overpaid. He tries to be today’s Center but isn’t good at it. He’s a sloppy ball handler and passer (but sometimes it works), doesn’t shoot the 3 but tries to, can’t guard the perimeter.
Feelings about the lottery/draft one day later... I'm a bigger Duren and Griffin fan than most around here I think so I'm not too bummed about 7th. Feel pretty confident that one of them will be there. Also don't have a whole lot of FOMO about the top of this draft. I've got positive feelings about all of them but they're flawed enough and don't feel like superstar ceiling type guys. The one guy that may fall into this category is Ivey. Best athlete with the ball in this draft and improved a lot throughout the year. I buy the shooting too, so it's a pretty deadly combination even though the little things about the game on both ends are still pretty far away. Dyson Daniels is another guy I would maybe consider at seven depending how the board falls but that feels high to me. Really smart and smooth player. Worry about the complete lack of pull-up jumper. Spot jumper still pretty far away as well. And defensively, I think his tools are pretty damn good, but they translate more on ball than off ball. Doesn't seem to be the quickest reactor and doesn't cover a whole lot of ground on rotations. But yeah, still really like him as a fourth/fifth starter high-level rotation guy but that's still dependent on the spot up jumper getting to the level where he's guarded so he's able to use his passing skills in the half court. I don't think he's a standstill creator in the half court despite how he's been used at lower levels. Think he's just a little too slow and the handle has some issues. I would not be a trade-up for Shaedon Sharpe guy. Still like him, but after watching more full games I think I view him more as an off ball wing in the end with some feel and motor questions. Big upside if he can figure out the handle going downhill and passing reads in pnr. Almost always a trade-down guy in the draft but I'm high enough on Griffin and Duren to stay at 7 if one of them is still left. Dyson Daniels, Johnny Davis, Jeremy Sochan or Tari Eason are some of the guys I'd be okay with in a trade down scenario though.
