It's called being rational. He will be insulted if he were to be involuntarily shut down with the playoffs looming.
You literally have no idea whats going through his head. Or how that type of discussion would play out, he may not like it, but understand, he may hate it, who knows.
I would be surprised if anyone but Meyers Leonard started. Portland has started to be better defensively with Collins & Kanter on the second unit. When they were running a small forward next to Kanter the issues on the defensive end for all of those bench players are magnified(except for Hood) I imagine there will be times Turner will slide to the 4 and play next to Kanter. But with how it's gone since he's got here. I just don't see that happening. It will be the much improved Meyers Leonard getting the starting spot. With Stotts giving majority minutes in the 2nd half to the more impactful player between Nards/Kanter/Collins. At the end of the day the goal is still to get out of the 1st round. Nothing has changed outside of missing the x factor who could possibly take Portland to the WCF. Plus Nards is actually a pretty decent passer. He's not a Nurk, but he's adequate for a Center. I see no reason why people are calling for Harkless to get benched and Hood start. This forum sometimes.
His interview like an hour ago certainly looked “up”. I mean honestly I know they wont sit anyone and they’ll “try”, but they’ll have one legged CJ and Dame having to do everything. It just sucks. They went from a chance at making a run, to a small chance they win 2 games in the playoffs.
So your solution is to sit a healthy Damian Lillard. For the NBA playoffs. In order to give an opportunity to Anfernee Simons and Gary Trent Jr. And so Lillard won't have a freak injury too. Ok.
I think if Portland rolls Clippers/Spurs/OKC that I'd give Portland at least a punchers chance at the series. I don't think anyone 3-8 in the West are THAT much better than the others. Utah is prolly the only team I don't want to see in the playoffs with or without Nurk as Gobert makes life on Lillard/CJ difficult after they beat the first man. I just don't want to watch another long Center take over the series like I did last year.
I honestly dont think they can beat any of those teams without a healthy Nurkic. At least not 4 times. Maybe the Clippers I guess.
The problem is really two fold, they win by being one of if not the best rebounding teams in the NBA, and Nurkic makes their defense respectable. Their defense is about to be awful, and their best rebounder is gone. Teams are basically going to own the paint against them. Unless Zach hits another level. That and with CJ’s status being up in the air it could very well be Dame vs the other team and all those teams in the west have really good players too.
Forget this season, it’s over. It’s all about Zach’s development now. But I know stotts will start kanter and put Meyers back in the rotation. Too predictable.
We played Utah really well with Meyers starting last time in place of Jusuf. He brought Gobert out and opened up lanes for us inside.
Time for Zach to step up and show ... he has learned a lot from Nurk. We can actually tell, he has been using a few moves in the block ... when given that chance. He just needs to show it more, now that he knows ... he will play 25 - 35 minutes. Leonard will remain Leonard ... hasn't learned a single low post move in 5 years in the NBA. Maybe ... his 3 points shot start making a difference.
