Additionally, most teams are running a lot of high pick and roll offense these days and seek to go at traditional big centers like Nurk. Getting a guard switched off on a lumbering Big results in an clean look every single time. https://www.teamrankings.com/nba/stat/defensive-efficiency STOMP
RAPTOR grades Nurk out as one of the best defenders in the NBA. I like RAPTOR because NBA teams actually use it themselves. Also, his total WAR places him among the top 20 players in the league.
Jusuf Nurkic has found his spot on and off the court in Portland: ‘This is who I want to be going forward’ Jason Quick Jusuf Nurkic figures he is playing the best basketball of his career, and the more the Trail Blazers’ center thinks about it, the more certain he is in saying it. He is averaging 14.4 points, 10.9 rebounds and 2.8 assists while being ranked as the NBA’s eighth-best defender, according to Fivethirtyeight.com’s RAPTOR rating. “I think individually, this is my best season,” Nurkic said. “By far.” He is 27, and like most things in Nurkic’s life, this career year hasn’t come easy. It hasn’t been quite as dramatic as his early life — being born in Bosnia during a civil war and moving by himself to Slovenia when he was 14 — but this season has both tested his patience and challenged his resolve. The Trail Blazers have been in disarray both on and off the court. In the front office, there have been firings and resignations. On the roster, there have been widespread injuries, a COVID-19 outbreak and inconsistent play amid a difficult transition to a new coaching staff. Nurkic describes all that has happened as “the drama,” and to a degree, he acknowledges that includes his own turmoil. For much of the early season, he was unhappy. He was frustrated with his offensive role — he thought he would get more touches, more shots — and he was anxious about his limited impact as the anchor of a defense that had dropped to last in the NBA. But in late November, things began to change. There was a notable team meeting held at the practice facility when Nurkic released his frustrations. In the process of venting, Nurkic also reaffirmed his commitment to head coach Chauncey Billups and his staff. In turn, Billups and the staff began to coach him even harder. And perhaps most crucial to the turnaround was a rash of injuries and COVID-related absences, which thrust Nurkic into the forefront of the team’s attack. “It was like a perfect storm,” Billups said. That storm is now leaving an imprint across the NBA. In January, Nurkic is averaging 17.5 points, 13.0 rebounds and 3.8 assists while putting Portland in a position to secure its first month with a winning record (7-6 heading into Friday’s game at Houston). Only Rudy Gobert and Nikola Jokic are averaging more rebounds this month. All the while, Nurkic is showing he is capable of shouldering the burden of being a franchise’s No. 1 or No. 2 option. “I’ve always believed it, I was just waiting for the moment to come around,” Nurkic said of becoming the focal point of a team. Now that his moment is here, it is unclear how long it will last. The Feb. 10 trade deadline is approaching, and because he is in the last year of his contract and is playing at such a high level, he figures to garner interest around the league. No matter where he is after the deadline, he will become an unrestricted free agent this summer, a position of power and freedom he has long desired. He says his gut tells him he will not be traded in February, and in his heart, he wants to remain in Portland beyond this season. The way he sees it, there is unfinished business here on and off the court. He wants to help find solutions to Portland’s homelessness problem. He wants to aid the restaurant scene impacted by the pandemic. And he wants to be there to unveil the new basketball court he built at the Islamic Bosniaks Education and Cultural Center in Southeast Portland. And mostly, he wants to continue playing with his close friend and pick-and-roll partner Damian Lillard. If he can do that in Portland, he says, the Blazers will be getting the best version of himself. After recovering from a gruesome broken leg in March of 2019, Nurkic feels like he has returned to peak form, physically and mentally. “This is who I want to be going forward,” Nurkic said. “This is who I am. And I’m only going to improve.” Who is that person? That player? If the Blazers didn’t know the answer to those questions entering this season, they did by the end of that team meeting in November. Nobody can pinpoint the exact date, but Billups called a team meeting in late November, not long after the Blazers were blasted 124-95 in Denver to fall to 1-7 on the road and 6-8 overall. The purpose was to generate communication, and in particular, Billups wanted each player to verbalize two things they were committed to bringing to the team every night, win or lose. Their responses would be documented and reviewed throughout the season. “That was something that was done for me as a player,” Billups said. “It’s just a good way to hold each other accountable, especially when the season goes like this. It’s a way to bring a guy into my office and say ‘This is what you promised the team. You said it; I didn’t say it. This is what you promised our team.’ So, you can’t be over there being mad and frustrated when it’s not your night when you told us you were going to give us this.” It was exactly the forum Nurkic needed to release his building frustration. Nurkic had entered the season on a high because Billups had sung his praises over the summer after being hired by the Blazers. Billups announced that he wanted the Blazers to play inside-out, with Nurkic facilitating the offense. And on defense he wanted the Blazers to be more proactive, with Nurkic heading an aggressive style of pick-and-roll defense that attacked the ball handler instead of dropping back and protecting the rim. But through the first 15 games or so, Nurkic appeared to be tied in knots. He bumbled close-range shots. He tired on defense and was often in foul trouble. To make matters worse, a Blazers team with high hopes was losing. Nothing Nurkic had imagined when Billups was hired was coming to fruition. The guards were still taking all the shots. Ball handlers were easily penetrating, and the defense was still late on rotations like last season. And there he was, lost in the shuffle of all the chaos. As much as Nurkic wanted to complain, he remained silent. As much as he wanted to point fingers, he didn’t. And as much as he felt under-utilized, he kept walking the company line. Billups said not once has Nurkic complained. “Sometimes it’s not about you,” Nurkic said. “And I think that’s what happened at the beginning of the season. We all, in some type of way, didn’t know what was going on. The way we were playing … everything with Dame … trying to figure out a new system … and I mean, he’s a first-time coach. Just like we made mistakes, I feel like he made mistakes. But I knew it was going to come around, so I just stuck with it.” Still, by the time the team meeting rolled around, he was ready to vent. Billups said the meeting started with the coaches, then went from player to player, everybody having to say what they will bring every night. Billups said Nurkic’s address was memorable. First, Nurkic stated his two commitments: He was going to bring effort every night, and he was going to be as positive as possible. Then, he got his frustration off his chest. “I told Chauncey and the players that I don’t like the role I’m in,” Nurkic said. “But I said I respect Chauncey enough to do it. I said, ‘I respect you as a person, as a player, as a coach, and whatever you ask of me, I’m going to do it.”’ Nurkic then addressed a lingering problem on the Blazers throughout the years: a lot of talk, backed up by little action. As he listened to his teammates make their vows, he wondered how much was real and how much was just words. “It was just an honest thing,” Nurkic said. “Like, when we say something, are we going to back it up on the court? Or are we going to say something, then play nice and say what they want to hear?” Said Billups: “What I clearly remember Nurk saying to everyone is that this is all fine and good, but it’s just words. We have to actually put actions to words. And he brought up that when we don’t, the game is not fun.” It was a moment of leadership for Nurkic, but it also did two things: it allowed Nurkic to feel heard, and understood, and it told Billups that he maybe underestimated Nurkic and perhaps should empower him more. “At the start of the season, it was an adjustment period,” Billups said. “I wanted to do as much as they were doing last year to make them comfortable, but I also needed to start putting my stuff in there. In the process of that, some guys probably got more opportunities than others, and some guys probably deserved more opportunity than I was giving them. That was just part of my development, part of me learning, too.” At the same time, though, Nurkic’s play was erratic. He was badly outplayed by Jarrett Allen in Cleveland, and Jokic dominated so thoroughly in Denver that it left Nurkic hanging his head. “I felt like early in the season Nurk was trying too hard,” Billups said. “Trying too hard to have a good year, trying too hard to have a good game, and it led to him forcing, pressing. And me and him have such a wonderful relationship — a healthy respect for one another — so I think he was trying to impress me, too.” As Billups listened to Nurkic in the team meeting, he realized he might have inadvertently lost some of his big man. So after the meeting, he made sure to pour into Nurkic more, and let him know he still felt the same way now as he did in June, when he gushed about him in his introductory press conference. “I just wanted to let him know how I felt about him, that I believed in him,” Billups said. “I had seen him dominate before, and he’s not an old guy, so that dude is still in there. I wanted him to be patient enough to know that it’s coming, it’s coming, things are going to play out. Just be patient.” As Billups prepared to empower Nurkic more, he wanted to make two adjustments to his game: eliminate the floater and start engaging more of a power game. After all, there was a reason why the 7-foot, 280-pound center was nicknamed the Bosnian Beast. “I told him I don’t want that floater — we have enough guards who shoot floaters,” Billups said. “I told him I want him beastin’ … beastin’ all right? Boom, get down there and they can’t guard you. You are too big, too strong.” Billups instructed assistant Roy Rogers to keep on Nurkic about the floater, among other things. And slowly but surely it disappeared from Nurkic’s game. “Now, I don’t know when the last time he shot that,” Billups said. As Nurkic’s game became more about power and less centered on finesse, his usage also increased. Guards CJ McCollum, Norman Powell and Lillard have all missed chunks of time. Backup center Cody Zeller has played three games after Dec. 6 and is now sidelined after knee surgery, and the team’s other center, Larry Nance Jr. has missed 11 consecutive games and counting with knee inflammation. Now, the offense is largely being carried by Nurkic, Anfernee Simons and McCollum. “Before, they were trying to say ‘Be the best Nurk you can,’ but then I would have two shots at the half,” Nurkic said. “I was like, how? Fly? We had Dame, CJ, Norm … we have so many guards it’s like ‘Damn, how am I going to get a shot,’ right? So I just went and rebounded.” Nurkic chuckled as he said that, and noted that for much of the early season he was averaging more rebounds than shot attempts. “But it should never be about me, or a certain player,” Nurkic said. “And that’s why I was willing to do that.” After averaging eight shots per game in the first two months, Nurkic averaged 10.5 in December and 13.5 in January. That has helped produce recent games of 21 points and 22 rebounds at Orlando and 29 points, 17 rebounds and six assists at Boston. “I told him, we are going to keep coming to you,” Billups said. “We have to, shit. They can’t guard you.” Added Nurkic: “I just try to punish them now. (Billups) was right. The way he was saying — the whole coaching staff really — just play at the rim, that nobody should be able to play me 1-on-1 … that has happened.” It wasn’t one thing to get to this point, but rather a combination of factors. There was the meeting, the conversations, the adaptation of the power game, and more than anything, player and coach getting to know each other better. “I’ve been able to grow with him, and get to know him better, and become a lot more comfortable with him — his strengths, his warts — and I think he is doing the same with me,” Billups said. “We’ve had some very honest conversations. I’m going to keep those conversations between me and him, but I know what he is, what he is not, and I can share that with him and there is a healthy enough respect that he understands it’s coming from a great place. He has come a long way this year, he really has. And I love it. I hope we can keep it going.” On Dec. 17, the Blazers ended a seven-game losing streak with a 125-116 win over Charlotte in Portland. It wasn’t a standout game for Nurkic, who had 10 points and four rebounds before fouling out in 14:44, but the game has not left his memory. “First time I have ever seen in a home crowd … there was a guy with a sign: Trade Nurk,” Nurkic said. “Right across from our bench, middle of the floor. But he didn’t show that sign until like a minute to go in the game; he was hiding it there. I was like, just put it up …” He shakes his head at the memory, trying to play it off like it didn’t bother him, that the guy should have had the stones to display it all game. But the more he talked about it, the more it was evident that it stung him. “That was some really … I … I just take so much pride in playing hard, so that was a disappointing thing to see,” Nurkic said. “You can like me, or don’t like me, cool. I can’t control that. But I feel like my effort is always there.” The sign in the stands heightened the tension of possible trades that had been growing since the Blazers fired top basketball executive Neil Olshey on Dec. 3, and then proceeded to lose 11 of 13 games in December. Nurkic said that Joe Cronin, named the interim general manager the day Olshey was fired, reached out to him before Nurkic could even initiate a conversation. “Joe talked to me first, which was kind of nice,” Nurkic said. “When he took over, it was refreshing. He said, ‘You are here to stay. We are going to try and improve the team as much as possible and we are going to build around you, Dame and CJ, and hopefully, we find a way to do that.” Nurkic has been around long enough to know nothing is certain in NBA business, so he isn’t banking on what Cronin told him as an assurance that he is untouchable in trade talks. “I mean, whatever assurance in the NBA you can have, right? We always hear what we like to hear,” Nurkic said. The way Nurkic looks at it, he will survive the trade deadline and remain in Portland because he plays the type of active defense Billups requires out of centers, and because he has such good pick-and-roll chemistry with Lillard that he jokes the two could not see each other for 20 years and pick up right where they left off. “Nothing is 100 percent, but I feel like for the team, and who I think I am as a player, there is no way I’m leaving (in a trade),” said Nurkic, who is in the last year of a deal that pays him $12 million this season. “I don’t see anything possible. Obviously, I want to be part of this organization as long as Dame is, and as long as we want to win. But if the team wants to go in a different direction, then I’m willing to do whatever they want to do.” Nurkic said in his conversations Cronin has never mentioned or hinted at the Blazers valuing a high draft pick more than victories. “I don’t hear Joe or anybody say we want to lose a game, or that we are going to rest this guy,” Nurkic said. “So I don’t think we are even in position to say we are going to tank. I’m playing to win, regardless.” And if the Blazers want to win in the future, he says they shouldn’t trade him. “I don’t see any situation, any trade possible where they would say this is (a) better player than Nurk,” he said. “You can argue or whatever, but I don’t think there is a player out there that they could get for me who is going to be better for them. Not just because of me, it’s who fits more with Dame? How will (the) team look like with what they are trying to do (defensively)? I don’t see a situation like that.” Either way, Nurkic says he hasn’t stressed about the deadline because he knows in July he becomes an unrestricted free agent, and will be able to choose his destination for the first time in his career. “My mindset is whatever happens in February, it will only be a couple months, then it’s the summer and I have the key to do whatever I want to do,” Nurkic said. Nurkic is helping fund the renovations of his elementary school in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina. (Photo courtesy of Jusuf Nurkic) When Nurkic was traded to Portland from Denver in February of 2017, the city already had a place in his heart. “When I got traded here, I felt like it was one of the top five cities in the NBA,” Nurkic said. “Everything was clean, it had one of the best restaurant scenes in the league. And regardless of the rain, it was a really special city.” But five years later, Nurkic has concerns. He sees homeless communities alongside the highways and tents on downtown sidewalks. And he said the restaurant scene has been diminished because of closures due to the pandemic. “Now, you drive around the city and it’s like Walking Dead,” he said, referencing the zombie apocalypse television show. “It’s not really safe. So I’m trying to see what we can do to change. What can I do to help them start over? I don’t know what can change, but it’s hard for me to see so many people struggling.” The more he looks into it, the more it becomes a maddening scenario. He wonders if government funds are being used adequately. And he fears some of the homeless don’t want help, saying “it’s almost as if they like their life, like they don’t want to get better. It makes me sad.” With Nurkic, talk of helping others is more than just words. He has been a man of action, so much so that he says his accountants have warned him about his spending. He donated $40,000 to help replace a roof on a hospital in Bosnia, and supplied hospitals in Bosnia and Croatia with x-ray and mammogram machines, as well as other hospital supplies. He was tickled to receive pictures of the equipment after kids attached stickers that read “Jusuf Nurkic, Bosnian Beast.” He is also currently renovating the elementary school he attended in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina, which will include replacing the school furniture as well as upgrading the exterior. He says his foundation focuses on three areas: Creating a better life for kids, making life safer for women and providing food. He has built four homes for families in need in Bosnia, a motivation that comes from him not having his own room as a youth in his war-torn country. He also has provided PPE gear during the pandemic and sent over 5,000 food packages that fed more than 12,000 people. In Portland, he is nearing completion of an outdoor basketball court at the Islamic Bosniak Educational and Cultural Center in Southeast Portland, and hosts members of the Bosnian community at every Blazers home game. “I want to do as much as possible, but sometimes I get in trouble with my (accountants) — they say I’m going crazy,” Nurkic said. “But this is just who I am. Some things are bigger than basketball.” His foundation is one reason why he was eager this winter to partner with Portland Coffee Roasters and collaborate on his own coffee blend — Bosnian Beans, a medium blend coffee. For every two-pound bag sold through April, $3 goes to his foundation. “Coffee is one of the main things Portland has to offer as far as a culture,” Nurkic said. “Regardless of who it is, you can get really good coffee here.” He hopes to be sipping that coffee for years to come. After all, it has been a long road to get here. And now that he is here, playing the best he has ever played, and doing it while being the main focus of the Blazers, he doesn’t see a reason to change. The Blazers are playing harder, more together, and as effective as they have all season. “After five years here, I was really hoping, coming into the season, that it would be like this,” Nurkic said. “And even though we’ve had all the issues, with injuries, Dame struggling with his injury, I feel like Chauncey and the staff, this is how they want the team to look going forward. No matter who is here in the future, this is our identity, how we should look.” And the man in the middle of that look: Jusuf Nurkic. https://theathletic.com/3097567/202...tland-this-is-who-i-want-to-be-going-forward/
As a journalist who is trying to be paid for his content, I am really unhappy when I see such quality content copy/pasted on a free website. We should respect The Atheltic and not do that.
is jason quick employed, is he getting paid to do his work, if yes, then it makes no sense to pay for it and even if he was a freelancer, i still wouldnt pay for it lol
I mean I kinda get what he’s trying to say in the grand scheme, but posting an article in a random thread on a random forum should be ok, get off my back sir.
'Clicks' and paid subscription make up part of the compensation. @SwissBlazer ...really respect your notion to paying for things that are behind a pay wall. Life isn't free.
jason quick was saying nurk was likely to get traded, but given how good he has played with bigger role, im thinking blazers will rethink that and will want to make sure if he can produce at this level consistently until the end of the season if he can, blazers will re-sign him and pay him big money (clear cap space to get it done), make him a featured offensive player (and whats equally important, hes great fit with dame & ant, if ant becomes starter next season) seriously, trading nurk would be the most idiotic thing you can do, hes showing us something, something vast majority of our fans didnt believe he can do
If he's showing us something he's showing the rest of the league something, so his trade value should be up. The reason I would think Nurk would need to be traded is if we get Ben Simmons otherwise we should definitely keep him and pay him if there isn't a trade for him that blows our socks off but we should pay him a reasonable amount. He's still a big that isn't that mobile and can't shoot. There are a lot of big dudes that can get you big numbers scoring and rebounding while protecting the paint but can't close out on stretch bigs... almost none of them are better than Nurk but they aren't so inferior to him that Nurk should draw "big money".
Since Dame went down Nurks ranks among all centers in a few categories: PPG- 6th FTA- 3rd REB- 3rd AST- 9th STL- 3rd I remember people actually trying to argue he was only good cuz of Dame. Good times. The new one is he’s only good cuz it’s a contract year, although if you look at his career in Portland this isn’t even his best season. This month is probably the best stretch but one can make the argument that has to do with his usage as much as anything. The pro Nurk crowd has been begging for the team to run through him for years, this isn’t a surprise to us, not me at least. He’s always been at his best with higher usage. Actually the biggest surprise to me has been his leadership. He’s out there running things on both ends.
