Nurkic isn't good enough to be utilized that way. Stotts figured it out as well. That's up to Nurk. If he wants to be utilized more he needs to be more effective. And I like Nurk...
Nurkic was unhappy in Denver because he believed he should be getting more minutes than Jokic. Nurkic is a good player, but he harbors delusions that he's a great player and seems to rationalize his non-great performance as "coaches not utilizing him correctly."
Which shows you how out of touch he is with reality. He is a good role player. Great defensive anchor, sub-par on offense. Thinking more of the offense should run through him... 3 NBA head coached gave it a try and determined it makes no sense... There is a reason for that.
He's not the same player he was before the injury. The fact that the we are a below .500 team shows that his impact is lacking.
He was borderline great for one season depending on how you define “great”. Top 25 according to advanced stats.
surely i thought about it, but then again, we wont know unless we see him with higher usage 1 fga less than last season, but his efficiency has gone up 5% (does 1 fga makes that big of a difference)
does Nurkic actually believe he'd be utilized a lot more on a different team? That sure doesn't seem to be the way the NBA is trending and I do think it's worth noting that in Nurkic's mind, Mike Malone, then Terry Stotts, then Billups have all utilized him wrong. For 3 seasons, under Stotts, he averaged about 20.5 shots/100-possessions. Under Billups it's 14.7. I wonder if he still has all that dislike for Stotts he had last season I'd say a lot of his issue might be from starting with 3 ball-dominant guards. His issue might be with Olshey
The issue is with nurk, he is an aweful post player, try to sort this list by efg% and see who brings the rear in the nba https://www.nba.com/stats/players/playtype-post-up/ So you can't play through him there, and his ast/tov ratio is basically 1.05, he practically has a turnover for every assist he gives you. He does not have the handle or the 3 to playing the perimeter. He is who he is, set screens, roll hard to either be set up or fight for an offensive rebound. That who he is on offense. He is not jokic, he is not embiid, heck, by post efg% he is not even Andre Drummond
I'd wonder: clearly, the best teammate for getting Nurkic shots the last few seasons has been Dame, and the primary play has been the PnR. So maybe, the fact that Portland is spending a lot more time this season without the ball in Dame's hands is a significant reason why Nurkic's usage and shot attempts are down
Nurk is an all star in his own mind. His shot making ability is absolutly terrible. Those one handed 5 footers have to go. He is seven foot and plays like he is 6'8" the way he shots the ball. His slow canter back on defense drives me crazy.
His FG% is worse than his career from every distance except 0-3 ft where he’s shooting well above at 0.686 vs 0.603 career. He’s also taking a higher fraction of his shots from 0-3 feet at 0.707 vs 0.529 career. His FTR is way up too, probably because of lower usage and more shots at the rim.
That could well be why Nurk’s usage is down, but by far and away the reason we are not winning as much as we should is Dame’s play. He is costing us something on the order of 6 net point per game vs his prior self.
People hate on Whiteside and he is not amazing, but for a minimum deal compared to Nurkic and his bitching.... Nurkic can go get paid this offseason by some random team. He is a position that is dying. He is a decent player but he is too emotional on how he thinks he is so much better. Good luck bro. Go play for someone else where you get paid MLE and bitch about how everyone else is the reason you aren't an all star
interesting. * he's averaging 0.18 ppp on postups; 7.3% of his offense. It's not enough to move above zero on the percentile scale * last year he averaged 0.74 ppp which was only the 17th percentile (Kanter averaged 1.03 ppp; 68th percentile) * in 2018-19 he averaged 0.86 ppp; 33rd percentile * as the PnR roll-man Nurk is averaging 1.12 ppp which is the 54th percentile (38% of his offense) * last year, 1.13 ppp which was 53rd percentile; Kanter averaged 1.20 which was 69th percentile * on putbacks, he's averaging 1.29 ppp which is 70th percentile (16% of his offense) (Richaun Holmes avg, is 1.37 ppp) * on cuts, he's averaging 1.37 ppp; 66th percentile (20% of his offense) he's obviously not elite at any type of big man offense. I'm not sure he's even average.
I don't think that reveals what you may think it does what is says to me is that Portland does not have the talent to be a winning team if Dame is not playing at an elite level. 6 years after Aldridge left and Portland still completely depends on Dame to carry the team. That's not on Dame, it's on management besides that, 4 of those net points are at the FT line...welcome to the new rules
While we're bitching about Nurk, let's remember that he's been our best player this season in terms of on/off contribution. Also:
