Nurk will always be limited by the fact that he’s a bad finisher around the rim. For years, it’s been beyond frustrating when Dame or someone else drives to the hoop for a handoff and Nurk flubs it. He definitely has some positive qualities (playmaking, decent but not great rim protection, etc), but I would rather save the money for other positions and just get a simple rim running big who can defend. My vote would be Hartenstein. I’d be fine with Bamba or Smith or someone else though.
Even if that’s true, that’s not the goal. The goal is to win a chip and that team isn’t doing it, not to mention how bad that bench would be. Keon/Winslow/GB3/Watford/BWill YUCK.
Nurk can be very effective if the Blazers play to his advantages and give him some help on offense. That all happened when the Blazers went on their 4-game win streak which led to Nurk having to be shut down. In his last game in Memphis, Nurk shot 12-17 and was 7-10 at the free-throw line to get a total of 32 points. I'm not the only person who thinks it's it's a sign of very lazy or incompetent play-making when many times the Blazers used to throw Nurkic the ball out by the 3-point line and stand around watching him battle to get near the hoop . That changed when Justise Winslow arrived. If you get him the ball at the right time where he has good position against the defense, he does have the skills and size to score efficiently and be a big problem for the opponent.
The issue is this only works if Nurk is your #2 option. Which he wouldn’t be on a championship level team. We have years of evidence that when Nurk is #3 or #4 on the priority list, he mopes and lets guys go by him. It’s an unacceptable attitude that we bizarrely just accept for some reason. Side note: I worry that people keep referencing our 4 game win streak as some kind of replicable thing going forward, like we unlocked some kind of formula. Maybe. But I’m not sure. It’s such a small sample. And tbh, it worries me that management might be thinking that its a key to success. It’s giving me the same vibes as when Olshey and crew looked at the small sample size of our 3 guard lineup with Norm at the end of the 21 season and concluded based on the advanced stats that it was one of the best offenses in the league.
I feel there are too many memories of Nurkic with Stotts as coach. Since Chauncey has arrived, Nurk is not pouting. In fact, I remember a game last year where Nurk came out of the game and gave Coach Billups a big ol' bear hug on the sidelines! (he was later talked to about that and Coach told him not to do that!)... Point is, Nurk is happy. When he is happy, and healthy, I am of the belief he can be borderline unstoppable. I've/we've seen it, just not enough. I look for that to be more consistent going forward, because of the time with Coach, and the infusion of new attitude on the team. In fact, Nurk has the potential to actually be this teams #2 on occasion. Going into last season, I was pretty much done with him, but I have seen enough to be back on the Beastmobile.
I am very mixed on Nurk cause I still think he can be a good center but he is a little bit of a head case in terms of attitude and such. I am not going to sit here and say I want Nurk to stay or go cause I really am on the fence when it comes to him so I can see the Blazers reasons IF they end up re-signing him OR let him go. IF you had to press me on what happens with Nurk my answer is --- GONE but it is a close call I think this whole twitter thing is a way to prepare fans of what he might be hearing without out right saying it.
at the end of the day, it boils down to two things for me. 1. role -- he has to be kept involved in the offense and our guards have to keep him engaged, while billups runs him some sets. he can be an elite defender and compensate for so many mistakes from his teammates, but the energy on that end wanes when he is just running around setting screens and not much else on offense. 2. $ -- if he's getting paid anything more than 15-17 mil with his proclivity to get hurt (however freakish his injuries are), this will be untenable. and we need his contract to be somewhat tradeable. we saw the nonsense that Cronin spouted about Powell's deal apparently not having value in the market while we all thought the $95 mil deal was actually reasonable. this is a key point that we can't make a mistake on again.
Phoenix would laugh and hang up, not answer any other calls from the Blazers and call other teams to crack shit at the offer.
How do you know they would laugh ? Ya sure it would prolly take al ittle more but tired of fans ( me included at times ) acting like they just know when in reality we only know a sliver of what experts do. Also The reason Ayton MIGHT be available to begin with is because the Suns seem not to see him as a max player and they are around him 24/7 during the season for all purposes.
Nurk is a mental midget - rarely does he give 100% He’s turned into Brook Lopez without the outside shot.
They would laugh because if they want to deal Ayton, they'll be able to get much better than Nurkic in exchange. I don't doubt that they want to move off of him, but not for Nurk.
Better deals? Very likely. A better available center replacement? Not quite as easy. Jokic, Embiid and KAT aren't available. Gobert is, but his salary, puts them right back in the Lux Tax hell they are trying to avoid. Nurk is only 3 slots back of Ayton in this ranking. https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/news/ranking-top-centers-nba-2021-22/22z5qthyxx5d16dalickvrk0m
