I agree his stats are not empty and he’s very good. Just not as good as Nurk was last year. Hopefully Nurk can return to that good and we can find a way to keep and use both of them. That’s 48 minutes of lethal interior defense.
Nurk doesn't fall asleep on defense and allow his man to race past him uncontested for an offensive rebound slam dunk. Whiteside does this often. Nurk can track a ball handler on his drive, cutting off his angle, and still get back to body his man in the key. Whiteside is incapable of this. Nurk is less likely to commit to a block attempt that results in his man getting an open layup. For starters.
A lot of times, he goes for a block and gives up a basket or rebound. There’s more to rim protection than blocks. Nurk is a better rim protector. Coaches know this or Hassan would’ve been an All Star.
I was watching the replay, and the play where Anthony Davis tipped in a Kuzma shot, epitomizes the difference between the two. Not saying Nurk is perfect, and boxes out 100% of the time, but it's like Whiteside suffers from the Meyers Leonard syndrome. Forgetting he's 7' tall and needs to box out.
Its going to come down to if Dame wants Whiteside on this team, if Hassan is willing to stay for workable money and Dame thinks they can make it work effectively, he'll be here another couple years. Hassan could become a consecutive 6 man of the year and even extend his career. Then run for Governor.
Hassan has the skills to be a 20-10 guy, imho, and easily. He's just sloppy at times. It's like, imho, the difference between Russell Westbrook and Damian. Sure, Westbrook puts up flashier #'s (overall, not this season necessarily), but he's not a better *player* or *teammate* than Damian is. I'm fine with them keeping Whiteside, as I don't think Nurk will be really productive this season. But I'm fine with them trading him or not re-signing him after this year.
How do you explain "feel for the game"? It helps to play pickup games. If you played with both of them, you'd know pretty fast.
I agree, overall Nurlic is better. But I also think the gap between them, especially on defense, has been ridiculously inflated around here as for Nurk's supposed across the board advantages on defense, I'm calling a slight level of BS to that. IMO, The defensive impact of a big man on defense will show up in opponent FG percentages in the paint and at the rim; it simply has to. Well, look at how Portland's opponents have shot at the rim and in the paint over the last 2 seasons: Portland opponent FG% at the rim (0-3') and NBA rank: 2018-19 - .633 (6th) 2019-20 - .611 (2nd) Portland opponent FG% in 3-10' zone and NBA rank: 2018-19 - .411 (24th) 2019-20 - .371 (6th) also, consider that Nurkic last season, had the support of Aminu, Zach, Harkless, & Meyers. Meanwhile Whiteside has had the part time support of Skal, Tolliver, Hezonja, and Melo. Those opponent FG% numbers simply wouldn't look like that if Nurkic was a better rim and paint protector than Whiteside here's something else, Portland's defensive rating and NBA rank in the Dame/CJ 'era' 2015-16 - 108.0 (20th) - Plumlee, Aminu, Harkless, healthy Ed Davis 2016-17 - 110.8 (24th) - Plumlee>Nurkic, Aminu, Harkless, injured Ed Davis 2017-18 - 106.4 (8th) - Nurkic , Aminu, Harkless, Zach, healthy Ed Davis 2018-19 - 110.5 (16th) - Nurkic , Aminu, Harkless, Zach, Ed Davis gone 2019-20 - 113.2 (26th) - Whiteside, part-time Skal, and nobody else if Nurkic had the magical effect on the defense that many here claim, we would not have see the Blazer defensive rating get 4.1 points worse from 2017-18 thru 2018-19. Defense is a team game, and Ed Davis had an extremely underrated impact on Portland's defense. again, all of this isn't to say that Nurkic isn't better than Whiteside. I'm saying he is but the gap between them isn't very big at all. In fact, Whiteside does some things better than Nurkic like rebounding an rim protection and Portland is in desperate need of those right now. Even with Dame going supernova, Portland doesn't win that game last night without Whiteside. All the chatter about Whiteside having hollow stats and empty numbers is about 90% bullshit.
Whiteside takes plays off and has possessions where he absolutely blows it. I remember Zach Lowe defending Jokics defense last year. Basically saying Jokic is generally a good defender, but his bad possessions look so bad it changes people’s perspective of his defense into thinking he’s an awful defender. I think this generally applies to Whiteside as well. He’s a positive defender overall, but sometimes just makes you scratch your head. Something I’ve noticed is that he tends to always look awful in the first quarter but picks it up throughout the gams. Not sure you can change that about him at this point.
I'm wondering how much of that is him actually "taking plays off" vs the plays essentially being over before he can react. He's not a 'fast-twitch' kind of player. His reactions to blind-side development are slow and he doesn't have great foot speed. He makes up for it with length but that's only effective when he can track action as it develops.
that’s fair, but in the context of Nurk vs Hassan that’s a big plus for Nurk. I dunno, I wonder if there is some stats to show how Hassan is worse in the first quarters than the rest of the gams. I doubt it though, since many of his issues are ones that won’t show up on a box score.
I agree that Nurk is a better defender against other centers. But how many other centers look to score these days? Nurk also picks up stupid fouls which puts him on the bench. Nurk can not guard other centers on the perimeter either. Nurk had the opportunity of playing alongside Aminu and Harkless. Whiteside has had a carousel of teammates at the forward spot due to injuries. I agree that Whiteside makes lazy mistakes in every game. But 1 foul in 34 minutes last night is something Nurk can seldom do. Granted that is because he players more aggressively than Hassan, but you can't teach height and Whiteside length is such an advantage. He can actually touch the rim while standing on his tip toes. Hard to argue with 13-14 from the field, 13 rebounds, 5 blocks, 2 steals, 2 assists....
you might find those kinds of numbers somewhere at NBA.com, but good luck wading thru those awkward time-consuming web pages but again, I just don't believe those opponent FG% numbers would be what they were if Whiteside didn't have a big defensive impact
In general, I agree. Whiteside has his faults, but the hate this guy has gotten is completely unwarranted. People seem to focus only on the things he doesn’t do well. The gap is fairly cavernous between first and second, but by my money he’s been the second best player on the team this year. And I’ll die on that hill defending it.
I haven't looked up this year's numbers for Whiteside yet, but we did an analysis about Nurk at one point and his rim protection stats were just behind Gobert and Embiid. He got some All-Defense votes in 2018. The Blazers (admittedly with Big Ed and Collins as well) held opponents to the lowest paint restricted-area percentage in the league in 2018. With MIA, MIA was on average 4% worse in FG% defended in the paint when he was on the floor. MIA also allowed more shots in the paint when he was on the floor (which makes sense if teammates are funneling shooters to the middle for him to defend, but that's sub-optimal if they're shooting better when that happens). Again, I haven't looked at this year's stats, but those were two of the big ones if you were comparing them last year. One place that I think Whiteside has Nurk is in aggressiveness around the paint on offense. One of the bigger complaints about Nurk the last couple years is that he basically flings up garbage way too often when near the hoop, whereas Hassan's 60%+ FG% is based in large part by how aggressive he is in dunking when close. Last year Nurk shot 60.3% on shots at the rim (456 of them) and 41.7% in the paint, whereas Hassan's at 70.9% this year (on 261 so far) and 55% in the paint (3-10ft). They both shoot (surprisingly?) similarly on jumpers outside 10'.
I think there is value moving him for a more manageable contract on a longer deal, but the people saying we HAVE to get something....I don’t agree with that. And with Nurks recent setback I really don’t think they will move Hassan. The change they get someone as impactful back for this season is almost nil. I just can’t see the FO doing that to Dame.
Portland had the lowest opponent at the rim FG% in 2017-18, but they were 25th in opponent FG% in the 3-10' zone. That differential makes me a little skeptical about having the lowest paint shooting defense and again, if this was primarily due to Nurkic, we wouldn't see such a big change in at-the-rim defense from 2017-18 to 2018-19. Opponents shot .589 at the rim in 2017-18, and shot .633 last year. That's a huge differential and the only change was no Ed Davis agreed, and furthermore, securing that "more manageable" contract can happen by re-signing Whiteside this summer. That may be more of a realistic bird-in-the-hand that some speculative trade now