I'm really liking this budding partnership. Nurk is consistently encouraging Vonleh. Last game he was coaching him up from the bench. On the court he's always looking to feed him the ball. Their games compliment each other. Vonlehs defensive versatility allows Nurk to sit back. Offensively Vonleh gets a ton of open looks with the attention Nurk draws down low. They both crash the boards. The evolution is going to be fun, just wait until Vonleh gets more freedom offensively. Did I mention their age? Yeah. I'm excited.
Random Note: Vonleh 21 Nurkic 22 Vonleh needs to flash out and hit the 12 footer. They need to look for him, and he needs to shoot it and hit it.
That, and more post ups. You can see he has a real good foundation there, he just rarely gets to work on it during a game.
He still needs to learn how to either finish strong or learn some post moves. He's getting better, but it takes him a while to set his feet and go up strong. He gets stuffed a lot after offensive rebounds. Great on the break or broken plays though.
Love their early games together, but both need to work on their offense. Nurkic should be working on his moves in the post. He's missing far to many of those.
It's great for both of them to get to go against each other in practice. I'm sure Noah looks at practicing with Nurk as a new chapter in developing his game. Noah hasn't had a big man on his team with footwork to match his since Kaman was here. It will be nice for Noah to get practice guarding a big, and nice for Nurkic to get practice against a defender with good foot work who will stay with his moves. Nice effing situation we've got here ladies and gents. Tons of reason to be optimistic as a Blazer fan right now. I feel like we all need to get together for tea and raise our pinkies high once we've made it.
This offseason will be huge for both Nurk and Noah. If they can both work heard on various finishing moves and bring it to next season, it would be enormous for the Blazers. I love what I'm seeing from Noah defensively since the All-Star break too. He handled Randle well today, and collected 8pts and 14 boards.
It's funny because I remember not long ago people were trying to come up with ways to get Julius Randle to Portland. Those two are also connected because they're from the same class and there was somewhat of a debate who would be the better player. Randle was put in a more favorable situation for a young player so he's had a head start, but I like where our guy is going as well.
>Rebound leaders with Von grabbing 14 and Nurk 13. Aminu also achieved in double figures. Shout out to Pat Connington who grabbed one in his three minutes of action.
Portland ahould invest in some real big man coaching this summer. Hakeem charges 100k or whatever. Walton may do it for weed. Shaq loves Nurk, maybe him. We need a guy that can teach some footwork.
I also like Jusuf and Moe together. They are all young (Moe is 23), and play well together. Not perfect yet but all worth keeping together as a unit!