I think Nurk is very explosive, he gets above the rim with ease. When he dunks it he gets up quick and gets back on defense quick. It's not a matter of him not being athletic, he's plenty athletic to dunk just as much as those other guys plus because he's thicker than them, he has space to get dunks off even when someone is covering him. He could do it and we've seen him do it... but probably like you he thinks it's not pretty or some shit. Honestly so many in here have talked about it but it's inexplicable why the guy doesn't finish stronger.
nurk cant jump like gobert or capela, he can dunk, but he cant go for alley-oops if he could, we would see alley-oops (even if dame isnt that good at it)
Gobert's playoffs stats are much better than nurkic's playoffs stats... And Utah managed to get out of the first round 3 times with gobert playing vs 0 for Portland with nurkic playing
utah jazz has much better supporting cast and is much better coached team (how they lost to the clippers without kawhi & ibaka is beyond me, although utah played without conley) put nurk instead of gobert and their offense will become even better (passing & scoring), their defense probably wont be as good, as gobert is better defensive player, but still, their defense with nurk would be much better than portlands defense with nurk, cause they have a defensive scheme that works and they have players that can deliver on that end and they put in effort... put gobert on portlands team and how much better the defense will be than it is with nurk... no defensive scheme and no personnel that can deliver and whats even worse, they dont even try
why are utah jazz and phoenix suns so good cause theyre well coached first and foremost and they have good supporting cast around mitchell/gobert/conley & booker/cp3, blazers had neither of these things, although our core of dame/cj/nurk is not worse than jazz or suns cores we changed the coach and well see hows that gonna play out and supporting cast needs to get much, much better
They lost to the Clippers because Utah couldn’t guard them with Gobert on the floor. Clippers started Batum at center and Gobert was a liability.
Our fans don't think losing 4 in a row in the playoffs is being well-coached. And both those teams did this year.
theyre well coached teams (to be fair, ty lue is second to none when it comes to adjustments and the way he made gobert look like a scrub is astonishing) theres no shame in losing 4-2 in the finals, although losing 4 games in a row looks really ugly, but it could have easily been a 7 game series milwaukee is a better team than phoenix, but it still required a great performance from giannis, middleton & jrue to win game 5 in phoenix (that game pretty much won them the chip), the first two games phoenix won without problems that game 5 was anomaly in entire series, both teams looked really good on home court
Nurk is nowhere near as good a scorer as Gobert is, unfortunately. His career TS% of .533 is bad for a big man, Gobert is at .662 which is much better. FWIW, Gobert's playoffs TS% is .666 - vs .553 for Nurk (Gobert was #2 in the entire NBA last year, Nurk is not even in the top 100) . I will give you that Nurk is a better passer, but if we look at their respective PER scores which are mostly offensive cumulative stats - Gobert's career PER is 21.8 to Nurk's 17.7 - so I dispute the idea that their offense would improve with Nurk. He is just not as good nor as efficient as Gobert is even on offense. If you include Defense, and look at their VORP or WS/48 - once again, Gobert is a much better player. So, I am going to say I doubt it very much Utah would be better with Nurk over Gobert. Now coaching, maybe, time will tell, and supporting cast - not sure that Utah really is better, talent wise than Portland. All I will say is that Portland's "questionable" support cast went further in the playoffs without Nurk playing than Utah has gone in any iteration with Gobert... I think you are over-valueing Nurk and under-valueing Gobert.
gobert is more efficient cause of his playing style, he dunks the ball and scores from pnr, he has no mid range game, 3-pointer, low post game why doesnt utah jazz force feed gobert when hes so efficent, it makes no sense id love to see nurk with utah and gobert with portland... suddenly nurk would become all-nba defensive player and gobert wouldnt be dpoy
So, what you are saying is that Gobert knows what he can and can not do - and does that perfectly, where Nurk is unable to figure out what he should be and should not be doing? Yes, that's the exact issue everyone has with Nurk's soft flips. These are not a talent / skill, these are bad shots for his skills, unfortunately. Do I wish he would be better? sure. Will a new coach make him better? maybe, but he did not do that great under Malone in Denver or Stotts - which despite what people think - is well known as a pretty good offensive coach - so, frankly, I doubt he will get much better. A little better? Maybe, but much, I have my doubts. The reality of the situation is that there is a big gap between Nurk and Gobert - and when you see that Gobert also averages about 18 more games per year before the playoffs...
even if i agree with you that nurk shouldnt do what hes not efficient at, why didnt terry stotts run dame/nurk pnr 10 times per game not sure if you know, but dame/nurk were the 2nd best pnr duo in the nba when nurk broke his leg if we want nurk to play like gobert or capela, meaning do what hes good at and not do what hes not good at, blazers should run dame/nurk pnr as much as they can, cause thats nurks best offense i do believe terry stotts and his staff did a poor job of developing nurks low post game, im not sure they even tried to do that, as centers are not important offensively in terry stotts system, which is perimeter heavy oriented for gods sake, terry stotts said: "nurk will get his opportunities offensively", meaning, youre not that important to this team offensively blazers fucked up with nurk big time, but they still can correct it somehow... they shouldve develop nurk into all-star level player, which he couldve/can become, yet they didnt you cant sign all-star level player in free agency, you cant trade for an all-star level player, so why the fuck you didnt develop nurk into one, when he clearly had/has that potential
You are trying to be logical. We don't care who the better team was. If we lose 4 straight ....our coach sucks.
i usually recognize sarcasm, but right know i dont know if youre being sarcastic or not... im leaning towards yes
I have no info on this, but I do agree that if this is as efficient as you say it is, it is something that should have been used an awful lot. I would like to point out that offense was not the Blazers team problem - they were the 2nd best offensive team in the league last year even if they did not do that as much as you think they should have - and it is questionable if doing more of this would have been better for the Blazers vs. better for Nurkic, I do not have this info - but let's just say that the Blazers ran great offense last several years even if they did not utilize that option as much as you think they should have. I want the Blazers to run the best offense possible for the team - and given how efficient they were, I suspect they did something very close to it. As I said, running more pnr with Dame/Nurk would certainly have helped Nurk's efficiency, not sure it would have helped the team's tho... As for low-post development, Nurk has been in the league for 7 years by now, I am going to say that after that much time in the league, a big man that did not develop his low post moves yet is not likely to change anymore, and it does not matter if some of the issue was on Shaw in Denver, Malone and his staff in Denver or Stotts in Portland. Great players would have gone through it even if the coaching staff around them are not the best. He has gone through 3 head coaches in the NBA in 7 years, he is likely as close to the finished product as we are going to see. I hope I am wrong, but I do not have high hopes that he will turn into Hakeem anytime soon. It is clear that Jokic has done very well under Shaw and Malone and their staff - so we certainly can not pin this on coaching alone since Nurkic did play under Shaw and Malone too...
why do you think blazers offense wasnt the problem in the playoffs... it definitely was, even if defense was the bigger problem when you shoot threes and youre missing them, you shouldnt keep chucking threes, but you should try something else (dame/nurk pnr, nurk low post game, dame/cj mid range game, cutting to the basket etc) instead, terry stotts said this: "were confident in what were doing" and it failed miserably thats why chauncey billups can improve this team, make them firing on all cylinders, not just shooting threes, regardless if theyre making the shots or not when you have core of dame/cj/nurk, you can have a really damn good offense if you know how to use all of them properly and im sure billups will do exactly that
With Nurk it feels there is always something else to blame except for him. It's the freak accidents, it's the coaching schemes, it's mental health. Fact is he hasn't helped much (for his talent) and he hasn't improved much over the years.
well, there are three reasons for it: - bad luck (he lost almost entire season with the leg break, but also had other injuries (other leg break & wrist fracture), which slowed down his progress - coaching stuff (they did a poor job with nurk, like i said, centers are not that important in terry stotts system) - nurk himself (came out of shape to the training camp last season, making stupid fouls and often quick successive fouls) while nurk has his faults, its more on bad luck and terry stotts & his coaching staff
Maybe people don't think the offense was a problem because our offense had the second best offensive rating in the league and it was really close to being first. We were also fifth in points per game. I do think our offense was too predictable and didn't have the player and ball movement necessary to stave off droughts during important parts of games we lost but defense was a far far bigger problem since we had the second worst defensive rating in the league and at one point when we were losing the most we were historically bad on D. There's obvious ways our offense can be even more potent but that will be making something already really good into something great. We have to take a horrendous defense and try to get it as good as it can be.
