/r/Ripcity: For Portland Trail Blazers Fans

I appreciate Reddit is maybe not the best place for reasoned discussion, but I’m hoping to talk about Nurk constructively.

There’s obviously a real prevalence of thought on here at the moment that he’s useless and a negative asset. I really don’t see that at all, so I thought I’d go through some pros and cons of him as a player.

To start with the cons, it’s often said that he’s temperamental. I actually agree with this. In my view, he gets a lot of foul calls that are unfair (I accept some, but not as many as people make out, are foolish). That clearly gets in his head, especially when the team is struggling.

His injury history is also wheeled out a lot. I think that ignores the fact that, putting aside the bad injury, he’s actually been shutdown early the past couple of seasons while we tanked. I have no doubt he would have played if we were still competitive. He’s not athletically gifted, so he’s not the sort of player you can ride for 35 minutes a night. But how many centres are?

It’s said he’s weak finishing around the rim. I agree. It’s infuriating to see him dab up finger rolls when he could hammer it. Clearly the injury has affected him there.

Moving to pros, it seems absolutely clear to me that the team is better defensively with Nurk on the court. His size (even though he’s not an elite shot blocker) means teams think twice about going at him. As long as he’s not asked to race out to perimeter defenders, he serves a purpose. I think he’s also a cannier defender than people realise. He’s done better defending Jokic than most.

He’s a pick and roll monster. No one is getting through that screen.

And now, he’s developing a stretch game. He shot enough 3s last season to be a legit threat.

TLDR: No, he’s not one of the best 5s in the league, but he’s certainly league average as a starter.