Nurkic for Ayton

[Norm2953]

I think you'll see that good Nurk every third game or so.

Indifferent Nurk was still Portland's only rebounder and he is what he is. He's unlikely to
ever be the Bosnian Beast again but hopefully will a serviceable big for Phoenix.

[lilfishi22]

Interesting to see the Phoenix board has 8 pages dedicated to this pre-season game.

They seemed stoked over tonight's Nurk

There were attention because of how divisive DA was. Could just be the honeymoon period but we're overall pretty satisfied with Nurk so far.

[Norm2953]

It'll be interesting to see how RW3 plays in Portland.

If healthy, he'll get minutes and perhaps get more minutes when Ayton isn't there that night.

[spanishninja]

I think you'll see that good Nurk every third game or so.

Indifferent Nurk was still Portland's only rebounder and he is what he is. He's unlikely to
ever be the Bosnian Beast again but hopefully will a serviceable big for Phoenix.

we will take the rebounding for sure. As for the indifferent part, there is just a chance that he will be less indifferent playing for a contender than a tanking team. people say that he was last good in 2020, but that was also when the Blazers were last in the playoff picture as well.

[b33nine]

He actually looked great next to Ant for that portion of '22 where we let the team play (after Dame finally admitted he couldn't play in his then-current form) instead of chasing down a lottery pick. I'd like to see Nurk do well in his post-Blazers days and Phoenix is probably a great place for him to do that.

In reality we expected him to do too many of the little things for our team and he wasn't capable of handling it all, but with a very defined role and a team that actually cares about defense I expect him to fit the Sun's very well.

[Norm2953]

I think you'll see that good Nurk every third game or so.

Indifferent Nurk was still Portland's only rebounder and he is what he is. He's unlikely to
ever be the Bosnian Beast again but hopefully will a serviceable big for Phoenix.

we will take the rebounding for sure. As for the indifferent part, there is just a chance that he will be less indifferent playing for a contender than a tanking team. people say that he was last good in 2020, but that was also when the Blazers were last in the playoff picture as well.

He's going to have a certain amount of touches in every game and won't be happy being the fourth option
in a team's offense. In Portland with Dame, Ant and Jerami Grant, he was never going to be more than the
fourth option, which is why Josh Hart when he was here, concentrated on defense and rebounding as the last
option.

[spanishninja]

I think you'll see that good Nurk every third game or so.

Indifferent Nurk was still Portland's only rebounder and he is what he is. He's unlikely to
ever be the Bosnian Beast again but hopefully will a serviceable big for Phoenix.

we will take the rebounding for sure. As for the indifferent part, there is just a chance that he will be less indifferent playing for a contender than a tanking team. people say that he was last good in 2020, but that was also when the Blazers were last in the playoff picture as well.

He's going to have a certain amount of touches in every game and won't be happy being the fourth option
in a team's offense. In Portland with Dame, Ant and Jerami Grant, he was never going to be more than the
fourth option, which is why Josh Hart when he was here, concentrated on defense and rebounding as the last
option.

interesting information, we will have to look out for that. So far it seems Nurk has been pretty content with the role he has, especially since he is getting to run some plays to take advantage of his passing ability.

[enigmatics]

we will take the rebounding for sure. As for the indifferent part, there is just a chance that he will be less indifferent playing for a contender than a tanking team. people say that he was last good in 2020, but that was also when the Blazers were last in the playoff picture as well.

He's going to have a certain amount of touches in every game and won't be happy being the fourth option
in a team's offense. In Portland with Dame, Ant and Jerami Grant, he was never going to be more than the
fourth option, which is why Josh Hart when he was here, concentrated on defense and rebounding as the last
option.

interesting information, we will have to look out for that. So far it seems Nurk has been pretty content with the role he has, especially since he is getting to run some plays to take advantage of his passing ability.

We got to see what it could look like last night.

It would be unwise to compare the 4th option on the Blazers vs. the opportunities he'll have on the Suns - it's simply not even remotely the same thing, especially considering WHO he's playing with now i.e. a championship contender. They're going to keep Nurk involved because he's operating in a quasi-point center role. Some games he will really get to feast on that and others he'll be deferring with dimes.

[BlazersBroncos]

Ya - I am of the thinking that Nurkic will be more amenable to being lower on the touches pecking order when on a superteam. His motor and attitude seems highly attached to the trajectory a team is on.

[jcsunsfan]

Interesting to read this thread. Your complaints about Nurk in many ways were similar to ours about Ayton.

Ayton really wants to play pf rather than center. He does not like playing physical ball. He has a nice jump hook, but man does he disappear for long periods of time, and I am not talking about minutes, think weeks.

He had one great playoff run. He will have a couple of weeks, maybe even a month where he really starts to produce, and then you think "finally!" Next thing you know, he is gone again. It makes me sad thinking about the wasted potential.

[Pattycakes]

If DA isn’t dominayton, do we reserve the right to relegayton him to the bench?

All jokes aside, Portland and Nurk were done. He quit on the blazers a long time ago. Now getting motivation back, good for him. I used to love him when he was a team player and hustled.

[ebott]

If DA isn’t dominayton, do we reserve the right to relegayton him to the bench?

All jokes aside, Portland and Nurk were done. He quit on the blazers a long time ago. Now getting motivation back, good for him. I used to love him when he was a team player and hustled.

It's kinda funny how Ayton is the best center we've had since Sabonis and we also have Timelord backing him up. If Ayton pulls a Nurk, we've got arguably the best backup we've ever had so benching Ayton is an option. Crazy this is happening in a year we're tanking.

Here's hoping we can keep AD and Timelord happy for a few years while the kids grow up. We might have a really special team on our hands.