Portland Trail Blazers biggest weakness re-exposed in Lakers series
Jusuf Nurkic, Portland Trail Blazers.
Center
Center is Nurkic’s position. When he’s on, Nurk is a double-double machine. His defense, however, can be hit and miss.
Whiteside proved himself to be a valuable rebounder and shot-blocker this year. Additionally, Count Blockula was outstanding coming off the bench in the seeding games. The pending free agent played for over $27M in 2019-20. Whiteside doesn’t deserve a pay cut. So how much is Portland willing to pay him to be a backup center next season?
Power Forward
Finally, Portland’s lack of depth at the four-spot reared its head. Zach Collins is by no means an all-star. But he plays hard and was in his element in the Blazers big lineup. When he went down, so did the dominoes that led to their series loss.
As mentioned before, Anthony isn’t the answer, and Gabriel doesn’t have enough talent to play significant minutes. Despite his 6-8 frame, Mario Hezonja looks like he’d rather play like a guard rather than banging bodies in the paint. What the Portland Trail Blazers needs is a banger to come off the bench, who isn’t afraid to fight on the boards and do the little things to make his team better.
To sum up, the Portland Trail Blazers looked great when their five starters were on the court. Once the playoffs started, Los Angeles exposed the Blazers lack of frontcourt depth. LeBron James is too good of a facilitator, and Anthony Davis is the best center in the NBA, they took advantage of the mismatches available.
Further, due to injuries and free agency, Portland is in danger of losing even more forward depth due to a combination of free agency, age, and injury.