Portland Trail Blazers should re-sign Hassan Whiteside
Benefits of three bigs
Jusuf Nurkic is the Trail Blazers starting center, no question. Zach Collins is the starting power forward or backup center when they go small. Whiteside if he returns would backup Nurkic.
The bubble showed us what those three quality big men could do. Resulting in some interesting matchups that the Trail Blazers took advantage of. Nurkic and Whiteside are both more of your classic centers. Backs to the goal, playing on the low block. They didn’t necessarily play well together. Then again, they didn’t have much practice time to develop chemistry either.
Collins is more of your modern-day big. Face up game that can play on the low block also. The problem is today’s NBA is all about small ball, space, and pace. Playing two big men is a way of the past. He and Nurcic made it work. If Whiteside gets time with Collins, they could play a nice inside/outside game together. Each man in the trio has shown that he can each shoot the three-ball. Collins is the best, shooting a career 32.4 percent. Nurkic shot a career-best 20 percent in the bubble, and Whiteside hit on 57.1 percent of his shots from deep last year (on seven shots).
Hassan Whiteside after the three 😂 pic.twitter.com/KRxIvr0RN0
— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) January 10, 2020
The threat of the big men nailing trifectas allows the Trailblazers to have one go on the block with another out in space, with catch and shoot opportunity on drives from Damian Lillard or CJ McCollum.
What every team is wants in the Steph Curry era is more shooting. The more shooters a team has on the court, the better the spacing. With better spacing, driving lanes get bigger. The bigger the driving lanes, well it’s just easier to score points. In conclusion, getting buckets is what it’s all about.