Damian Lillard, Portland Trail Blazers.
The Portland Trail Blazers are close a quarter through the season, and it feels like the old Steelers Wheel song “Stuck in the Middle with You” might be this season’s anthem. Like Night and Day, Ying and Yang, two steps forward, two steps back, home games and road games, wins, losses, the Blazers continue to be stuck in the middle. So here are five questions that must be answered, sooner rather than later, before the season’s goals become entirely out of reach.
I’ve often thought that much of the support for the Damian Lillard/CJ Mccollum tandem was rooted in trying to emulate the success of Steph Curry and Klay Thompson. A high-scoring backcourt that can create shots and hit the three-ball at such a high rate seemed like the perfect route to creating a Golden State-lite, north of the Oregon-California state line.
But the Trail Blazers’ results don’t bear that theory out. No matter how often the Blazers shift around defenders at the forward positions, they can’t cover for their teammate’s defensive woes on the perimeter. That’s a huge problem that leads to too many easy baskets for the opponent.
At this point, I feel sympathy for how often Portland’s big men have to compensate for the guards. The bigs constantly get pulled out of position, to the point where they struggle to protect the paint as it must be defended.
If this team can’t drastically improve its backcourt defense with the current personnel, then they need to change up that personnel. The how and where more than likely lead to McCollum’s departure.
Despite the continued defensive woes, one of the bright spots I’ve enjoyed is watching Larry Nance Jr. He reminds me a little bit of a poor man’s Brian Grant. Nance plays with heart and energy on both sides of the court. The more I watch him, the more I believe he might be the best power forward to have to play with Jusuf Nurkic. After Nurk, he is arguably the Portland Trail Blazers’ second-best interior scorer.
While Robert Covington excels as the prototypical 3-and-D player, Nance is quicker around the rim. LNJ is also more fluid, requiring defenders to pay more attention to him than Covington. Add in Nurkic and Nance’s passing abilities, and I think they’d excel with playing together more, something that head coach Chauncey Billups must utilize more often.
It seems like there has been a back and forth with Jusuf Nurkic’s consistency. He either has solid defensive nights, but he’s quiet on the score sheet, or he has monster offensive nights where he isn’t as effective on defense. The good thing about this problem is Nurkic has the talent to dominate on both sides of the ball. These days, having that kind of talent at the Center position is a rarity in the NBA.
The bad part is Nurk appears easily winded or unmotivated at times. His lack of consistency further adds to my thought process of starting Nance next to him. Like in any other job, who you work with can greatly impact motivation and mindset.
A change in the lineup might also be the final test to see if Nurkic can become more consistent. If not, the team needs to consider trading him for a different player with more consistency.
You bet it did. It’s frustrating as it’s been watching a team with this kind of talent level hovering around .500. I find the front office silence to be even more frustrating.
This current roster reminds me of the post-Bob Whitsitt days. A time when the team fell out of the playoffs and toiled in the lottery. Back then, there was little to no feedback from management. It wasn’t until Kevin Pritchard came in and started shaking up the roster that there was a set of goals and a direction.
I’m not saying the team is about to go through a Jail-Blazers-like dark age, but the silence is puzzling. Until management finds a prominent successor to Olshey, I’ll worry, in the back of my mind, that this team might be close to being blown up.
I remember early on in the 2007-08 season, the team was underperforming expectations and struggling to find its identity. An incident occurred that rallied and changed that Portland Trail Blazers team. After a 5-12 start in which the team suffered another blowout loss, there was a players-only meeting.
Among the highlights were a thrown chair and a flipped table (or I want to believe one was). Steve Blake went a little wild, and Brandon Roy made his claim for getting the ball in his hands. The team responded by winning their next 13 games. But the point is the Blazers pulled it together from there. They began to play with heart and finally performed to their potential.
This current Portland Trail Blazers team is stuck. They wait for Damian Lillard to save them. When he’s off (as he has been this season), they have no answers. As great as Dame is, one man can’t carry a team for as long as he has.
Well, if this backcourt believes they are good enough defensively to contend, then it’s time they prove it. If Nurkic thinks he’s really an All-Star level player, he needs to prove it every game.
This film is starting to hit the last act. I’d rather not have to listen to the Steelers Wheel song when the closing credits begin to run.
What do you think of the Portland Trail Blazers mid-pack record and even worse defense? Let us know in the comments section below or on social media.