Whether you like it, don’t like it, don’t want to admit it or just can’t come to terms with it – the Portland Trail Blazers have a broken wing.
CJ is a fantastic scoring guard with just enough length and athletic ability to influence shots and stay in front of his man on D, and we all know what Dame brings to the table on both sides of the ball. Aside from them and the growth, we’ve seen from Nurkić, who do you trust equally on offense and defense on the current roster?
No one. The answer is absolutely, one-hundred-percent, no one. Or, it should be.
Moe is an athlete. A guy who can jump out of the gym and put together just enough offensive and defensive production to get things done when he needs to. His consistency and health have been issues since he was drafted out of St. Johns, and one team gave up on him before he arrived in Portland. Evan Turner once looked like the second coming of the prototypical two-way player.
His last year in Philly, before being traded, was nothing short of perfection from a non-star offensive production standpoint. He’s never matched the production from that season, and a massive contract forces any lapse in production to be brought to the forefront and debated, though he is starting to put some good stat lines together.
The 4 and 5 rotation of non-starters plus Chief is something that needs a little bit of light maintenance, to put it nicely. Everyone loves Meyers, I get it. He’s a fantastic face for the city and can be seen coaching on the court when the 2s are running the floor. Bigs absolutely cannot be the streaky players on your team. Players with the size and athleticism that Leonard and Aminu showcase have to be serviceable AND reliable, at worst.
Ugh, Chief. My goodness. Lately, it just seems like he doesn’t have the special awareness to work well in the paint with everyone else. It’s like playing 2k in an NBA season game as a guard. You’re constantly getting over-the-backed and out-rebounded by your own teammates, without an opposing player anywhere in sight, and your controller flies across the room as a result.
I expect these things from computer-generated versions of Enes Kanter. I’ll still get an A+ grade and snag my Foot Locker incentive at 12 rebounds regardless of the disrespect. This, however, is not acceptable from your power forward. I’ve screamed myself hoarse this season watching guys jumping around in the lane, knocking rebounds out of teammates hands, and putting up poor tip-ins when two hands and some power are the proper recipes for success.
It’s embarrassing. There’s no other way to put it, it’s not teamwork, and there’s nothing sexy about big men who aren’t consistent and take the spots of talented younger players who are begging to prove themselves. It may be proof that there were some last-minute, desperation moves by an organization trying to fill shoes that had left massive footprints at the power forward position in Portland for nearly a decade.
There is hope on the bench with a few of Portland’s most recent draft picks. Nurk needs some more time to develop, not unheard of for bigs, and Zach looks like he could turn into something dare-I-say scary.
Now that we’ve gotten those stone-cold-banger opinions out of the way, let’s figure out how to fix the three.
The Blazers have about 6 million in cap space opening up at the end of the season. We all understand the soft cap and luxury tax rules the NBA has in place to promote parity. How does everyone feel about trying to snag restricted free agents coming to the end of their rookie contracts?
Allen Crabbe received a qualifying offer from Brooklyn in his restricted free agent year, which was matched by Portland for the 2016 season, before being traded to Brooklyn in 2017. Crabbe is the type of player (positional needs taking precedent here, Portland doesn’t need another Crabbe currently) the Blazers should be seeking on the restricted market. A player that is likely to be given a counter to a Portland qualifier, meaning they have viewable value to the rest of the league.
The years of searching for diamonds in buckets of coal are over. The backcourt could be splitting up in the coming years, and nobody’s getting any younger/happier with failing in the playoffs.
There is some talent on the restricted market that might be able to slip through the cracks if Portland extends an offer.
A guy like Willie Cauley-Stein would be an excellent interior defender, though not a 3 (we’ll get there) and Sacramento would be right to try to keep him around should a team try to pry him out of their nearly successful rebuild. He’s 25, averages 14 and 8 and plays with that edge this team needs down in the trenches.
Someone who offers similar qualities to that of Cauley-Stein is Pascal Siakam. Toronto will be stripped bare by free agency next year, meaning someone who averages 14 and 6 with a nice PER of nearly 20 will be a huge commodity for the franchise. He’s a wicked athlete who has come into his own this season and he could feasibly play the three with a little coaching.
Something that was quite handy during the Z-Bo and Aldridge years was the ability for a big to step back from midrange and knock down shots over smaller guys. Siakam, even when he fills the small forward gap that I’m proposing, has the ability to take shots from long range and a solid free throw shooter at 79%.
Another big restricted free agent this summer is one Kelly Oubre Jr. Oubre Jr is a player who gets a lot of attention for his long range and defensive abilities, though they haven’t quite evolved into no-joke reliable skills as of yet. He’s starting to put things together, and with the athleticism and youth he owns would be a solid choice if the Blazers were to go fishing for restricted free-agent this offseason.
Just to wrap this puppy up and put a bow on my bid to be GM for Rip City next year, there is one more flyer that should be considered. Rudy Gay is going to be an outright free agent next year. He’s 32 and coming back from an achilles tear, but he is absolutely breathing fire into the belly of Spurs fans. It’s going to cost some money, and fears of the big ET contract may rear their ugly heads, but Gay is a scorer and an athlete at a position of need for this team.