Why Nik Stauskas is out of the Portland Trail Blazers rotation

Over the last two games, Portland Trail Blazers’ guard Nik Stauskas has been absent from the rotation.

Facing off against the Oklahoma City Thunder on January 4, the Portland Trail Blazers did something they hadn’t done all season. They didn’t play newly acquired shooter Nik Stauskas for a single second. In their next game, against the Houston Rockets, Stauskas sat all 48 minutes out again.

He’s literally gone from hero, dropping 24 on opening night against the Los Angeles Lakers, to zero.

How’d that happen?

It wasn’t all at once. He’s shown flashes of his ability to help throughout the season by hitting clutch shots or making creative passes down low. In the seven games where Stauskas has scored ten or more points, the Blazers are 6-1.

Here’s the problem, though: we’re 40 games in. He shows up much too inconsistently and, particularly when his shots aren’t falling, can become a defensive liability.

Although he is converting a healthy 43.8% of his threes when defenders are six or more feet away, his accuracy drops to 28.9% when they’re within four-to-six feet (the NBA calls these types of shots “open”). For a player who was touted by GM Neil Olshey as a big-time shooter, hitting less than 30% of his open attempts is unacceptable. That type of unreliability will make things no easier for Damian Lillard when opposing clubs inevitably choose to double him.

Altogether, Stauskas has put up 6.2 points, 1.8 rebounds, and 1.4 assists per contest on 34.2% three-point shooting this season.

He’s been more impactful on the Blazers this year than he’s been on any other team in any other year. But while he potentially earned himself another year in the NBA with his hot play early, his most recent stretch has been more than disappointing.

As Blazer’s Edge’s Peter Sampson pointed out:

"“Stauskas [is] scoring fewer than four points per game on sub-37 percent shooting since December 17th…”"

Stauskas’s three-point percentage since December 17? 26.3%.

There’s then no wonder that Head Coach Terry Stotts has elected to play without Nik Stauskas. Instead, he’s given Jake Layman a bigger opportunity, who played 12 minutes against OKC and 21 minutes against Houston. Over these two games, he averaged 10 points and 1.5 rebounds while shooting 8-14 from the floor.

Seth Curry will also be affected by Stauskas’s place on the depth chart. Throughout the year, his playing-time has fluctuated. But with Stauskas out of the lineup, Seth is guaranteed to get more looks each game. He is currently a 48.4% three-point shooter.

Still, everyone should be crossing their fingers that Stauskas rekindles that opening day magic. If he can score consistently from deep and be a threat off the dribble with his passing, he will make the Blazers all the more dynamic.

Keep a close eye on Stotts’s rotations during this very important midway point of the season.