Although Enes Kanter will operate predominantly as the backup to starting center Jusuf Nurkic, playing the two bigs together could serve as a possible wrinkle for a rapidly improving Portland Trail Blazers team.
The Portland Trail Blazers have quickly assembled one of the most foreboding bench units in the NBA. The acquisitions of swingman Rodney Hood, bruiser Enes Kanter, along with the emergence of former second-round pick Jake Layman has the Blazers feeling deeper and more dangerous than ever before in the Damian Lillard era.
While Layman and Hood slide in well as an electric and versatile tandem off the bench, Kanter has yet to suit up for the Blazers. The 6’11” 250-pound center averaged 14 points and 10.5 rebounds per game in 44 appearances with the New York Knicks this season. The 26-year old’s 53.6% field goal mark on the season is instantly the highest percentage on Portland’s roster.
Widely thought of as a “true center,” similarly to Portland starter Jusuf Nurkic, Kanter will likely see most of his time without Nurkic on the court. That said, There are only 48 minutes up for grabs at the center position, a low number for Nurkic and Kanter to be locked into on a nightly basis, especially considering the significant differences in production between Kanter and the likes of Meyers Leonard or Zach Collins.
In short, a wise course of action may be to borrow a page from Kanter’s time with the Oklahoma City Thunder, a time where Kanter played effectively alongside physical Oklahoma City Thunder center Steven Adams. “The Bruise Brothers,” as Kanter once called them, were a frequently relied upon tandem for the Thunder throughout the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons.
The decision to bring Kanter off the bench, at times alongside Adams, benefitted the Thunder and Kanter in two ways.
First, the Thunder lessened the blow of Kanter’s porous defense by ensuring Adams, the team’s best interior defender, was there to check the best opposing big. Secondly, there was typically a lower chance of Kanter being isolated and burned in pick-and-roll action on the perimeter when playing against a second-unit.
Kanter has never been much of a defender, yet his interior scoring and all-around physicality warrant him playing anywhere he goes. The Thunder showed from 2015-17 that it is possible to minimize the negatives brought by Kanter’s poor defense while also maximizing the benefits from his uniquely powerful offensive game.
Portland boasts similar enough frontcourt personnel to those Thunder squads to feature a similar wrinkle. Head Coach Terry Stotts will have to be attentive to when is the right time for a Kanter-Nurkic barrage, but recent history demonstrates such a duo can be a real difference maker for a contending team.
After all, that 2015-16 team pushed the Golden State Warriors to seven games in the Western Conference Finals by forcing them to matchup against their bigger groups.