Portland Trail Blazers: 5 (not so) bold season predictions

1. Nurkic will return stronger than ever

The funny thing is, it doesn’t matter how well the new guys play, how much better CJ or Zach Collins gets, or anything else. The Blazers season still rides on one man — Jusuf Nurkic. They’ll be good without him sure, but Nurk is the key to any sort of postseason run this year.

Before going down last year, he was playing close to All-Star level, and was one of the best centers in the league. Nurk had given the Blazers a completely new option, offensively and defensively — he was blocking shots at will, and the Dame/Nurk high pick and roll was looking unguardable. The thing I loved about Nurk was his plus minus, it was constantly on a high level- he simply made Portland a lot better when on the court.

https://twitter.com/NBA/status/1080328206740307974

But then, the leg injury happened, he went down, and a similar feeling of disbelief was once again cast over Portland. As we all know, this has happened before — check Brandon Roy, Greg Oden and Wesley Matthews if you need some recent examples. Portland has historically been dealt a bad hand by the NBA gods, and Nurkic going down seemed like they were just rubbing it in. I’ll never forget that night, it seemed so cruel, and couldn’t have happened to a better guy.

But the next morning, although it didn’t feel like it at the time, Blazer fans were handed good news. It wasn’t an ACL, an injury known to end careers of NBA big men. The Bosnian had broken his leg- this would obviously keep him sidelined for a fair amount of time, but a broken bone is different, it grows back stronger. Perhaps it was the NBA gods again, finally throwing the city of Portland a bone; I like to think ‘Nurk Fever’ really is that strong. Regardless of the reason, it gave Nurkic and Portland hope.

Fast-forward to October 2019 with the new season about to begin, the Blazers know they will spend a good bit of the year waiting on Nurkic to return. The Trail Blazers have been tight-lipped on an official timeline for the center, much to the frustration of RipCity.

1080 The Fan reported last month that the Blazers were going to stay “purposely vague” on Nurk’s availability, and keep the league guessing.

However, it seems February is the time to start expecting sighters of Nurkic, which, if he’s lucky, may give Nurk enough time to be ready(ish) for the playoffs.

I know Jusuf Nurkic will come back better than ever, eventually. If the Blazers are going to better their season last year, they need the real Jusuf Nurkic this year. With all the offensive weapons on the Portland’s wings this year, a healthy Nurk arriving late into the year could prove to be an amazing secret weapon heading into the postseason. If Nurkic is 100%, the Blazers suddenly match up with the Lakers extremely well, who I believe are the team to beat this year. Jusuf Nurkic, Zach Collins and Hassan Whiteside have the ability to do a job better than most on LeBron and AD, which leaves Dame and CJ to clean up the rest.

One thing is for sure. If Nurk doesn’t come back in time, and doesn’t perform at a high level straight away, Portland will still love him. Rip City will give him all the time he needs, because quite frankly, he deserves it. When Nurkic appeared on the court minutes before Dame waved goodbye to OKC, the crowd completely lost it.

This video is proof that Rip City will wait for the ‘Bosnian Beast’ to get back to his best, and when he does, the Blazers turn into a contender once again. This leg break is definitely not the end of Nurkic, and I think Portland will get their center back firing on all cylinders sooner than they think.