3 ways that new signing Jaylen Adams can help the Portland Trail Blazers

At the start of July, the Portland Trail Blazers announced that they had signed point guard Jaylen Adams. How can Adams help when the NBA season resumes?

Portland Trail Blazers fans were probably slightly surprised when the signing of Jaylen Adams was announced. After Trevor Ariza made himself unavailable, many assumed that the Blazers would replace him with another forward.

Instead, they picked up young guard Adams, who played 34 games for the Atlanta Hawks last season. How can Adams help the Blazers when the NBA season resumes in the next few weeks?

Backup playmaking

The Blazers have lacked a backup playmaker on the bench this season. Last year in both the regular season and playoffs, they had Evan Turner and then, to a lesser extent Seth Curry who was able to create shots for his teammates and run the offense when Damian Lillard or CJ McCollum were off the floor.

Anfernee Simons is the longterm backup option as a combo guard, but he is still raw and finding his way around running an NBA offense. As a playmaker for the Hawks last season, Adams was in the top 25 percent of point guards when it came to Assist to Usage ratio – per Cleaning the Glass.

Simons, in contrast, is in the bottom three percent of combo guards in the same rating.

Adams isn’t a fantastic passer, but as reflected by his excellent turnover percentage, he takes care of the ball and can make solid reads as a point guard for his teammates.

Three-point shooting

Adams is a reliable three-point shooter, who this year in the G-League made 40.7 percent of his three-point attempts, on an excellent volume of 6.5 attempts a game. Adams may not get a lot of shot attempts in the limited opportunities he will be provided in Orlando, but he may be able to fire away from three.

Last year, for the Hawks, he hit on 33 percent of his threes, including 38 percent above the break. With Ariza not in the squad anymore, the Blazers will rely heavily on the spacing in the second unit of Adams, Simons, and Gary Trent Jr.

Rebounding

Due to their lack of size in the backcourt and the injuries to key players, the Blazers ranked 19th and 28th in the regular season in defensive and offensive rebound percentage. Now they will have Zach Collins and Jusuf Nurkic back, but they will still be small as far as their guard pairings go.

Adams will be able to help in this respect, though. In the G-League in 2019/20, he averaged 5.1 rebounds a night. In his limited games with the Hawks, he was in the top half of the league for rebound percentage across the board also.

Even though Adams is only six-foot-two, he does have a six-foot-six wingspan, making him the longest guard in the squad.

Adams may not be the most exciting signing for the Blazers, but he is a solid backup point guard who has decent physical tools and playmaking ability. He won’t likely play a massive role, but he will be there in case of sickness or injury. He is a strong signing who, if called upon, should be able to make a difference on the court as a combo guard.