Portland Trail Blazers: Survey says…size and depth matter

The annual, often unexamined, NBA Roster survey reveals some information about the Portland Trail Blazers that could prove helpful—if they allow it to be.

Every year at the beginning of the season, the NBA does a roster survey that has arguably irrelevant data including teams’ average ages, heights and top jersey numbers around the league.

One notable conclusion from this season’s data is that the Portland Trail Blazers have the second-tallest team in the NBA behind the Chicago Bulls. Their average height is around 6-7.4. To put that in perspective, the shortest team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, is about 6-5.5.

This is not surprising because the Blazers have 11 players on their roster that are 6-8 and taller. Eight of those players are playing in the bubble. However, three of those eight players—Wenyen Gabriel, Moses Brown, and Jaylen Adams—have mostly been sitting on the bench.

Huh?

The Blazers should be bullying teams with their height. In their first two games, they played the Boston Celtics and the Memphis Grizzlies who are the 2nd and 12th shortest teams in the league, respectively.

Because they have a gang of trees, more offense should be run through their big guys. The team ranks near the bottom of the league in terms of percentage of points in the paint. That’s senseless with so many tall players.

Their paint points have improved since the return of Zach Collins and Jusuf Nurkic. They won the points-in-the-paint battle in their first three games of the rejuvenated season. They must exploit their height advantage more.

In terms of scoring, Nurkic should be more dominant than he has already been. Hassan Whiteside and Collins should have higher scoring averages as well. Long players like Gabriel, Hoard and Brown could prove beneficial for getting easy buckets.

Gabriel and Brown could also help improve the Blazers’ perimeter defense and make up for the absence of Rodney Hood and Trevor Ariza. Portland still ranks as one of the worst teams in the league at guarding three-point shooting.

In the 2019 NBA playoffs, Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr played his entire roster—or the whole roster except for one player— in 13 out of 22 games.

Kerr and his assistant coaches are known for having a minutes chart to track and manage star players’ minutes. That chart allows his star players to rest to be fresher for late-game situations and long playoff runs. It also allows young players to get more playing time to encourage their development and create different lineup options that could prove useful in winning a game.

Warrior Kevin Looney and former Warriors Quinn Cook and Patrick McCaw made a name for themselves in Kerr’s system because they had the opportunity to play. They provided impactful minutes in the Warriors championship runs in 2017 and 2018.

Three rings prove there is a method to Kerr’s madness. He’s a champion multiple times over for his ability to make adjustments.

Case in point? The infamous insertion of Andre Iguodala into the starting lineup in the 2015 NBA Finals to help the Warriors come back from a 2-1 deficit and claim their first title.

The Blazers must make the significant adjustments of using their taller players more and going deeper into their bench if they plan to be a true contender and ultimately win a championship.