Larry Nance Jr. has more to give, and the Portland Trail Blazers desperately need it
Larry Nance Jr. is being woefully underutilized on this Portland Trail Blazers squad, despite the fact that his skills could directly solve a lot of their offensive problems.
His touches have gone down from nearly 50 per game in 2020-2021 with the Cleveland Cavaliers to a scarce 27.3 with the Blazers. The initial reaction might be to say that he now shares the court with two ball-dominant guards in Dame and CJ, but in reality, he did the same in Cleveland with Darius Garland and Collin Sexton.
Nance has been relegated to a simple screener and corner floor-spacer in Portland, and it’s been both detrimental to he and the team.
Nance’s best role on offense may be as a playmaker off of the short roll. Watch how he finds Darius Garland for an open corner triple after rolling to the rim here.
The Blazers have the personnel to make this work, and Head Coach Chauncey Billups tried it a little bit this game by deploying Nance as a small-ball five and surrounded him with shooters. It didn’t generate many good looks, as the Pacers showed excellent coverage on the few attempts that Portland ran, but this is something that Billups needs to keep in mind moving forward.
NBA.com requires that a player averages at least 10 possessions per game as the roll-man to track their stats. Nance Jr. has not cracked that number for the Blazers.
LNJ is simply too good to be averaging 18 minutes and less than 30 touches per game for this squad.