Like much of Rip City, we’ve watched with increasing dismay as the Portland Trail Blazers’ Jusuf Nurkic has sputtered his way through a lackluster season. And it certainly seems like the team’s offense has taken a big step backwards from last year.
The data back that up. And thanks to a deep dive from Jared Cowley, a digital producer at KGW, we can take a closer look.
In “From fever to famine: How Nurkic is hurting the Blazers offense,” Cowley reveals the numbers. Nurkic has “been an inefficient offensive player,” Cowley writes. And he’s “siphoning away possessions from the Blazers’ two best offensive players, Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum.