Chris Mannix (Yahoo) about the Blazers

[Labinot41]

Great Stuff! https://sports.yahoo.com/red-hot-bl...postseason-will-proving-ground-063051193.html

 

[GrandpaBlaze]

Great Stuff! https://sports.yahoo.com/red-hot-bl...postseason-will-proving-ground-063051193.html

Thanks for posting.

Really about how Dame & CJ stay together because nobody is offering a decent deal and about how Nurk is key to their success and they hold him accountable and he is embracing it.

Some of my favorite quotes:

“Everybody’s looking for a crack in the dam, right?” Olshey told Yahoo Sports. “There’s always the, ‘Hey, blah, blah, blah, checking in. We like such and such.’ They’ll pull some name, right? Then it’s, ‘If you’re ever going to do anything with Dame or C. J., we’d be really interested.’ It always comes from some team who doesn’t have anybody even close to Dame or C.J. Look, it’s not going to happen. I mean we’ve proven they can play together. You know this narrative that people come up with, ‘Well you have to do something with one of them.’ No, we don’t. Why? We’re winning, they play off of each other great, they complement one another. When one’s off the floor, the other can take on the other’s responsibilities. It doesn’t hurt us defensively. We’ve got a top 10 defense. What are people talking about? So if C.J. was two inches taller this wouldn’t be a conversation, right? I mean, it’s the most ridiculous thing. We’re very lucky to have two guys from small schools that we drafted, that willingly signed extensions because they wanted to be here.”

Jusuf Nurkic dressed slowly in front of his locker last week, an ineffective seven-point, 10-rebound effort in 19 minutes against Cleveland still hanging over him. Days earlier, Nurkic was all smiles, as his 27-point, 16-rebound performance powered the Blazers over Miami. Then, he was the player for whom Portland traded: skilled, powerful, a defensive lynchpin. Against the Cavs, he was something else.

It’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Nurkic, and Portland’s future — both this season, and beyond — could hinge on the development of the 7-foot, 280-pound pivot with the talent to rank among the top centers in the league. Portland practices tough love with Nurkic. Lillard has attached himself to him. On the bench, if Nurkic tries to excuse a lazy play, Lillard will cut him off. On team flights, Lillard will occasionally plant himself next to Nurkic and watch all of his minutes. McCollum says he’s used “a lot of curse words” with Nurkic, especially when he isn’t seeing maximum effort.

“We need [the Miami] Nurk every night, not the Nurk that’s doing flip shots and not always paying attention and not locked in the way he should be,” McCollum told Yahoo Sports. “We know what [Nurkic] is capable of. Anything less than that is unacceptable.”

Stotts has been particularly tough on Nurkic. In practice he gets after him, players say, and he’s not shy about bluntly answering reporter’s questions about a subpar Nurkic effort. To his credit, Nurkic has embraced it, praising Stotts for the trust he has shown in him and declaring that improving “is what it’s all about.”

“Everyone forgets, [Nurkic] is a young guy. It’s his first year as a full time starter. I think what happened is that everybody on the outside looks at Nurkic as this established veteran guy, but in here he’s a guy on a rookie scale. So you’re not going to treat him any differently than you would treat Zach Collins or Caleb Swanigan or Meyers Leonard or anybody else because he hasn’t totally earned the right to have the ebbs and flows without being called out on it yet.”

 

[SportsAndWhine]

They couldn’t go all the way with Dr Jusuf and Mr Nurk?

 

[Strenuus]

Thanks for posting.

Really about how Dame & CJ stay together because nobody is offering a decent deal and about how Nurk is key to their success and they hold him accountable and he is embracing it.

Some of my favorite quotes:

Damn, that's a cold burn on Meyers. Being paired with Collins and Biggie.

Or I read it wrong, but I like to think that was a burn. LOL.

 

[KingSpeed]

That's great. I'm glad CJ gets on Nurk. I'm glad Neil isn't trading CJ or Dame. Remember when y'all were like "we're in purgatory" because we were a 41-44 win team the last two years? I always maintained that we could get better from within. Outside of Collins, no one is new and we are getting better. 3 seed without any monster trade.

 

[KingSpeed]

Damn, that's a cold burn on Meyers. Being paired with Collins and Biggie.

Or I read it wrong, but I like to think that was a burn. LOL.

It was a huge burn.

 

[theprunetang]

It was a huge burn.

It really was.

 

[andalusian]

Damn, that's a cold burn on Meyers. Being paired with Collins and Biggie.

But what about the Swish3s?

 

[GrandpaBlaze]

But what about the Swish3s?

Meyers, using his cold, soulless eyes, burns his opponents with his [virtual] swish3’s.

When not burning opponents, he is very busy waving a towel for his teammates.