theres no discussion when it comes to nurk and kanter and quite frankly, its beyond me how can anyone think kanter is better than nurk, an absolute bollocks
kanter was a starter in 2 of his 11 seasons, one of those was with the knicks (does that need to be explained lol) and the other was with the jazz until gobert emerged as a starter, in the remaining 9 seasons he was a backup and you can say one coach has no clue what hes doing, but when multiple coaches do the same, it put things into perspective, doesnt it
kanter, just like whiteside, puts up good numbers (both better than nurks), but numbers arent everything, its impact that matters and to prove it, ill give you two examples: kanter couldnt win a starting job over theiss with the celtics (i assume brad stevens knew what he was doing, dont you) and then whiteside couldnt win a starting job over holmes and both kanter and whiteside put up better numbers than theiss and holmes
as stotts said few days ago, nurk is our defensive anchor, which he is, but you cant have four players that dont play defense and then expect nurk to defend, it doesnt work like that, its team effort, team needs to make it easier for nurk in order for him to make a difference and i remember when the blazers had a good defense with aminu and harkless, but that was one season and then, even with them, we sucked again, which screams "effort"
tu put things into perspective, nurk needs help from covington and jones jr (unfortunately collins is out), but dame and cj mccollum need to make an effort too, we all know they cant really defend, but if they put an effort, it just might help a bit... what weve been seeing is opponents having a freeway to the basket and then we expect nurk to make miracles, but it doesnt work like that
do you remember how good was nurk (it doesnt seem so) before the injury, he was well on his way to becoming an all-star level player and he was considered to be top 5 or just outside of top 5 center in the league (kanter was never considered to be this good), but after the injury, it passed 16 months before he played a game and you should know how a long lay-off can affect a player and that it requires time to get back on track (see paul george)
for the first part of the bubble, nurk looked really great, like the injury didnt happened, but that might be cause he was playing with the adrenaline, just excited to be back playing bball again, but in the second part of the bubble, he wasnt as good and he started looking tired etc, which is understandable after not playing for 16 months
when it comes to this season, what weve been seeing from nurk before the wrist injury was not good at all and that was due to him being out of shape and not being focused on bball, which was due to him dealing with familly issue and thats what nurk himself said and you know how familly issues can affect people, not all react the same... hopefully nurk comes back in better mental state and obviously better shape
im hopefull that nurk will get back on track and become an all-star level player cause he showed he has talent to become one and i wont give up on him, which some posters seem to have already done, which is shameful...
ps i forgot to say that kanter was and is goof for us and he has no problem being a backup, he has a good relationship with nurk (they go to the mosque together) and hopefully we resign him
