TUALATIN - Portland Trail Blazers center Jusuf Nurkic has a lot on his plate in both the new offense and defense installed by first-year coach Chauncey Billups.
Nurkic will be asked to be the plus defender he has usually been during his career, while on offense play an expanded role that will have him receive more touches with the option to pass, shoot or take the ball to the basket.
“I love it,” Nurkic said. “I think the stuff they are asking from me is definitely a lot.”
That’s what Nurkic asked for, and after three weeks of training camp he is eager to attack the regular season, which starts Wednesday at home against Sacramento.
Nurkic entered preseason practices visibly in better shape than at the start of last season and injury-free. The Blazers are hopeful that he can remain that way and finally fulfill the promise he has shown as a potentially dominant big man.
Just in case, backing him up will be Cody Zeller, who doesn’t provide the offense of Enes Kanter (now with Boston) but brings better defense. Zeller’s career with the Blazers began with a broken nose that required surgery and cost him three preseason games but won’t keep him out of Wednesday’s opener.
In a perfect world, the Blazers won’t need Zeller, who spent the previous eight seasons with Charlotte, to carry as much of a load as Kanter did last season after Nurkic missed 35 games, mostly with a broken wrist.
Nurkic appears to be on the verge of a big season and Billups said he has been pleased with his play during preseason practices. But if there is one area where Billups would love to see Nurkic improve, it’s finishing around the basket. Nurkic agrees and said he has worked hard on that skill.
“I know that the hard work is going to pay off,” Nurkic said. “I have no doubt. I’m going to definitely be better down there. That’s my goal.”
Last season, Nurkic shot 56% (135 of 241) on attempts five feet and in. He shot 62.3% (43 of 69) from that same distance the previous season at the NBA bubble. For comparison’s sake, reigning league MVP Nikola Jokic shot 67.4% (318 of 472) from that same distance last season.
Nurkic, 27, said he spent all summer working on his inside game and finishing better at the basket, but so far it hasn’t paid off. During the preseason, Nurkic went 7 of 15 (46.7%) on shots five feet and in.
When Nurkic doesn’t finish well, many frustrated fans flock to social media platforms to rage that Nurkic should go harder to the basket and dunk. But Billups said he isn’t instructing Nurkic to take that approach.
Given how large Nurkic is, Billups said that many defenders will look to take the charge if Nurkic routinely goes at the basket too aggressively and without consideration of where a defender might be. The last thing the Blazers need is for Nurkic to find frequent foul trouble.
“He’s going to be sitting over there with me,” Billups said. “That’s not what we want. We want him to be able to read every situation.”
That means dunking when it’s there and slowing things down when it’s not, taking his time and making smarter, more agile moves against a defender.
Billups anticipates that with the guard trio of Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum and Norman Powell receiving a lot of attention, Nurkic is going to have plenty of opportunities to score in a variety of ways.
Part of the plan is to have Nurkic continue to facilitate the offense from the top or at the elbow and then look for cutting players, something Billups said the team did well last season.
“You don’t want to stop them from doing things that they’re good at,” Billups said. “You just want to try to add to it.”
If that aspect of Nurkic’s game is going well and defenses lapse, that’s when Nurkic can take advantage and score, preferably at the rim.
“He needs to make them pay at the rim, too,” Billups said.
The new offense has Nurkic moving more than he did in the past. He responded by reporting to training camp in shape. He is visibly trimmer and said he expects to be setting a lot of screens, moving without the ball and being in a position to attack the basket.
“That was my main goal, to be able to sustain more minutes,” Nurkic said.
Nurkic played just 23.8 minutes per game last season. At the bubble two years ago, he averaged 31.6.
An aspect of his game Nurkic isn’t worried about is operating the pick and roll with Lillard, who missed two preseason games. That, Nurkic said, won’t matter.
“If I left right now for 10 years and come back, it would still be the same,” Nurkic said. “That’s not going to change.”
-- Aaron Fentress | afentress@Oregonian.com | @AaronJFentress (Twitter), @AaronJFentress (Instagram), @AaronFentress (Facebook).
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