Most NBA fans don’t give role players their proper recognition. The majority of the time, fans spend their time praising and admiring the big stars. In Portland’s case, that would be LaMarcus Aldridge, Damian Lillard and, to a lesser extent, Nicolas Batum and Wesley Matthews.
Of course, no team would be complete without their role players. Basketball is a team game, after all. No team in NBA history has won a championship without at least a solid cast of role players supporting the superstars. And there are very few role players who execute their role perfectly like Steve Blake does.
Steve Blake is the kind of player who goes unnoticed. If you missed the game and you look at the score sheet afterwards, you would barely see his name on there. Indeed, Blake plays a very quiet kind of game, which is much different from other role players who are usually looking to go out there with a bang.
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Sometimes, low key is better. It’s always impressive to see a player who understands his limitations and doesn’t try to exceed what he can do. Blake knows exactly what his limits are and won’t usually try to do more because it might hinder the team more than it helps.
Blake knows his role and plays it to a tee. His role is mostly to run the offense while Lillard and Aldridge take a breather. Blake is adept at running pick and rolls and shooting three pointers. You will very rarely see Steve Blake trying to play one-on-one against a player, or actively looking for his own shot.
Instead, Blake always looks to pass first and only shoots when he is wide open. You could make the argument that Blake is too passive with the ball, but ultimately, teams would rather have someone who doesn’t shoot enough over someone who shoots too much.
Blake does an excellent job running the second unit, to the best of his abilities. He only averages 4.4 points per game and that’s because he simply isn’t a scorer. That’s one of the reasons why he is only shooting 32.5 percent from the floor. The other reason is because the vast majority of his shot attempts are from beyond the arc.
Currently, Blake is averaging 4.5 shots per game and 3.2 of those are from three-point range. He has struggled to get his shot going from out there, but that should even out over time. Clearly, scoring isn’t the best aspect to his game.
What he does well is his assists. Blake averages 4.5 assists per game in only 22.1 minutes per game. That averages out to 7.3 assists per 36 minutes of play time. Those aren’t eye popping numbers by any means, but it does show us that Blake gets the job done as a facilitator off the bench.
While Steve Blake isn’t the best role player, he is definitely an important piece to Portland’s championship puzzle. Time will tell if Blake can improve on his horrid shooting. If he does, Portland will be looking at an improved bench unit, led by Blake and Chris Kaman.
Though they will both be overshadowed by Aldridge and Lillard. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially if they both continue to produce the way they have.