Portland Trail Blazers: Al-Farouq Aminu Is The Perfect Fit For The Blazers

You won’t see Al-Farouq Aminu on TV commercials anytime soon, but he’s the perfect fit for the Portland Trail Blazers.

When Al-Farouq Aminu signed a four-year, $30 million deal this summer, many people used his contract as an example of how much more expensive contracts for non-star players were going to be with the rising cap.

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Zach Lowe wrote on July 1 that the Aminu deal “looks like a nutty overpay for a tweener who can barely dribble and has never shot above 32 percent from deep … (however) Amid a rising cap, this is a defensible bet.”

The amount of money shocked some people but when Portland Trail Blazers general manager Neil Olshey signed Aminu it wasn’t just a defensible bet, it was one of the best bets of the offseason.

What often gets lost when guys sign contracts is that each player doesn’t have equal value around the league. Organizational philosophy, timelines of contention (trying to create a core of players who will all be in their prime at about the same time), roster need and player fit all matter immensely, and are different from team to team.

Reggie Jackson is much more valuable to the Detroit Pistons than he would be to his former team, the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Thunder already had two superstars in Kevin Durant (30.4 percent career usage rate) and Russell Westbrook (31.4 percent career usage rate) who are most effective as high usage players. Reggie Jackson also thrives as a high usage player, which made Oklahoma City a place where Jackson was unlikely to maximize his talents. In Detroit however, where there wasn’t a strong primary ball-handler or a clear high-usage player on the team, Jackson makes a lot of sense. Jackson has flourished this year in Detroit (20.5 points per game, 6.5 assists per game, and 30.9 percent usage on a 16-11 Pistons team) in a way that he likely never would have been able to do in Oklahoma City, running pick and rolls with Andre Drummond over and over again.

The Portland Trail Blazers already had a high-usage star on their team in Damian Lillard (31.4 percent usage this year) and a talented young guard in C.J. McCollum (26 percent usage this year) whose talents are also maximized when he has the ball in his hands. Whether or not LaMarcus Aldridge was going to stay in Portland (he didn’t, obviously) it didn’t make sense to add any more high usage players to the team. Instead, it would make sense to acquire players who are

• Good defenders with positional versatility, to make up for the defensive deficiencies of their backcourt
• Capable three-point shooters and finishers
• Low-usage guys who don’t need the ball in their hands to be effective
• Guys who are still young enough that they will still be in their primes when the team is ready to contend.
• Low-risk/low-cost guys who will be in their prime for the majority of their contract

While almost all of Neil Olshey’s offseason acquisitions fit at least some of the criteria above, Aminu fits the bill perfectly. He has tremendous physical tools (6’9, 7’3 wingspan, and a 9’0.5 standing reach — a half-inch longer than Meyers Leonard’s reach), and his combination of size and athleticism allow him to guard at least three positions (2 through 4) and potentially all five positions.

He was a question mark as a three-point shooter coming into this year (previous career high of 31.5 percent) but has shown significant improvement this year, shooting 38 percent on 4.3 attempts per game. He is having a down year shooting in the restricted area, shooting 49.4 percent in that area this season, but shot 59 percent in the restricted area last year. There’s a pretty good chance that his three-point shooting falls off a little and that his finishing in the restricted area improves, but it’s very likely that Aminu will be a capable player from both beyond the arc and inside the restricted area, a deadly combination. Aminu has a career usage rate of 15.6 percent, which allows Dame and C.J. to dominate the ball and create efficient offense. Aminu was still a teenager when he was drafted and only turned 25 a couple months ago. The Portland Trail Blazers have him for what are likely to be the best years of his career, and his timeline of contention matches up perfectly with Dame (25 years old) and C.J. (24 years old).

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The funny thing is that while some people may be shocked to see a guy like Aminu, who would probably be a disaster trying to create offense for himself on a consistent basis, making over $8 million a year and in a starting role, you’d be hard pressed to find many guys who fit with this team as well as Aminu does. The Blazers’ net rating has been 8.6 points better when Aminu has been on the court than when he’s been off the court, the best mark on the team, and the lineup of he, Moe Harkless, Dame, C.J. and Mason Plumlee, which puts Aminu at the 4, has a net rating of +16.5 in 34 minutes this season. Aminu’s four-year, $30 million contract received some negative attention before the season, but it looks like a great deal for the Blazers.