Portland Trail Blazers: Jusuf Nurkic’s foul troubles stunting his production

Jusuf Nurkic’s propensity to foul is keeping him from being a more dominant big man for the Portland Trail Blazers.

Jusuf Nurkic has begun his first full season as the Portland Trail Blazers‘ featured big man. There have been some bumps in the road, but Nurkic seems to be adjust fairly well. He is averaging 12.6 points and 7.8 rebounds per game through these first five games. He has scored double-figures in all five games this season. Nurkic also has two double-doubles and four games of seven or more rebounds.

His 39.3 percent field goal shooting number isn’t a pleasing overall number. However, he has slowly improved from game to game. Nurkic shot 28.6 percent from the field in the season opener against the Phoenix Suns. That percentage has slowly improved to 50 percent in the loss to the Los Angeles Clippers.

While his production has been decent, Nurkic has been hamstrung with a high tendency to foul. Overall, he averages 3.4 fouls per game. That puts Nurkic in an eight-way tie for 25th-most in the NBA. He has two games of five fouls, two games of three and a single game where he had one foul.

Questionable calls aside, the main source of his foul issue comes from his desire to guard with his hands instead of his feet. When he’s defending one-on-one, he likes to swipe with the intent to steal. That hasn’t gone well for him, as he only averages 0.6 steals per game. Nurkic has also gotten in trouble due to his ability to body players under the basket.

On a per game basis, the issue seems to have become worse since he arrived in Portland. He averages 3.6 fouls per game as a Trail Blazers, but that number was only 2.8 per game with the Denver Nuggets. However, that is just a matter of playing time: more time on the court has seen him average an additional foul per game.

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In per 36 minutes terms, he has actually seen some improvement. Nurkic averaged 6.8 fouls per 36 minutes during his rookie season in Denver. He followed that up by averaging 6.0 fouls per 36 in his sophomore season.

Nurkic is now committing 4.8 fouls per 36 during this young season. That’s better than where he used to be. However, it indicates that head coach Terry Stotts would have a hard time keeping him on the court for extended minutes without fearing he would foul out.

Evan Turner and Ed Davis also share Nurkic’s affliction of falling into foul trouble. Both players average 3.2 fouls per game. However, Nurkic still leads the team in fouls per game, and his situation is more dire than theirs. Turner and Davis are bench players, but Nurkic is the starting center. The team expects him to be on the floor longer than the others, providing his post presence on both sides of the court.

Unfortunately, the problem has directly affected his minutes. Nurkic has started all five games this year, averaging 25.6 minutes per game. That’s only sixth-most on the team.

Nurkic played nearly 32 minutes in the Blazers’ loss to the Milwaukee Bucks, his only game with one foul. However, he averaged about 24 minutes and 4.0 fouls over the other four games. He managed to play 27 minutes against the Clippers, the most this year when in foul trouble.

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The Portland Trail Blazers acquired a gem in Jusuf Nurkic. His ability to play in the post on both ends of the floor was sorely needed and takes this team to another level. However, his foul troubles are his Achilles’ heel. To be his best self for the team, this is a problem he needs to fix soon.