Portland Trail Blazers: Checking in with the G League players

Caleb Swanigan

After playing 15 games and starting three for the Blazers, the rookie Caleb Swanigan was only averaging 2.6 points and 2.4 rebounds per game. Swanigan was assigned to the Canton Charge, where he has played three games.

In his first game, he put up 10 points, 11 rebounds, one steal and one assist, though he only shot 37.5 percent from the field in 28 minutes.

In his second game, e had 17 points, nine rebounds and one block. He shot 57 percent from the field in 32 minutes.

In his third game, Swanigan had a monster night. He finished with 28 points, 15 rebounds, five assists, one steal and one block in 36 minutes, shooting 69 percent from the field and 2-for-3 from the 3-point line.

Swanigan was pretty far down the depth chart and was stuck behind guys like Ed Davis, Zach Collins, Jusuf Nurkic and Al-Farouq Aminu.

It was smart to send him to the G League and Swanigan didn’t seem to have an issue with it. Instead of sitting on the bench, he gets to play big minutes with the Charge.

Swanigan is 6’8, 250-pound stretch-4 who the Blazers took with the 26th pick in the 2017 NBA Draft. He is a strong rebounder, has good post moves, is smart passer and can step out to knock down 3s. He needs to adapt to the speed of the NBA better on both ends of the floor and will hopefully do that in the G League.

If the Blazers do decided to change things up with their team via trade. Some other franchise may want Swanigan and it would be interesting to see how open the Blazers are to moving on from the rookie big man.

His next game with the Canton Charge is Friday, Jan. 5 against the Westchester Knicks.