Portland Trail Blazers: 3 goals for Jusuf Nurkic in 2018-19

2. Be more efficient down low

Most of Nurkic’s shot attempts come near the rim since he is not the best shooter at this point in his career. He scores in the post and rolling to the hoop off pick-and-rolls. According to Cleaning The Glass (subscription required) 57 percent of his shot attempts came at the rim. Portland has lacked a pure post scorer since LaMarcus Aldridge left, but Nurkic has come in and filled that role in a big way.

The Bosnian big man uses his massive frame to move defenders back and create space. When he makes a few shots in a row, Nurkic becomes tough to slow down. If the Blazers’ shots are not falling on some nights, they can just feed him down low. He is also extremely smart passing out of the post when he faces a double-team, and if the Blazers put shooters around him, their offense becomes hard to stop.

The only problem is, Nurkic has a hard time finishing down low at a consistent rate. According to Cleaning The Glass, he only made 61 percent of his shots at the rim last season. He tends to force shots when he is not open, layz the ball up instead of dunking it, and sometimes just flat-out misses easy opportunities.

Here are the percentages at the rim for some other centers around the league last season:

• Nikola Vucevic: 73 percent
• Brook Lopez: 72 percent
• Karl-Anthony Towns: 70 percent
• LaMarcus Aldridge: 70 percent
• Al Horford: 69 percent

Going into next season, Portland is going to need its starting center to start converting at a higher percentage near the basket. Nurkic needs to relax a bit when he gets the ball near the basket and understand that he does not need to force a shot that’s not there. He is super skilled and has the tools to be one of the best paint scorers in the league if he can put it all together.