Portland Trail Blazers: 3 season goals for Jusuf Nurkic in 2020-21

1. Lower the foul count

One criticism that can be leveled at Nurkic is that he is foul-prone.  For his career, he has averaged 3.1 fouls per game, which is simply too high. During his time with the Blazers, this number is 3.4 per game which can be attributed to the greater playing time.

However, as we all know, a higher foul count means that you can be less effective on the court. Nurkic has fouled out of 19 games over his career and finished with five fouls 44 times. This is a huge issue in close games.

Nurkic was top seven in fouls committed in the league in his only two full seasons with the Blazers. While his shot-blocking has been solid, they do not justify the potential time that Nurkic has to sit as a result of being in foul trouble.

It is not just in late-game situations either. If Nurkic sits in the first half due to foul trouble then this can impact the rotations for the Blazers throughout the entire game. The Blazers found themselves in plenty of games last season where they were trying to come back from a large deficit from early in the game. They almost missed playoffs due to this.

This was admittedly without Nurkic but sitting on the bench with foul trouble is still sitting on the bench. The Blazers are looking like they are going to contend this year but to do this they need their best players available when they need to be.