Why the Portland Trail Blazers should keep Rondae Hollis-Jefferson
By Ty Delbridge
1: Bench Depth
At the NBA trade deadline, the Blazers traded away Gary Trent Jr. and Rodney Hood to the Toronto Raptors for Norman Powell. It was a good trade for both sides, but the one problem for the Blazers was it left them with less depth on their roster.
The Blazers still have a good bench with Enes Kanter, Anfernee Simons, Harry Giles, Nassir Little and Jones but adding Hollis-Jefferson strengthens the back end of the bench up. He can play small forward, power forward, or even some center and doesn’t need the ball to make an impact.
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Portland also added T.J. Leaf and he could end up making it the team over Hollis-Jefferson, it will be an interesting battle to watch over the next couple of days once both guys can suit up. Hollis-Jefferson is the more proven player and I think he would be a bigger improvement to the team instead of Leaf.
As the season goes on if RHJ stays on the team, it will be nice for Coach Stotts to have a guy on his bench like Hollis-Jefferson, who he can put into the game for a few minutes at a time or even start if someone gets hurt or is resting.
He won’t fit too well on this Portland offense because of his lack of an offensive game, and that’s why he is a free agent in the first place. RHJ is a career 21.3 percent 3-point shooter, but Coach Stotts has made it work in the past with Al-Farouq Aminu, Maurice Harkless, Evan Turner, and now with Derrick Jones Jr.
The Blazers needed another body for practices and garbage time minutes. Portland has had to play Kanter, Jones or Little in the garbage time games, and now they can slide Hollis-Jefferson in instead.
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