He has always been an enigmatic player, but over the past couple seasons he has been a much more consistent performer than earlier in his career. Even with his offense suffering as a result of the knee and wrist injuries he's been battling through this season, we expect him to defend effectively and use his great court sense to help the team.

I think Nic's play has been the biggest disappointment for me so far this season. For this to be a championship level team, they need their starting small forward to bring it on the defensive end every night. As he gets healthier, I expect his shot will start dropping and he'll regain his confidence yielding more effort on the boards and more attempts going to the basket (his free throws arewaydown this year as are his shot attempts, shooting percentage, and rebounds). But his defensive play has not been what we've come to expect from him.

He does a good job using his length and quickness against shorter players still, but has sometimes looked, well, out of it at the defensive end. Last night, as one example, he had switched onto Lowry on a pick as the ball rotated to the left side of the court in Toronto's set. It was late in the clock, and theRaptorswere forced to take a long shot as the clock ran down. Really, a very good team defensive set for the Blazers. But Lowry was able to make a straight line to the basket as Nic stood ball-watching, got the rebound, and put it back up for two easy points. Nic was in no-man's land, guarding no one, and didn't turn to rebound until well after that shot was up. I've noticed this kind of thing more this year than in the past several.

We know he has a higher basketball IQ than that. What's up with Nic? Are his injuries to blame? Should Stotts be shutting him down for a few weeks to get right? We need him playing his best come June.