Last night's performance vs. the Sixers drove home something for me that has been percolating in my mind for a while now. The issue being that all our performance angst, all our second guessing of the team and the roster and the future of this squad have been questions generated by, sustained by, and driven home by Nurkic's on-court performance.

1. Hey, what happened to the Blazers offense?

Well, Jusuf Nurkic is currently generating 0.93 PPP with a usage rate of 28.7%. Compare that to the "struggling" CJ McCollum who currently generates 1.08 PPP on a lower 25.7% USG. That's right folks, if you go by touches, Nurk isn't the 3rd player in our Big 3, he's the #2 option in the offense.

2. Mo Harkless, "whiner."

我非常unsymathetic时快速的文章哈rkless came out because yes, he was drifting about aimlessly. We know that one of Harkless's main struggles is to remain engaged and active and not sulk over feeling left out of the reindeer games, and I think it's fair to hold him accountable to be more like Pat and other players who do their jobs no matter what. That said, it's painfully clear this season that Nurk's deft passing touch has been abandoned as he has struggled to find his touch in the post. Nurk is clearly in his own head within 5' of the basket.

昨晚的比赛drives this point home because angry Nurk, busted face Nurk, the one that helped save the day in the 4th quarter was also a Nurk who was easily sharing the ball and playing within the flow of the offense.

3. "We have a problem playing at home."

That was a postgame quote given to the media by Nurkic recently. If you look at Nurkic's home/away splits, it's pretty clear that Nurkic himself is better on the road than at home. Here are the categories where Nurkic is better on the road:

Rebounds, Assists, Blocks, Turnovers, Fouls, DRtg, and +/-

The only thing he does better at home is score. While that's important, the per game difference is a mere 1.5 PPG. Now I admit I haven't compared his splits to other players to see if he's an outlier or part of an overall team trend but whether his home/road splits represent cause or effect, his play at home appears to become significantly more one-dimensional.

If you'll allow me a little armchair analysis, this seems to play right into everything else we've seen with Nurk offensively. He's like a lot of young guys. He wants to rack up a lot of points, get cheers from the crowd and be a hero. On the road there's no love to seek from the fans in attendance so he can focus more diligently on doing all the parts of his job and being his best self. Back home in a place he has adopted to the point of being seen grabbing coffee at the corner shop in his bathrobe, he seems to be desperate bring on a relapse of Nurk Fever. He's chasing that emotional high and also probably believes that his next contract will also be feverishly high if he's riding a wave of popularity. Heck there's some real truth to that anyway.

It's a funny thing. Olshey and Stotts both have roles to play in Nurk's painful combination of importance to this roster and inconsistency of play. Both have some power to influence the situation. Whatever they can do, they probably need to do it soon if they are going to avoid getting fired. At the end of the day however (Olshey-ism intended), it comes down to Nurk. Do you want to be Portland's hero, Jusuf? You still can! It starts with staying focused on both ends, and ends with actively looking for cutters when you have the ball in the post. Honestly I don't think it requires much more than that.