Following a season-ending injury he suffered in March, Jusuf Nurkic is expected to return to action in February 2020.
Here is what the President of Basketball Operations of the Portland Trail Blazers, Neil Olshey, said during the broadcast of the Portland – Detroit Summer League game:
“It brings a ton of rim protection, paint presence on both ends of the floor, his rebounding. Obviously, Nurk won’t be back probably until sometime in February, maybe.
We need to at least hold serve if not make some progress. Hassan’s been a player we’ve coveted. We’ve tried multiple times to acquire him by free agency or trade in the past.
We were just fortunate that the way the math worked out on this four-team trade, we were able to get Hassan and secure our paint and have an anchor there until Nurk gets back.
And then kind of the same two-headed monster we had last year with Enes Kanter and Nurk. We really want to kinda start playing a little more bully ball in the paint with our bigs.”
