Blazers Key Player Blown Out Of Season Due To Neck Injury Causing…

In their first game back in Portland, the Trail Blazers honored Jusuf Nurkić, Nassir Little, and Drew Eubanks with a video tribute.

Little and Nurkić will start tonight’s match against their former team. Before the tribute video began playing during the first timeout of the game, all three of them received hearty applause. It was now 18-8 in favor of the Suns.

Two of the returnees that Phoenix acquired in the Deandre Ayton trade were Nurkić and Little. Before this trade was even made, Eubanks signed a contract with the Suns during the offseason.

The Suns (14-12) and Blazers (6-19) did square off earlier this season on Nov. 21, as Phoenix beat Portland 120-107 in an NBA In-Season Tournament game.

In the triumph, Nurkić finished with 18 points and 12 rebounds. Little finished with 13 points and five rebounds while playing a season-high 22 minutes. For him, the 13 points remain a season high. Adding seven more points off the bench was Eubanks.

“I love it,” Nurkić said after the game about playing his former team. “I have a lot of respect, a lot of love for the people there from top to bottom, just love being able to share the floor against them and compete. It’s great for me to see familiar faces and people and just to be around them for a little bit.”

All three of the players have had nothing but positive things to say about their former team when questioned about them this season.

Jusuf Nurkić

During the previous season, the 6-foot-11 Nurkić, 29, averaged 13.3 points, 9.1 rebounds, and 2.9 assists in 52 games while starting for the Blazers. During the 2016–17 campaign, he was traded from Denver to Portland. He was only a player for the Nuggets and Blazers prior to joining the Suns, having been selected by the Bulls with the 16th overall pick in 2014.

n total, he played in 324 regular season games for Portland across seven seasons. He averaged 14.4 points, 9.8 rebounds and 1.2 blocks on 51% shooting in 27 minutes per game for his Portland career.

This season, he is the only Suns’ starter to not have missed a single game so far. He enters tonight having recorded 12 or more rebounds in the last four games. On the year, he is averaging 12.3 points, 10.2 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 1.2 blocks and 1.0 steals.

Coach Frank Vogel has consistently praised Nurkić’s ability to adjust to the team’s system throughout the year. Vogel talked about him extensively after Sunday’s 112-108 victory over the Washington Wizards. Nurkić had six points, 17 rebounds and five assists in this game.

The full quote: “He was terrific. We’re coaching him hard on what to do on the defensive side of the ball. I think there were some possessions against the Knicks where we felt like he could have attacked the basketball or protected the rim better. Obviously, he’s not going to be flying around out there, but he’s got great size, great hands, and is long. So, we want him to really be a presence at the rim. It wasn’t great against New York, but he was really great in the second half tonight, and not just at the rim, but his mobility in pick-and-rolls. We’re continuing to learn our team and figure out the best way to put them in positions to succeed on both sides. But defensively with (Nurkić), his ability to jump out and just impact the ball at the point of the screen was excellent tonight. He did a great job.”

Nurkić will look to continue his strong play against his former team tonight.

Nassir Little

After being selected 25th overall out of North Carolina in 2019, Little played his first four years of professional basketball in Portland with the Blazers.

He played in 192 games during his tenure with Portland, scoring six points and pulling down 3.2 rebounds in 17.1 minutes per night.

He has really come into his own this season with the Suns, making the most of his increased playing time as a result of the team’s ongoing injury woes.

Little is shooting 49.3% from the field and putting up 5.4 points and 2.7 rebounds on average. The 6-foot-6 forward is always tasked with covering the top defender on the other team.

Little has played 23+ minutes in the past three games and got his first start this season during Sunday’s victory, so we will see if this trend continues tonight.

Drew Eubanks

Eubanks has the deepest roots to the area out of all three of these players. He played high school basketball at Reynolds High School in Troutdale, Oregon and later went on to play for Oregon State in college.

After joining the Spurs in 2018 as an undrafted free agent, Eubanks worked his way up to become the team’s backup center going into the 2020 campaign. At the 2022 trade deadline, the Spurs traded him to the Raptors; he eventually signed a 10-day contract with Portland before making enough of an impression to be given a regular contract offer.

He spent 1.5 seasons with Portland, where he appeared in all 22 of the team’s games during the latter half of the 2021–2022 campaign. The 6-foot-10 Eubanks averaged 6.6 points, 5.4 rebounds, 1.3 assists, 1.3 steals, and 0.5 steals per game on 64/39/66 splits while playing in 78 games for the Blazers last season.