Jusuf Nurkic: Will play Wednesday vs. Jazz

The Trail Blazers opted to hold out Nurkic, who was acquired from the Nuggets on
Sunday, from Monday’s overtime loss to the Hawks, but after getting an
opportunity to practice Tuesday, he’ll be able to make his team debut in
Portland’s final game before the All-Star break. The Trail Blazers deployed
Meyers Leonard as their starting center and Ed Davis as his backup Monday, but
look for Nurkic to cut into the minutes of both players Wednesday, even if only
in a light capacity. Stotts indicated that Nurkic would come off the bench
initially, but because neither Leonard nor Davis represent long-term solutions
at center and have both generally disappointed in 2016-17, it’s not hard to
envision Nurkic eventually capturing the starting role. Nurkic makes for a
high-upside speculative target in deeper leagues in the event he takes the
starting job and ends up running with it.