At some point it will stop being cute and start being annoying that Jusuf Nurkic is always trying to advance the ball himself/coordinate the offense, but for now, the fact that he does these things even though he doesn’t quite have the ball control to do so fits neatly into the narrative that the Blazers are giving it everything the’ve got in order to secure that eighth playoff seed.
By the way, I thought chasing eighth seeds was the mark of a bad organization? What happened to that? The team with the least successful tank is the one that should be punished with a guaranteed lost in the first round.
Anyway, back to Nurkic. He does have some nifty passes in his arsenal even though he had no assists in this game, but just because you can pass doesn’t mean you get to elect yourself honorary point guard for a possession. Mason Plumlee could pass too but I don’t remember him trying to take it coast to coast (maybe he did). In this one attribute, Nurkic reminds me a bit of Trevor Booker, who also has a tendency to push the ball even though he can’t really dribble very well.
At least Nurkic is aware enough of his limitations not to hoist three-pointers. So there is some amount of self-awareness in there somewhere.