It seems like at least once a game, Jusuf Nurkic ends up on the floor clutching one body part or another as a pool of blood spreads from his prone body. Who says basketball isn’t a contact sport? He should start wearing a helmet so he can take those elbows to the face without missing a beat. As a bonus, a good enough helmet would probably shatter those thrown elbows so that people would learn not to mess with him.
Obviously, Nurkic is a very physical player. I could attribute it to him being from Eastern Europe, but I prefer the explanation that he’s just a big mean sonofabitch who just wants to hit people and get hit. Some people are just born that way. It’s an evolutionary thing. Some people are fighters so that people (like me) can be meek little pushovers who upload NBA highlights and say mean things from behind the protection of a computer screen.
But just because he’s physical, doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a …soft… touch. Those ellipses were meant to convey whispering, by the way. Whisper it. *s o f t*. He’s improved his ability around the rim so that, even though he’s still not always looking where he’s shooting it, he can get things to go in. Plus, he can shoot jumpers, even if his three-ball experiment has come to an unsuccessful end. I was all ready to call him “Nurk Nowitzki” or “Nurk Dirk” or something, but he has to hit more than a handful of threes before I can do that.