It says something about the Blazers’ center rotation when Jusuf Nurkic is out and Meyers Leonard still doesn’t get to play. It appears that Terry Stotts is perfectly content to just run Enes Kanter and Zach Collins out there for all the center minutes. Is there such a thing as being too deep? That’s a silly question. Of course there is, because we often see situations where decent players don’t play as much as they should because they’re buried on the bench.
However, the case for giving Leonard any minutes at all is very weak right now, because Collins is DOIN THANGS with the minutes he’s receiving. He’s scored fourteen points in each of the last two games, he’s getting some blocks (which doesn’t necessarily indicate that he’s playing defense, but it does indicate that he’s blocking some shots), and he’s getting into Jokic’s head by acting like he wants to fight. He even got into a little scuffle near the end of this game, further implanting himself on Jokic’s psyche by demonstrating himself to be a loose cannon who will not hesitate to defend the honor of his teammates through the use of his fists.
The only downside of giving Collins this many minutes is that, by the end of it, his hair is all sweaty and it falls out of place. It goes from looking pristine during warmups to looking drippy, gross, and disordered by the end of the game. Would people make fun of him if he used a towel on it during timeouts and then had a trainer with a comb put it back how it should be? As a male with long hair that regularly needs to be tended to during the day, I would definitely not mock Collins for trying to look good during games, and I would hope nobody else would either. He should try it.