The Blazers end Nassir Little’s long wait
Coming into this college basketball season, everything appeared to be lining up for Nassir Little. He was a top recruit out of high school, going to a top college program in North Carolina where he would seemingly have the chance to prove that he was one of the best college players in the country, and a guy worthy of a Top 5 pick in the draft.
Fast forward eight months and things didn’t exactly go according to plan. But even heading into the draft, the prevailing thought was that Little’s floor was the bottom of the lottery. Then, last night, he went into a free fall, all the way down to the end of the first round.
But sometimes these types of things work out. In this specific instance, I think Little ended up in a great spot where his strengths will be valued and accentuated and his weaknesses won’t be put on display where they might’ve been with a team in a worse position.
Ever since the Blazers handed the reins to Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum, they’ve been one of the most successful teams in the league: a perennial playoff team in a difficult conference. But this is one of the more unique backcourt pairings in the league. Neither of them are high-level defenders, which can create problems in a guard-driven league.
The Blazers have often surrounded these two with defensive-minded players like Al-Farouq Aminu and Moe Harkless. But Aminu will be a free agent this offseason and will likely command more than what the Blazers can pay him. Little is essentially a younger, cheaper version who can potentially grow into something more. He’s a stout 6-foot-6 with a 7-foot-1 wingspan so he should profile as a disruptive defensive presence early in his career, at the very least.
As long as the Blazers continue to ride the Lillard-McCollum backcourt, they’re going to need guys on the wing who can occasionally take on difficult defensive assignments anywhere on the floor. Little has the look of a swiss-army knife on defense, able to slide up and down the positional spectrum with ease.