Caleb Swanigan Rumors

Stotts has been particularly tough on Nurkic. In practice he gets after him, players say, and he’s not shy about bluntly answering reporter’s questions about a subpar Nurkic effort. To his credit, Nurkic has embraced it, praising Stotts for the trust he has shown in him and declaring that improving “is what it’s all about.” “Terry deserves a lot of credit for finding what pushes his buttons,” Olshey said. “Some guys you got to hug, some guys you got to kick in the butt a little bit and he’s found a really good balance of when Nurkic needs the support and when Nurkic needs to be held accountable and called out for the inconsistency. Everyone forgets, [Nurkic] is a young guy. It’s his first year as a full time starter. I think what happened is that everybody on the outside looks at Nurkic as this established veteran guy, but in here he’s a guy on a rookie scale. So you’re not going to treat him any differently than you would treat Zach Collins or Caleb Swanigan or Meyers Leonard or anybody else because he hasn’t totally earned the right to have the ebbs and flows without being called out on it yet.”