Kenneth Faried is the Manimal for his relentlessness. It seems like he has a grudge against the backboard every time he goes flying in for a rebound.
When he is in Portland though, the slight he feels is very very real.
Back on Draft night, Faried said he believed the Blazers had told him that he would be their selection if he was available at No. 21. Instead Portland took point guard Nolan Smith from Duke and Faried fell to No. 22 where the Nuggets swooped in to take him.
From there on, Faried has not bee particularly friendly toward Portland.
'I ain’t going to lie to you: I don’t like them,' Faried told Jason Quick of The Oregonian this week in Denver. 'I think it’s disrespectful what they did, got my hopes up for nothing. Every time we play them, it’s a little extra motivation for me to come out and show them what they missed.'
In that game earlier this week in Portland, Faried scored only six points, hitting three of his 10 shots. He had eight rebounds too. So playing angry did not help him — or his team which lost 101-93.
In fact, Faried has averaged 7.7 points per game and 6.3 rebounds per game in three career games against the Blazers. The 6.3 rebounds per game is the sixth lowest total for Faried against any team. Obviously, Faried, in his second year now, has a small sample size against the team that supposedly wronged him.
Maybe he needs a different approach.
Perhaps for Faried the thing to remember is that his play and his strong performances each night for the Nuggets while Nolan Smith is sitting on the bench for the Blazers is revenge enough against the team that passed him up.
