LaMarcus Aldridge needs thumb surgery, and the Blazers might be in big trouble
We started to get bad vibes after Wednesday’s reports that the results of a magnetic resonance imaging exam on the left hand that LaMarcus Aldridge injured during the Portland Trail Blazers’ Monday’s win over the Sacramento Kings were “inconclusive.” We knew something definitely wasn’t right when Blazers general manager Neil Olshey confirmed the Thursday morning report by Sean Deveney of the Sporting News that Aldridge’s left thumb was in a cast heading into today’s follow-up MRI.
On Thursday night, we learned that our fears were well-founded:
The three-time All-Star power forward suffered the injury while defending Kings center DeMarcus Cousins early in the second quarter on Monday night:
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Aldridge left the game at the 10:26 mark of the second quarter and did not return, finishing the game with 10 points on 4-for-7 shooting in 13 1/2 minutes.
Inside the Blazers’ locker room prior to Portland’s Thursday meeting with the Boston Celtics, the news — as you might expect — wasn’t greeted warmly, as Jason Quick of the Oregonian reports:
Wesley Matthews was sitting in front of his locker and perusing his phone, when I mentioned “Bummer.”
“What?” he asked, and I pointed to Aldridge’s stall, where a horde of media had gathered for a 6:10 availability with Aldridge.
“Torn ligament. Surgery. Out 6-to-8 weeks,” I told Matthews.
Matthews chucked his phone over his right shoulder and immediately got up from his chair and left the locker room.
Jeff Stotts of the great medical/injury information blog In Street Clothes notes that Aldridge’s injury is the same one suffered this offseason by Los Angeles Lakers wing Nick Young. Swaggy P was expected to miss eight weeks, as well, but came back closer to the six-week end of the spectrum, which offers something, at least, for Blazers fans looking to remain optimistic as they grapple with the notion of life without their leading scorer (23.2 points per game) and rebounder (10.2 boards per contest).
Here, however, is the dark cloud within that silver lining:
The Blazers have been excellent this season, riding a balanced attack (10th in the league in points scored per possession, fifth in points allowed per possession) to a 31-12 record that’s good for the No. 2 seed in the West (behind only the on-another-level Golden State Warriors) and an 8 1/2 game lead over the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Northwest Division. But they’ve rolled up that record against a less-than-murderous slate of opposition; a handful of different strength-of-schedule measurements all peg Portland’s schedule thus far as one of the seven easiest in the league. As you can see from the rundown above, that’s about to change in a hurry.
The Blazers’ timeframe would keep Aldridge sidelined for anywhere from 18 to 24 games, slating his return somewhere between the first and third week of March. That’s an awful long time to be without your top gun, especially in as dangerous an environment as the Western Conference; while it’s very nice for Portland to have that 8 1/2 game division cushion, it probably wouldn’t serve as a seismic shock to see the now-surging Thunder take a sizable bite out of that lead in the weeks ahead.
The challenge for Blazers coach Terry Stotts will be to keep the margin from disappearing entirely. On that score, it’ll be nice to be able to rely on Damian Lillard, who’s in the midst of his best season as a pro (22.1 points, 6.2 assists, 4.7 rebounds and 1.4 steals per game) and has become one of the league’s most lethal fourth-quarter performers.
But the Blazers will need more than All-Star play from their All-Star point guard. With starting center Robin Lopez still recuperating from the broken bones in his right hand and reserve big man Joel Freeland still working his way back from a right shoulder strain, Portland’s frontcourt was already stretched thin. And Olshey saying Thursday that it’s possible that neither Lopez nor Freeland will return before the mid-February All-Star break, Stotts will have to lean even more heavily for frontcourt productivity on the likes of Chris Kaman, Thomas Robinson, Meyers Leonard and Victor Claver, and on small-ball lineups featuring Nicolas Batum and versatile reserve Dorell Wright sliding up to the four spot.
Batum has struggled mightily this season, averaging just 9.4 points in 33.7 minutes per game while shooting a career-low 39.5 percent from the field and just 28.1 percent from 3-point land, but he did have a bounceback outing (27 points on 9-for-15 shooting and 6-for-8 from long distance, 10 rebounds, five assists and a block) in Portland’s Wednesday loss to the Phoenix Suns. Blazers fans must now hope even more fervently that the Frenchman’s sweet shooting in Arizona was a sign of an impending return to form.
Despite the daunting prospect of facing the double-tough schedule ahead without their most accomplished interior scorer, it’s possible that Stotts, one of the league’s sharper tacticians, will be able to bubblegum-and-duct-tape together enough solutions to be able to weather the storm, fend off challenges from the snarl of teams below them in the standings (the Memphis Grizzlies, Dallas Mavericks, Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Clippers, San Antonio Spurs, Suns and Thunder) and keep the Blazers in position for home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs until Aldridge returns. This is, after all, a deeper, more talented and experienced Portland team than we’ve seen in the past couple of years, and Lillard sure looks to be more than capable of carrying the weight of superstar-level expectations; Dame seems like the kind of dude who will hear droves of people saying, “Oh, no, this is baaaaad news for Portland,” internalize it all, pressurize it into some kind of “nobody believes in us!” anger diamond and go average 30-7-7 for the next six weeks just to prove a point.
That said, there’s a reason why the Blazers’ offensive efficiency drops from top-five-in-the-league (108 points per 100 possessions) to just-above-bottom-five (100 points-per-100) when Aldridge sits down. It’s not just that he’s one of the game’s elite midrange shooters, a pick-and-pop maestro whom defenses just can’t leave alone at the elbows and near the arc lest they suffer the same fate as the Houston Rockets. It’s all the open space and opportunity that his shooting, and the threat of his shooting, opens up for Lillard, Batum and 3-point-bombing shooting guard Wesley Matthews. It’s the added bonus afforded by the continuity and familiarity that the Blazers’ core has built up by playing so many minutes together over the past few seasons. It’s the knowledge that, virtually regardless of what happens on an offensive possession and how badly a defense blows it up, they can almost always get a decent look just by giving it to the 6-foot-11 cornerstone with the high, nearly unblockable release.
It’s hard to replace all that. Well, no, scratch that; it’s probably impossible to replace all that. But the Blazers will have to do their best to keep plugging along, and Aldridge — reportedly in good spirits as he spoke briefly with media after the announcement — will do his best to both get back as quickly as possible and make sure he’s healthy enough to stay back once he returns. From Joe Freeman of the Oregonian:
“It’s tough. We have been in a pretty good rhythm most of this season. We’ve lost guys a lot this season. This is a totally different season from last year. But we have a lot of guys here that can step up and play better and make plays. So I feel like the team shouldn’t stall. We’re going to get guys back soon, so it’s going to be good for us.”
While Aldridge is to be commended for putting a brave face on bummerific news, we’ll have to agree to disagree that anything about this is “good” for the Blazers. The difference between Portland contending for a title and missing the playoffs entirely could very well rest on how well and how quickly a tiny stretch of connective tissue on the outside of a thumb heals. It seems an absurd statement, but it also feels like a sadly appropriate margin of error in this unrelenting Western Conference.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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