Snakebit: Will Injuries Derail the Portland Trailblazers' Future?

Greg Oden. LaMarcus Aldridge. Martell Webster. Brandon Roy. The names are familiar to every Blazer fan as are Joel Przybilla and James Jones. The first four were the projected starters and the last two key reserves.

The numbers are less familiar yet also burned into the minds of Blazer fans. 132. 50.

132: The total number of games missed due to injury by the aforementioned players.

50:  The number missed when you subtract Oden's 82 from the equation.

These are perhaps the key numbers for the Blazers future. If they can remain relatively injury free they will have a potent line-up for years to come that at worst will be a dangerous team in the playoffs and at best might celebrate a title or 5. However, it is a line-up that has shown some susceptibility to injury.

Oden's Ohio State issues are well documented. Following that up with a "freak injury" as he did might be a bit worrisome, particularly in the City of Roses where the shortened careers of Bill Walton and Sam Bowie are never far from the conversation. Oden would not be the first "can't miss" prospect to have his career crushed under the weight of a succession of "freak injuries". Certainly we all hope this will not be the case and anticipate a long, healthy career for him based on the effort we have seen him put into rehabilitation and his demonstrated desire to play. But that fear will remain until he puts together a couple of healthy seasons.

This team with Oden is all but guaranteed a playoff slot and to be a force in those playoffs. This team without Oden is a very good team that makes the playoffs and may or may not win a series but would need help to get to the Finals...probably not even reaching them then. And a large part of the reason is his backup.

Joel Przybilla is plan b. From one standpoint he is an excellent plan b. He is young, a strong rebounder, solid defender, and perfectly willing to set picks and not be any part of the offense. The part where plan b fails is this: 76, 56, 43, 77. That would be the games he has played. Twice in 4 years he has missed significant parts of the season.  

LaMarcus Aldridge is dealing with plantar fasciitis, a painful and repetitive problem that stole 6 games this year. His rookie year spanned but 63 games. While still early, this could give rise to questions about his durability.

Brandon Roy missed games in 3 separate stints this year and has bone spurs in his heel that will most likely trouble him for his entire career.

Martell Webster was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat. That is a potential career ender. Never a situation to be taken lightly, the aftermath of the Hank Gaithers tragedy has led to even more caution. In the blink of an eye he went from star on the rise with the best, most consistent stretch of his career to a guy who might be done. Certainly we hope not but the reality is...irregular heartbeats are serious enough they took a young, athletic, capable athlete and ended his season.

James Jones can provide a lot of what Webster does...hot shooting from 3 point range...but he has also never played a full season.

Individually none of these things will cripple the Blazers future. Taken collectively they are cause for great worry. The cold, hard reality is that some of the guys are important pieces but pieces that can be replaced. Przybilla, Webster, and Jones are excellent role players but you can find shot blockers and rebounders or shooters who can step in with little noticeable drop-off in terms of performance. But trying to replace all of them at the same time is a different story.

And trying to replace Aldridge, Roy, or Oden is a whole other ballgame. Aldridge at least has Channing Frye for back-up. Though the one-time lottery pick Frye is quite competent there is still a noticeable drop-off when he comes in the game and Aldridge leaves. Roy does so many things for this team that his loss would be devastating. The holes Oden is expected to fill are likewise things that cannot be replaced by a mid-level player.

Portland with a line-up of Oden, Aldridge, Webster, Roy, and Blake with Travis Outlaw, Jones, Jarrett Jack, Frye, Przybilla, and possibly Rudy Fernandez coming off the bench is a team likely to full Coach Nate McMillan's 50+ win prediction. Portland with a line-up of Frye, Outlaw, Roy, Jack and Blake would struggle to reach .500.

Do I seriously think the latter is likely? Of course not. But it clearly shows the damage injuries can do to a promising team. A few years ago I lived in Denver when their broadcasters were talking about how they would not trade their young team to anyone. They had players like Antonio McDyess and Bryant Stith. The injury bug struck them down and they never went anywhere. It was not lack of talent that demolished that team, it was injuries. If Portland cannot find a way to escape the injury bug they face many of the same pitfalls.

In the NBA, as demonstrated by this year's Western Conference playoffs, sometimes the line between success and failure is just 1 game. With legitimate title contenders such as the Dallas Mavericks squeaking in in the 7th seed...and likely to be eliminated by the Hornets in the first round...there simply is not much margin for error. Having your key players sitting the pine in street clothes in important games, having your chemistry disrupted by having key players missing a variety of games with injury, these situations can turn playoff contenders into teams like Golden State: on the outside looking in.

Think of how the playoff picture would look if Stephen Jackson did not miss the first 6 games of the season. They would have won 2 - 3 additional games at least and it might be Denver on the outside looking in. You don't need to have your big guns miss significant stretches of the season. If Golden State had gone 4-2 instead of 0-6 in those games they might even have home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. The difference between legitimate title contender and not even in the playoffs is that close.

And that makes the Blazers history of injuries into a worrisome thing indeed. Roy has played 57 and 74 games. If he misses 8+ games next year you can figure an additional 4 or more games lost by Portland. Are they good enough to still win 50+ games? If Aldridge misses significant time will Frye be able to provide enough of a spark to carry the load?

As talented as they are, the Blazer's margin for error is not so large that the trainer's room will not have a huge impact on their future. Only if they stay injury free will the anticipated success come to pass.