Trail Blazers fans may have lost track of who’s fit and who isn’t. After a terrible injury toll, who is still fit and what’s the status of the injured?
It’s pretty tough to keep up with who’s injured and who is fit. The season is still only 30 odd games old and this team had small and serious injuries up and down the roster. Let’s do a run through so Trail Blazers fans knows who’s available and who isn’t.
Back court
Thankfully our two franchise centerpieces have got through this season relatively unscathed. CJ McCollum is such a trooper, and hasn’t missed a game yet. Damian Lillard, though he has played a lot of minutes has only missed two games due to a back complaint.
We are a little concerned about the amount of minutes these two are playing, but they are max contract players so that’s their role.
Anfernee Simons has been fit all year and has played all three back court positions when asked to do so, the second year player can hold his head high for his early season performances.
The same can be said of Kent Bazemore, who has actually played the four in parts this year. He has had to guard bigger players all season and hasn’t skipped a beat. Simons and Baze have played every game this season.
Gary Trent Jr wasn’t expected to be part of the rotation this year but has stepped up to play spot minutes, Trent was side-lined for three games in November but has recovered to play some valuable minutes in December.
Sadly, we come to Rodney Hood now. Hood was having a career year, among the league leaders in three-point shooting, when he went down with a devastating torn Achilles in mid December. Hood is almost certainly out for the year.
Front Court
We will start with Zach Collins. The starting power forward for this season, Collins sadly went down with a dislocated shoulder in the third game of the season. He has stated that he wants to return this season but if its going to be March and they miss the playoffs, they may hold him out till next season.
Jusuf Nurkic is making great progress from the broken leg he suffered prior to last years playoffs. It was announced prior to Christmas that he would return around the all-star break.
Hassan Whiteside has been fit most of the year, providing some great production in the paint on both ends. He started off the year with some niggly injuries after missing a few games early in the season he is at full health now.
Though Mario Hezonja hasn’t been able to play to the level most expected of him, he has still provided some production at the three and four at the start of the season. Concerningly though he has been struck down with a back injury and has missed the last few games of the year, it’s not certain if he will return right away either.
The same can be said of Nassir Little. Little has shown some nice flashes on court, especially when rebounding the ball. Like young teammate Trent, Little has been great considering he wasn’t expected to feature this year. He also missed 4 games recently with a back complaint, but has recovered and has closed out the month of December in the rotation.
Carmelo Anthony was signed after Collins went down and has played all but one game since. We all know what Melo has done in Portland. He has been huge for this team and done everything asked of him.
Anthony Tolliver has struggled with his shot this year but thankfully hasn’t had to deal with any injuries. His shot has just started to drop in the last month, so he may receive more time at the four moving forward.
Skal Labissiere has now gone down with a serious leg injury. After an inconclusive MRI he will miss at least five games in the new year. The main worry is that this will be a season ending injury.
That’s the whole squad, a tough year injury wise, but this is NBA basketball and injuries are a part of it. After a tough 2019 on and off the court lets hope for better play and injury luck in 2020.