The San Antonio Spurs decided to sit some of their key players Monday night while visiting the Portland Trail Blazers. Portland won the game 108-95, but suffered a huge loss in the process. Robin Lopez injured his shooting hand during the third quarter, hitting his hand on Boris Diaw while going for a rebound. After the game, head coach Terry Stotts confirmed that Lopez in fact broke his hand. Lopez later reiterates this, tweeting that he had broken it in two places and will be out indefinitely, later deleting those tweets. Yahoo!’s Adrian Wojnarowski tweeted out late Monday night that Lopez will like be out for a month with the injury.
Yahoo Sources: Portland’s Robin Lopez expected to miss a month with fractured hand. http://t.co/hSTq6BiQCg
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) December 16, 2014
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsFurther evaluation will be done on Tuesday, but as of now I expect about a month of recovery time. In the meantime, how will the rotation shake out? Does Chris Kaman start now? What about the idea of keeping Kaman in his bench role and starting Joel Freeland or Meyers Leonard? These are all popular questions racing through the minds of Rip City fans.
Kaman has played very well in his role off the bench. However, I don’t like the idea of extending his playing time. Taking him away from a bench rotation that has had their struggles these past few years is a scary thought. Keeping him around 15-20 minutes a game might be the best option. He’s been very efficient in those minutes. With his age, more minutes could lead to a diminished efficiency rating and put him at a higher risk of injury. The last time Kaman played all 82 games in a season? It was his rookie year.
With that in mind, which big man could fit best in the starting unit? The Blazers were extremely lucky to have Lopez for all 82 games last year. We have seen LaMarcus Aldridge out for a few games, and Stotts has played around with the lineup in those situations. Earlier this year Stotts inserted Meyers Leonard into the starting lineup in place of missing Aldridge for a game. With Leonard’s ability to spread the floor, he worked in that situation to keep the system the same, as Aldridge also stretches the floor with his deadly 20-foot jump shot. I don’t think it works for replacing Lopez. They need more of an inside presence in the middle, especially on the defensive end.
Joel Freeland is someone that might work to replace Lopez. He has earned more minutes over both Leonard and Thomas Robinson over the past two seasons with his hard work on the defensive end. With Lopez being the defensive anchor that he is, subbing him for the defensive minded Freeland might be the best route.
Then there is one more option – starting Thomas Robinson. I’m leaning towards this option. Mostly because I love watching him play and want to see what he can do with extended minutes. Aldridge would possibly have to move over on defense and guard the bigger guy – going back to the J.J. Hickson/Aldridge combination. A few differences here, though. Robinson is not nearly as bad of a defender as Hickson, but he is similar sized, therefore likely having to guard the smaller of the two bigs. Plus, you have Kaman to sub in for Robinson when matchups become problematic. Aldridge won’t have to guard the bigger guy all game like before.
Robinson was put in down the stretch of the game versus the Spurs and I thought that he played well. He finished with 7 points and 3 rebounds in just 9 minutes. We’ll have to see what Stotts decides to do. Not only does he have to address the starting center position, but according to Blazer Banter, C.J. McCollum is expected to return to full-contact practice on Tuesday. The lineup is indeed in line for a shakeup. This should be interesting.
Blazers next game: Wednesday VS Milwaukee Bucks 7 PM PT.
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