Blazers' Travis Outlaw Out For 3-5 Months With Stress Fracture

Travis Outlaw had surgery on his left foot today, and the prognosis for his return is not good. The Blazers are saying he'll miss the next 3-5 months, which would mean he might not return to the court until very late in the season.

Outlaw originally injured his foot during the Blazers' 80-74 win over the Charlotte Bobcats on November 14.  It's the same injury that teammate Martell Webster had last year.  Webster missed nearly the entire 2008/09 season.

Suddenly, the Blazers are very thin at small forward.  The Blazers began the season with a three-headed monster of Outlaw, Webster and Nicholas Batum at small forward, but only Webster is currently healthy.  Batum is expected to miss a significant portion of the season after having shoulder surgery.  The Blazers have been compensating by starting a three-guard lineup, with Steve Blake and Andre Miller in the backcourt and Brandon Roy shifting to small forward.

Over at SB Nation’s Blazers Edge, they have some thoughts on the team’s options with Outlaw sidelined:

There’s no doubt the Blazers will miss Travis. Nicolas Batum’s injury cost them their best individual defender. Now couple that with losing their best offensive player off the bench, their clear 6th man, and the loss is significant. Best defensive player, one of your best offensive players…no matter how your roster is built that’s going to reverberate. You might not see it on a nightly basis, but over time you’re going to miss those players.

The Blazers are in a position to mitigate much of the potential loss of Outlaw’s injury because they have one of the best reserve power forwards in the league waiting in the wings. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. His name is LaMarcus Aldridge. Sure he’s the starter, but he’s a starter averaging a shade over 31 minutes per game right now. He’s young, he’s fit, and despite the relatively slow start to the season he’s awesome. You could easily bump those minutes up to 40 for the next six weeks without crimping his style too much. If you can’t rely on Howard or Przybilla to fill 8 minutes per game between them then what are they doing on an NBA team? Plus, what is Outlaw’s job description? If you said, “Score, baby!” you’re onto at least two-thirds of it. What would LaMarcus dearly love the chance to do more of? If you said, “Score, baby!” then you’ve just quoted my first six girlfriends after we…uhhh…I mean you’ve just described Aldridge’s Christmas Wish List. He’s averaging 12.3 attempts per game right now. Give him two-thirds of Travis’ shots and he’s still only at 18. Granted they score in different fashions but nobody said you were going to be able to dig up an exact Outlaw clone. You probably have to run a few more set plays and you have to run them through LaMarcus, but that’s a legitimate option for the Blazers. The key here will be the centers keeping out of foul trouble, as the Blazers no longer have the luxury of filling with a scoring power forward if Aldridge has to slide to center. As long as you can keep Oden or Przybilla on the floor LaMarcus is going to remain your best option at power forward no matter what time of the game it is. No matter what the coaching staff says they’re going to try, my guess is they’re going to end up calling on LaMarcus in this situation and sticking with him.

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In the end the Outlaw and Batum injuries may cost us a couple games. On the other hand maybe they provide opportunities for players to shine who otherwise may have been overshadowed. Either way they aren’t season-derailing events. It ain’t good but it ain’t the end of the world either.