Portland Trail Blazers Should Embrace Small-Ball Lineup After Robin Lopez Injury

December 16th, 2014 by Stephen Babb Leave a reply »

There's an obvious solution to the Portland Trail Blazers' temporary life without starting center Robin Lopez, but it may not be the best one.

Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski recently reported that according to league sources, the 26-year-old big man "is expected to miss four weeks with a fractured right hand" he suffered during the third quarter of Monday night's 108-95 win against the San Antonio Spurs.

His natural replacement is seven-foot center Chris Kaman, a 32-year-old journeyman averaging 10 points and 6.2 rebounds per contest.

But there may be a better idea, one that takes full advantage of Portland's offensive prowess and collection of floor-spacing shooters. In this scenario, pick-and-pop extraordinaire LaMarcus Aldridge would slide over to the 5 spot—a position he frequented prior to Lopez's arrival in 2013. 



Third-year power forward Thomas Robinson would bring interior activity to the starting lineup, but he's only played sparingly in 10 games so far this season. And the idea behind going small (and moving Aldridge to center) is premised on stretching the defense by keepin ...

Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NBA
Article written by

Advertisement

Comments are closed.