The addition of Arron Afflalo at the trade deadline was supposed to beef up its depth, but now it seems dealing for the two-way veteran guard was a premonition ahead of Thursday’s terrible news for Portland.
Injuries happen in the NBA — just ask Chicago and Oklahoma City — but Wes Matthews’ ruptured Achilles tendon stands out. It’s March, only weeks away from the first round of the playoffs. This injury appears to have derailed the highly-entertaining Finals contender that has spouted up at the Moda Center. And even worse, Matthews is set to be a free agent at season’s end, which means any “Well, at least the man is set for life” quips you’ll hear over the next couple days are terribly misguided.
Please, indulge me for a second. Matthews is a basketball fans’ basketball player. He’s been incredible at every level — Mr. Wisconsin Basketball in High School; a four-year standout at Marquette University under Tom Crean and Buzz Williams; an undrafted summer league signee of Jerry Sloan in Utah who turned a non-guaranteed contract into a starting position within a few months.
He was one of the best guards in the Big East for four years — Matthews averaged 18.3 points, 5.7 rebounds and 2.5 assists his senior year under Williams — and while he never beat my Orangemen, he did fight through a terrible shooting night to force OT against them in 2009 with a 14-point, 12-rebound double-double. You remember when your team plays Matthews; he’s a “Damn it, we have to play him tonight?” kind of player.
The guy isn’t just good — he’s well-rounded, ultra-knowledgeable and capable of handling whatever his opponent throws at him. Oh, we need a spark? I’ll nail four 3s. Oh, we need to exploit a mismatch? I’ll post my smaller defender three trips in a row. Oh, their point guard is on fire? I’ll check him and force him out of rhythm.
He didn’t come close to winning, but it filled me with joy to see Matthews in the 3-point shooting contest in February, surrounded by some of the league’s most heralded guards and marksmen. Matthews has been one of those guys for five seasons — FIVE — and yet is often viewed outside of Portland as an interchangeable piece for the Trail Blazers.
Here’s something for the haters to chew on: only four players in the NBA have averaged 15 points, three rebounds, two assists and two 3PM per game each of the last five seasons — Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, James Harden and Matthews. Here’s something else: unlike Curry ($11m), Durant ($17.8) or Harden ($15.7), Matthews has made an average salary of $6.5m the past five years.
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Am I arguing Matthews is more important to Portland than those three MVP candidates are to their teams — or even more important than LaMarcus Aldridge and Damian Lillard? No. But Matthews is the type of critical piece championship teams need. He’s the remix of Michael Finley. Matthews is the friend you bring to the playground who wins over everybody’s respect by guarding the other team’s best player and hitting clutch shots. On the open market, the 28-year-old could have been a market-max player, and whether or not Portland would have matched such an offer was going to be among the more interesting story lines of the summer.
It’s far too early to know what will happen this summer for Portland, who in addition to dealing with Matthews will see Aldridge and Robin Lopez hit the market as well. There are horror scenarios, described recently by Bill Simmons, where Portland is bounced early on this postseason, and Aldridge takes off for greener pastures. Nobody actually thinks it will happen, but then again, that might be because nobody wants it to happen — the Trail Blazers are one of the NBA’s most exciting young teams.
But the injury Matthews suffered is no joke. Kobe Bryant’s Achilles tear in April 2013 stands as the most high-profile Achilles injury in recent memory, and as Kyle Wagner pointed out for Deadspin at the time, it’s an injury that is mostly misunderstood in terms of complexity. The Achilles is, to borrow Wagner’s metaphor, a rubber band that connects your calf muscles to your heel bones. A minimal or moderate tear of the Achilles is less severe, obviously, than tearing the “rubber band” in two — which is what Bryant did and what Matthews has done. The number of post-surgery complications that can occur as the Achilles heals are many, and because of the proximity between the tendon and being a professional athlete (i.e. running really fast or taking contact), there is simply a lot that can go wrong in the long-term for Matthews.
Drexel University employees Dr. Douglas Cerynik and Dr. Nirav H. Amin published data in 2013 about the comeback efforts of 18 athletes dealing with ruptured Achilles tendons. Of the 18 players, just eight returned to the league for multiple seasons; seven never returned to play in the NBA. The average age for the injured players was 29.7; Matthews will be 29 in October. In the first year back from injury, players played 5.21 fewer minutes per game, and that number dropped to 4.42 in the second year back; PER dropped by 4.64 the first year back and 4.28 the second — roughly the difference between Matthews and Thomas Robinson.
This isn’t a death sentence for Matthews, who is far younger than Bryant was when he first had his injury in 2013, who then suffered setbacks in each of the subsequent two seasons. But Matthews is going to be out, at minimum, until sometime in the middle of next season. He’ll be 29. The type of player he will be — and for whom he is playing for — is largely up in the air. Good luck and God speed, Wes.
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Portland is back in sole possession of third place in the West after taking care of Dallas. With 22 games left on the schedule, the Trail Blazers are hoping to lock up home court in round one, and to see how far they can make it through the gauntlet. Can this team win the Finals without Matthews? How can anybody be sure? But it seems unlikely. What exactly this team can be over the next 6-8 weeks is unclear — Portland could free fall from the standings or spoil a season or two en route to the Western Conference Finals. I’m as curious as anyone as to what we’re going to get from them.
Why I’m dubious of Portland’s chances this season stems from how over-reliant the team has been on its starting lineup. Nobody leaned as hard on its top unit in the West last season, as Terry Stotts’ starting lineup dragged a sour bench as far as it could. A relatively young and supremely healthy bunch, Portland’s starters kept the team’s overall defensive metrics league-average, and scored so often that it took an “Only God Forgives” revenge season from San Antonio to finally shut them down.
This year, surprisingly, Portland has been better across the board, in spite of a full tablespoon of injuries being added to its recipe. Even with the long absence from Lopez and Aldridge’s broken thumb, Portland has transformed into an elite defensive outfit and a legit contender — all while the combination of Steve Blake, Chris Kaman, Dorell Wright and Meyers Leonard hold together the rotation with clear tape. The Afflalo trade was designed to give Stotts another look, including four-guard lineups with Aldridge at center that score more frequently than Vince Vaughn in Swingers.
@ColeFred24 They're great with Lopez, obviously, but whenever they can steal Aldridge minutes at 5 they should. Too much firepower.
— Joe Manganiello (@thatjoemags) March 5, 2015
Finally, with Lopez back and Afflalo in the fold, Portland was planning on being a 9 or 10 man outfit. Afflalo, Matthews and Nic Batum is a nightmare trio of wing defense and perimeter scoring for most opponents, and frees Stotts from playing Lillard and Blake at the same time — a backcourt that has allowed 104.6 points per 100 possessions over 520 minutes.
As I suggested in the lede, the Afflalo move now plays like an Inception spin-off where Portland saw the Matthews’ injury coming. But much of the problem Portland now faces without Matthews has nothing to do with Afflalo — who is more than capable of replacing Matthews’ individual role — and much more to do with breaking up a team clearly profiting from intense basketball chemistry.
There really hasn’t been a great explanation as to how Portland has evolved into an upper-echelon defense beyond “these guys really, really love playing together.” Zach Lowe gathered as much in his December column about the West playoff race. When Matthews is on the floor this season, Portland has a defensive rating of 99.7, and its starting lineup, through 629 minutes, has allowed just 97.1 points per 100 possessions, per NBA.com. Portland doesn’t have a Roy Hibbert- or Serge Ibaka-type presence who can dominate opponents; this is a nucleus that simply has logged a ton of miles together, that trusts each other, and knows where each other will be on the floor.
There’s just no way to know if Afflalo can, on the fly, replace all the stuff that Matthews did for Portland just by knowing so much about his teammates. Afflalo has been good in six games coming off the bench, hitting 36.8 percent of his 3s. Portland has outscored opponents by 7.8 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor, per NBA.com.
Over the 22 games without Matthews, though, Portland will have to assimilate Afflalo into the starting lineup while simultaneously overcoming its now paper-thin bench. It’s just so late in the year for such a massive change, and the Western Conference in March and April is not the best place to experiment with brand new rotations. The good news for Portland is that Lillard and Aldridge are really freaking good, and if they draw the right matchup in round one, that duo alone could lift them into round two. But what Portland does this spring, and then this summer, will decide a whole lot about the future of this franchise.
