The Portland Trail Blazers suffered an unfortunate injury last week when starting shooting guard Wesley Matthews was lost for the season (ruptured left Achilles tendon). It’s bad news for a team that has enjoyed plenty of continuity over the last couple of seasons and matched their 2013-14 start through 60 games with an equal 41-19 record.
Matthews may seem like a nondescript shooting guard who doesn’t get the same acclaim as Damian Lillard and LaMarcus Aldridge, but this is a key cog on this team that will be very hard to replace. There is no question this damages their chances at a long playoff run.
Starting With The Good News
The good news is that the Trail Blazers won’t be completely naked at the position. At the trade deadline, they acquired a shooting guard when they picked up Arron Afflalo from the Denver Nuggets. The idea was he would boost the bench and provide depth at the wing positions, but now he’s going to have to take on a more significant role for a team that’s angling for a championship run. He has plenty of experience starting, though, so that won’t be a problem for him.
And there are some similarities between the two as both are excellent guards in the post and can knockdown shots from the outside. Afflalo shot 42.8% from the field with the Nuggets while Matthews was at 44.1% with the Trail Blazers. Remember, though, that Matthews had the far better supporting cast. As a result, the team won’t have to change much – if at all – to accommodate Afflalo.
Matthews More Effective At The Offensive End
While there are some similarities between the two, make no mistakes about it: Afflalo is a downgrade for this team. It’s a downgrade to pull him off the bench and he’s a downgrade from Matthews. While Matthews isn’t exactly a star, he has emerged as one of the league’s better three-point shooters. He drained 173 shots from behind the arc this season while shooting at a 39.3% clip.
Afflalo was just hitting 34.4% of his threes this season and while he’s a good mid-range shooter, he’s a little bit spottier from long-range. He also attempts less from three (4.9 per 36 minutes) compared to Matthews, who is at 8.0 per 36. Afflalo is less of a threat to shoot a three and he’s less of a threat to make a three. That’s going to allow opposing defenses to clamp down inside a little bit.
Afflalo Not As Strong Defensively
Although Afflalo has long been known as a solid defender, diving into the analytic-side of things shows that he’s in fact a downgrade at the defensive end. Of course, some of that may have to do with motivation as he was playing for a team that hasn’t even won 35% of their games this season and just saw their head coach fired. Maybe he’ll be more inspired in Portland. At any rate, looking at ESPN’s real plus-minus rankings, Afflalo was 48th in the category among shooting guards whereas Matthews was 15th.
Time For McCollum To Step Up
The good news for Portland is that while Matthews-to-Afflalo is a step down, at least they have a capable replacement and should experience a huge dropoff. However, the other main concern is what happens to the bench. Afflalo was acquired because the bench had failed to deliver. It’s a young unit that had already been failing miserably. Just how bad is it? The Trail Blazers rank dead last in terms of bench scoring, averaging just 23.6 points per game. The idea was that Afflalo could chip in around double-digits per game and boost them into the middle of the pack. Instead, the burden now falls back on young shoulders.
It’s time to find out what the Blazers have in C.J. McCollum, who was a lottery pick last season. He played 18 minutes on Saturday in the Blazers 121-113 loss to Minnesota and only contributed three points while going one-of-five from the field. They need him to develop rather quickly. Other than that, it’s up to Dorrell Wright and Alonzo Gee, who haven’t cut the mustard previously.
If Portland can’t develop a bench and the addition of Afflalo is left to offset the loss of Matthews, then this team won’t be participating in the playoffs for a prolonged period of time. It’s as simple as that.
