In all seriousness, if Roy never is the same player again due to his knees, it will be a big loss to the league talent-wise. He's the biggest name and the best player on the Blazers and one of their biggest reasons why they were supposed to be contenders for years to come in the West.
With his injuries now and his nearly untradeable max contract, the Wesley Matthews signing gets better and better each day. Without him, they would be in more hurt (no pun intended) than they are now.
Roy will be out tonight due to those knees. Joel Pryzbilla will be out. Oden is out for the year. That leaves a starting lineup of Andre Miller, Wesley Matthews, Nicolas Batum, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Dante Cunningham. Not exactly the lineup they had foreseen for this season.
They have an offensive rating of 107 (13th) and a defensive rating of 107 (16th). As a result, their 15-15 record is right about where you would expect it to be.
After the Jazz beat them back in November, they proceeded to lose 5 more before going on a 4-game winning streak. They then lost three games in a row and then won 3 games. They're the Even Steven of the NBA right now.
After edging out the warriors on the 17th, they lost their next game against them on Christmas which is hopefully their first loss in another losing streak.
The Blazers are are 1-11 in their last 12 trips to Utah. They're 3-10 against teams above .500 and are just 5-12 away from home.
This is another should win game for the Jazz. Let's hope they can come out and put together the full 48 minutes and take advantage of this stretch of games.
I'm also looking forward to the Deron/Matthews match-up.