News broke last night that NBA.com, the Blazers have been a bit better defensively with Aldridge off the court -- they have a 100.8 defensive rating with Aldridge and 97.1 without him -- but as you can see, they've been good either way. And offensively, they fall off a cliff without their big man. They have an offensive rating of 108.0 with Aldridge on the floor and 99.6 without him, a mark that would rank 29th in the league.

Head coach Terry Stotts is smart and will definitely stagger lineups over the next month to limit Lillard, Matthews, and Batum all being off the court at the same time. Scoring the ball will be a struggle for a while, but when Lopez gets back, they can rely on their defense (second-best in the NBA, with or without Aldridge) to stay in games. And if they're in games at the end, there aren't many closers right now better than Lillard.

Thankfully for the Blazers, they’ve afforded themselves a comfortable cushion that they can fall back on. Aldridge’s injury probably pushes them out of contention for a top seed, but they’ve built up enough equity in the win column that they likely don’t have to worry about falling out of the playoffs altogether.

Our algorithms agree with that notion –- numberFire projections guru and Chief Analyst Keith Goldner ran some simulations for me and our numbers say that Aldridge being out will cost the Blazers about 0.65 wins. Admittedly, the projections seem to be on the conservative side, but the playoff odd change (down 1%) and championship odd change (down 0.6%) are probably fair.

So no worries, Blazers fans. Your team at full strength is good enough to contend for a championship, and that remains the goal. If Aldridge and company are fully healthy when the playoffs come, you’ll be right back in the mix of things.