It's Time to Find Out How Ready Scoot Henderson Is for a Postseason Push

As the Trail Blazers officially enter playoff-chase mode, they'll have to battle for play-in positioning the same way they've battled all year: shorthanded.

Deni Avdija has been in and out of the lineup for six weeks dealing with a bad back; acting head coach Tiago Splitter admitted before Tuesday's hard-fought loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves that they need to figure out a long-term solution to managing their best player's health down the stretch. All we know for sure is Avdija is ruled out for tonight's game in Chicago, the first stop of a five-game road trip.

And Shaedon Sharpe, who missed the previous six games with a left calf strain, was diagnosed Tuesday with a left fibula stress reaction. Four-to-six-weeks is the official timeline for re-evaluation, but I'd be shocked if he plays again this season.

The Blazers may not be purely focused as an organization on collecting data on their young players anymore, but it still hurts that the grand total of minutes Avdija, Sharpe and Scoot Henderson will share the court this year will almost certainly be zero.

Not that this is new to anybody. Henderson missed the first 51 games of the season with a torn hamstring, Jrue Holiday missed two months earlier in the season with a calf strain and Jerami Grant missed 14 games with Achilles soreness. Toumani Camara is the only Blazer who's played in all 59 games to this point. They've had to survive all year with what they have, and they've somehow managed to get to this pivotal final stretch of the season exactly where most people thought in October that they'd be: in the play-in.

Now, the final push will have to come from a collection of players that mostly haven't been here before. And nobody has a bigger opportunity over the last 23 games to be the reason the Blazers stay afloat, and maybe even make the playoffs, than their third-year point guard.