Moving forward, I’m sure we’re going to hear much more about the durability of Greg Oden. But at some point, something should be said about how difficult it seems to be in today’s NBA for centers to stay healthy.

People, in general, aren’t meant to be as tall as some of these centers. Or as heavy. And it puts an incredible amount of stress on the bones, joints, tendons, heart — everything — just to keep them going. It would seem to me, they are a lot more vulnerable than average-sized people to all sorts of injuries.

For example, Oden has been injured twice this season and people are concerned it will become a pattern. That may be. But, it’s not an uncommon pattern for centers.  According to official NBA stats Sunday morning, Oden — who has played in 46 games — stacks up reasonably well against the number of games played by other players listed as centers. Most teams, at this point of the season, have played around 54 or 55 games. Here are the number of games played by some other starting centers in the league:

Al Jefferson, 50 (but out for the season); Dwight Howard, 52; Yao Ming, 52; Mehmet Okur, 47, Shaquille O’Neal, 47; Andrew Bynum, 46 (probably out for the season); Chris Kaman, 15; Zydrunas Ilgauskas, 37; Jermaine O’Neal, 43; Andris Biedrins, 50; Brad Miller, 43; Andrew Bogut, 36; Marcus Canby, 43; Al Horford, 41; Tyson Chandler, 32.

That’s a lot of quality players missing a lot of games.

Portland has been fortunate this season that Joel Przybilla has played in 54 games. But Przybilla has had seasons when he played in just 32, 17, 56 and 43 games.

Without a scientific study, it seems to me off the top of my head that this is a relatively recent happening. In the old days, centers weren’t too much more at risk than other players — possibly because the floor was so much more spread out due to a lack of “help” defense and the faster pace of the game. But in today’s game, which is slower paced, so much of the defense is packed in the paint.

There’s an incredible amount of traffic near the basket — which leads to so many more collisions where ankles can be sprained, knees can be bumped and players can be knocked down. Big players now are always attempting to take charges, too, which was looked down upon in the old days of the NBA. That also leads to injuries.

All I’m saying is that the bodies on these guys take a pounding. And the structure of that body may not be as able to withstand the stress as the bodies of other players built in a more conventional fashion.

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Greg Oden, injuries, NBA centers, Portland Trail Blazers

Big players these days seem to suffer with more injuries. It’s just part of the package, whether it be Shaq or Yao or Hakeem or Patrick Ewing or even Tim Duncan. People of that size are physically unique to begin with and are just more vulnerable, I believe. The stress on their body due to their size is incredible.

Oden’s injury this time is not serious. If I had to bet on it, I’d say he’ll be back in closer to two weeks than four weeks. And how about a little perspective here. . .

Here are the number of games Bill Walton played in (out of 82) during his first six seasons in the NBA: 35, 51, 65, 58, 14 and 33.

And are you going to say it was a bad idea for the Trail Blazers to draft Walton? I didn’t think so. Just relax and be patient. A couple of weeks out of a player’s career are nothing. And really — even if his career path is going to mirror the injury problems of Walton or Sam Bowie,  you may as well relax, anyway. He’s here. He’s a Blazer. There’s no turning back now. He seems to be a wonderful young man who wants to play a lot more, even, than you want him to play.

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Tags: Bill Walton, Dwight Jaynes, Greg Oden, injuries, Portland Trail Blazers, Sam Bowie

So you’re getting headaches, right? And coincidentally, you have a job that causes you to accidentally bump your head against a brick wall a couple of times a day. So… I’m just wondering, if you quit that job, do you think there’s a chance your headaches might go away?

It’s all about cause and effect, see.

Which brings me to the University of Oregon quarterback situation. Do I really need to spell it out any further? When you constantly put your quarterback in a situation with no one protecting his backside, when you throw him out there on the edge in the option where linebackers can get him in their crosshairs, when you have the ball in his hands longer than two seconds on about 70 percent of your plays — do you not expect him to take punishment?

Which is fine, I guess, if that’s the way you want to play. I mean, there’s no doubt it’s a very difficult offense to stop. But when you choose to play that way, I’d say you better not just have three quarterbacks. You better have at least a half dozen of them at the start of the season and the No. 6 guy on the depth chart better be able to play — because by the end of the season, he probably will.

That’s all I’m saying. It isn’t bad luck all these guys have gone down. It’s a byproduct of how they’re being used. It’s nothing but cause and effect, isn’t it?

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Tags: cause and effect, Dwight Jaynes, injuries, Oregon Ducks, quarterbacks

This time it’s Channing Frye going under the knife. You’re just not one of the cool kids on the Trail Blazer roster until you’ve had a surgery, I guess. This one was interesting because the team didn’t release any news at all about the injury until after the player underwent the procedure, which was done in California. The cone of silence seems to suddenly surround any Blazer injuries.

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Tags: Channing Frye, Dwight Jaynes, injuries, Trail Blazers