ALAN HAHN'S NBA HOTSHOTS

Portland

Frail Blazers

Barely 48 hours after LaMarcus Aldridge joined the long list of casualties on the Trail Blazers with a sprained ankle, the team found out Friday that guard Steve Blake will be out indefinitely with pneumonia.

Add these to the list of injuries from the past month - centers Greg Oden and Joel Pryzbilla both out for the season with major knee injuries, Rudy Fernandez dealing with a chronic back issue, plus the losses of Travis Outlaw (foot), Nicolas Batum (shoulder) and Patrick Mills (foot). And did we mention that Brandon Roy is playing through shoulder pain?

"This has gone past crazy," said Blazers coach Nate McMillan, who was forced to step into practice with the team in early December because of all the injuries - and ruptured an Achilles tendon. "I'm afraid when our guys are on the floor. I really am."

Disturbing Euro trend continues

According to ESPN.com, three former NBA players, Damon Jones, Robert Traylor and Travis Best, planned to not return to their Italian League team, Martos Napoli, because none of the players has been paid in a month. Last season, players such as Nenad Krstic and Jannero Pargo also left Europe for the same reason. They join a long list of players - Danny Vranes, David Rivers, Rick Mahorn, Alex English, Tate George and Earl Cureton, to name a few - who reportedly have been cheated out of millions of dollars contractually owed to them by European clubs.

Another player, Chris Morris, is part of an ongoing legal battle against Greek team Olympiakos that will be heard in federal court in Boston later this month.

The NBA regularly promotes the international game and broadcasts matchups between European teams on NBA TV. But although the NBA holds up to a $500,000 cap on buyouts for players such as Ricky Rubio, whose Spanish team won't let him go to the NBA for another season, the league has little to say when European clubs breach contracts on ex-NBA players.

Then again, it tends to benefit the NBA when a player realizes that what seems to be a mega-million-dollar opportunity overseas isn't nearly as solid as the opportunity to remain in the NBA for less money.