Blazer Report: Webster going back on the shelf

PORTLAND — Just as Martell Webster was taking his first steps back onto the court, he is being forced to step off again.

Webster is expected to miss the next four weeks after experiencing pain in the little toe joint (head of the fifth metatarsal bone) of his left foot during Sunday’s game against Toronto. The pain is near the site where a stress fracture developed during the preseason and sidelined Webster for the first month of the season.

Blazers General Manager Kevin Pritchard said the injuries are not related. An X-ray taken on Monday showed that the stress fracture had regressed, the team announced.

“There is pain in that area, but it’s not exactly the pain right where the stress fracture is,” Pritchard said. “Are we worried? Yeah. But this is just something that will take some time.”

Pritchard said Webster will be placed in an orthopedic boot for the next two weeks. The team will have a more accurate projection for his return after Webster is reevaluated at that time.

Sunday’s game was Webster’s first this year because of the stress fracture, and was only the second in which the Blazers placed him on their active list. Webster played five minutes and missed his only shot attempt — a 3-pointer — before experiencing the irritation in the toe.

“I didn’t take him out because of injury,” said Blazers coach Nate McMillan, “but at halftime he felt some soreness. And we got some X-rays there, and the X-rays didn’t show anything.”

While the Blazers are hardly desperate for Webster’s return — they are already getting productive minutes from Nicolas Batum and Travis Outlaw at small forward — McMillan had previously said Webster’s perimeter shooting would be valued.

But Webster’s teammates said they would prefer Webster take his time returning this time to make sure he is completely healed.

“It’s a blow,” said Brandon Roy. “We really were waiting for him to be back. We just want him to be patient. We’re gonna keep trying to hold it down until he gets back. But we need him, when he gets back, to be 100 percent, not gimpy and trying to fight through it. We need him back when he’s ready.”

After playing two-thirds of their schedule on the road, you might expect the Blazers would be relieved to be back in Portland for most of the next month. But Roy said the schedule seemed to have the opposite effect: Players grew so accustomed to being on the road that they were still going through their business-as-usual road routine during Tuesday morning’s shootaround.

“Everybody still seemed kind of hungry, like we were still on the road,” Roy said. “In past years dudes were like, ‘Oh, I can’t wait to get home, this has been a long trip.’ Nobody really complained about that.”

If any NBA team is comfortable on the road, it should be Portland. The Blazers have played a league-high 15 road games. But Portland has also won eight of those games, which is tied for the league high, and Roy said that business-as-usual attitude is a big reason why.

“Everybody was focused on each game,” Roy said. “And I think that’s the key to winning road games, is not going home too early.”