LaMarcus Aldridge: ‘I’m Definitely Going to Shoot More Threes’
Portland Trail Blazers All-Star LaMarcus Aldridge says he’s adding the three-ball to his arsenal this season.
Prior to this season, LaMarcus Aldridge, All-Star forward for the Portland Trail Blazers, was a bit bullish on extending his game to the three-point line. Now, the forward says he’s going to be the next big man to join the trend of floor-stretching bigs in an interview.
"I’m definitely going to shoot more threes. Coach has been trying to get me to shoot them for the last two years. I think I’m the last player who didn’t want to shoot threes. I just wanted to wait until I was more comfortable with it. I definitely worked on it this summer and I feel more comfortable with it. Coach has already put me in plays where I’m in the corner more, I can down the three."
While Aldridge is known as one of the best mid-range shooting bigs in the league, he hasn’t been quick to adopt to three-ball like many of his peers i.e. Spencer Hawes, Chris Bosh, and Thaddeus Young, all bigs whose three-point attempts have increase drastically over the last few years.
Last season, Aldridge only attempted 15 threes. In comparison to the players mentioned above, Bosh attempted 218, Young attempted 292, and Hawes attempted 308. To better picture the disparity between Aldridge and the others, Bosh, Young, and Hawes all attempted more threes last season than Aldridge has through his entire career (116).
And on those 116 attempts, Aldridge has only hit 24 or 20 percent, a number that makes the transition interesting. If Aldridge isn’t a respected three-point shooter, the attempts won’t matter — it’ll feed into the defensive game plan by opponents because Aldridge shooting threes, a shot he hasn’t proven to be average at, is much better than him shooting mid-range shots, his favorite on the floor.
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