When LaMarcus Aldridge signed with San Antonio three years ago, the sky was the limit. To say things haven’t gone according to plan is an understatement.
LaMarcus Aldridge, future Hall of Famer.
Sounds a bit odd rolling off the tongue, no? Well, you better get used to it.
With six All-Star appearances and five All-NBA Team nods, Aldridge has the goods to get there. No eligible player with that combination of accolades has failed to make the Hall thus far, and the former Longhorn likely isn’t done yet. He’s coming off of arguably his second-best season in the league, making the All-NBA Second Team and finishing ninth in MVP voting, one spot behind his new teammate DeMar DeRozan.
That the San Antonio Spurs opted for the former Raptor as the crown jewel of a Kawhi Leonard trade over a package of young players and picks is a clear sign that Greg Popovich has no intention of easing off the gas any time soon. Vegas’ predictions aside, the Spurs should be in the mix for home court in the first round of the playoffs, which means Aldridge will once again be in the discussion as a fringe MVP candidate. All in all, it’s not a bad place to be as a 33-year-old power forward in a league where players of his ilk are consistently being relegated to center or out of the NBA entirely.
Aldridge, of course, has no such worries. Yes, he’s old school (he shot 29.3 percent on just 92 3-pointers last season, and is serviceable if unspectacular on switches). He’s also arguably the most skilled big man in the game today, and an innings eater at that. Last season, only six players combined a 57 true shooting percentage with a usage rate over 29 and rebound and assist rates over 11 — LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid, Boogie Cousins…and Aldridge.
He’s given the Spurs exactly what they were expecting when they signed him away from the Trail Blazers following nine mostly stellar years in Portland. Whether they’ve given him what was promised is another matter entirely.
Early promise
When Aldridge came to San Antonio three years ago, they were coming off a first round playoff exit at the hands of the Clippers, but it was a hard fought seven-game series that came down to the final moments. The Spurs had won 55 games and employed a barely 24-year-old Kawhi Leonard fresh off a Defensive Player of the Year campaign and one year removed from winning Finals MVP. Damian Lillard was good; Kawhi was better, and didn’t seem to mind sharing the spotlight…or so it seemed.
Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker were also still present, as were supporting pieces Danny Green, Patty Mills and Boris Diaw. The Warriors, meanwhile, were not yet perceived to be the unbeatable juggernaut that they’d becomes despite their status as defending champs. Kevin Durant still called Oklahoma City home.
Aldridge’s suiting up in the silver and black was seen as a natural continuation of the big man lineage that David Robinson started and Duncan perfected. Those two played five seasons together, and while no one thought the overlap of Timmy and LaMarcus would be quite as long, it figured to last at least a few years. After all, although he was approaching 40, Duncan was coming off a season where he made the All-NBA Third Team and All-Defensive Second Team. He did not appear to be ready to receive rocking chairs from the home team at away games.
Vegas pegged the Spurs for 58 wins, a total they would exceed by nine while posting a net rating of 11.8, the best the NBA had seen since the 1996-97 Chicago Bulls and better than the Warriors that same year. Unfortunately in the playoffs, the old guard showed its age against the Thunder, falling in six games.
There had been some thought that Popovich was saving Duncan for the playoffs after career lows in points (8.6 per game) and minutes (25.2 a night) during the regular season. By the end, the opposite seemed to be true. Pop did all he could to keep his all-time great from getting exposed. It didn’t work, and after scoring just 36 points over the six game series, Duncan retired.
Aldridge, on the other hand, shined the brightest of any Spur. He averaged 26.8 points per game on a 58.6 true shooting percentage — an incredible number considering a usage rate of nearly 30. More importantly, he went toe to toe with Kevin Durant over the course of the series.
He had always sought out such a grand stage in Portland and never got it. When he finally had the opportunity to show the rest of the NBA what the Pacific Northwest had known for years, he came up as big as ever.
With Kawhi entering his prime, things appeared to just be getting started, but as we now know, appearances can be deceiving.
A slippery slope
In the ensuing months, the Golden State Warriors shocked the NBA world by signing Durant. The Spurs, clearly in need of a boost in athleticism and versatility to keep up, signed…36-year-old Pau Gasol and 33-year-old David Lee. When everyone yelled at them to zig, San Antonio sat up, grabbed the hose, and warned the masses to get off their lawn.
They were proven right…sort of. San Antonio again finished second in the NBA in regular season wins, and while their net rating had slipped considerably, it still trailed only the cheat-code Warriors.
Meanwhile, Aldridge had what most observers considered a down year. He averaged his fewest points and rebounds since his rookie season, and his usage rate was lower than it had been in six years. He wasn’t even in consideration for the All-Star team. Perhaps worst of all, the Spurs arguably played better when he wasn’t on the court. While they did outscore opponents by 6.1 points per 100 possessions when he was in, that was nearly two points below their overall net rating, and far less than the 10.2 when he sat — the largest number on the team.
The playoffs only added insult to injury. Instead of putting the Spurs on his back with something like a 30/10/5 stat line following Kawhi’s unfortunate ouster, Aldridge put up a 15/5/2.5 for the series while shooting just 41.3 percent from the field. It was perhaps the low point of his career.
Was it his fault? It depends on who you ask. After word of an offseason trade demand came to light, Greg Popovich admitted to over-coaching Aldridge and vowed not to do it again.
Last season, Pop made good on his promise. Aldridge was fantastic…and yet the Spurs still only won 47 games and barely snuck into the playoffs, only to be ousted by the Warriors in a gentleman’s sweep.
Hanging over the entire season, of course, was a Kawhi Leonard-shaped cloud — one that has finally moved on. Aldridge may have had doubts about how long the Duncan/Parker/Ginobili trio could keep churning along, but Kawhi was seen as a given. He’d be a Spur for life, just like Robinson and Duncan before him.
So much for easy assumptions.
The future
With Manu’s retirement, Aldridge now amazingly stands as the second-longest tenured Spur, behind only Patty Mills. The band has officially broken up.
In the span of two years, San Antonio went from the most logical perpetual challenger to Golden State’s burgeoning dynasty to a Western Conference also ran. They’re a team seemingly hanging on to relevance by their fingernails, refusing to hit the reset button when it’s fairly apparent that doing so would be the wisest organizational decision, at least if championship contention is still the goal.
That’s why Aldridge came in the first place, right? To win a ring, or at least enter every new season with a chance at doing so? Now he’s in a situation no better than the one he left in Portland. It seems as if the tail end of his prime will be spent jostling for position in a race with a predetermined winner.
Maybe he’s cool with it. Or maybe he’d just as soon have stayed up north and retired as the greatest Trail Blazer of all time. Instead, he’ll be a player that isn’t likely to remembered with any great fondness by either fan base. It’s the risk he took when he walked, so maybe none of us should feel bad.
Still, it’s hard to look at what he’s achieved and say he didn’t deserve better. If nothing else, Aldridge has done his part, and he’ll keep doing it, whether or not he gets the credit he deserves.
Sadly, he probably never will.