Poeltl though <3
https://baselinejam.blog/2021/02/05/...s-5-takeaways/
Could LMA make history by being the worst ever?
i thought his game would age better than this, but damn this guy really fell off a cliff. cant believe we were potentially close to moving him for wiseman
He still can score, but his defense/rebounding is terrible.
He just can't recover at all against any quicker guards. From the first game of last season, he just couldn't move the same.
yep was thinking today about how 2 years ago i would have put good $$ on older lma >> older ddr. with lma extending his career another 5 years by increasing his 3pt range, getting slimmer and surviving on D against fewer true big men .... and DDR being made obsolete by no 3ptr and not having the size advantage to slide down positions
/nevermind
Nobody ever guards him...ever![]()
Nah he still commands double/triple team. They can hide him in a small ball with great help defense Vassell/DJ/White if they must. But yup Aldridge is pretty much a defensive liability out there
Him trying to block 3pt shots from the paint was evidence enough
Aldridge really looked like he was losing weight during the bubble. He needed to double down on that and basically be a skinny, floor-spacing big who would live in inside sometimes through experience. It's so weird that he seemed on track to be that guy but by the time the season began was back to his old self body-type wise. I think the Spurs might've really planned to trade him to GS, and LMA stopped following the plan because he didn't think he'd be part of the team anymore. It makes you wonder if an Aldridge-to-GS deal was salvageable after Klay's injury. Like could the Spurs have added something to make it happen.
I'm not saying that adding a first would've been a no-brainer. Wiggins' deal is horrible, and the Spurs might've gone into the tax after the trade. But if they liked Wiseman enough to trade up for him, it's a shame they couldn't get something to happen.
No one can say the Wiseman trade was definitely happening had Klay not gotten injured. We'll never know. What we do know is if it did happen, it would have been highway robbery for the Spurs. Those kinds of lopsided trades almost never happen in the NBA. Spurs fans can keep dreaming like it would have been for real though. Makes it easier to be disappointed about something than nothing as we all know is what Spurs fans enjoy doing.
There's good evidence that it was in the cards. I wonder if PATFO knew how Aldridge would play if they would've paid whatever they had to to make GS agree. Or maybe GS wanted an unprotected first and Murray/White included. Even with LMA falling off, it's not clear that latter trade would've been worth it. The Spurs can still draft or sign an impact big next off-season. Trading for Wiggins and giving up what could've been a high pick in a great draft would've had a huge long-term effect on the club, and Wiseman doesn't look like an obvious superstar right now anyway.
Aldridge is so poor defending guards that we've seen opponents hunt him down for pick and roll plays early in the game almost every time.
If we're going to play him at all (I think he should be a bench player) then we should trap the ball handler anytime he is the target of a P&R play and start the backside defensive rotations from there.
I don't understand why we don't do this very often.
At the very least it forces the offense to put the ball in the hands of someone other than their primary option.
I don't disagree that there was evidence; there were definitely whispers and leaks. My point is, we don't know how much of a sure thing it was or at what point of the process it was in. Been following the NBA too long to know that these insider scoops usually fall through for God knows what reason. It would have definitely been the kind of trade that would have brought in all fans of the Spurs who had little faith remaining in the team back to the fold. Like I said, highway robbery. Mainstream media would have been screaming like the "Spurs are back". That alternative universe just sounds too good to be true.
Richaun Holmes should probably rate even higher than he does on these charts-- he has the best DRtg of all starters on a very bad defensive team, and is the only player with significant minutes who doesn't post a negative DBPM... In addition to this, he has the highest ORtg on the entire team, leads them in WS/48, and accomplishes all of this with lowest Usage Rate of all the starters. The fact that Sacramento is currently 12-11 is nearly miraculous, and a lot of that credit has to go to the unheralded Holmes.
Bad news for the Richaun fan club:
https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2021/01/...ith-kings.html
I saw that too... we'll see! The Kings are not in the best shape team salary wise, already at 105 mil for 2021-22 with only 10 players under contract. A front loaded long term offer would be hard for them to counter, and I don't know if Ranadive is willing to spend the money. He already let Bogdanovic walk for nothing, and is now considering trading Bjelica to save (not very much) money.
Steve Kerr strongly implied exactly that.
Why we cannot trade LMA and two 2nd Round for Drummond. His defense is not the best but the guy is a magnet for rebounds and Jarrett Allen is the future in Clev. Allen for a 1st round pick was a gift and SAS did nothing as always to try to get that guy.
Clev will buyout LMA and he can sign with a contender.
Drummond is old NBA. He’s a dinosaur from before the 3 point asteroid hit the game. He’s not even worth Poeltl money now, and he makes much more than that, like multiples. Sports go thru phases. I can remember when NFL teams HAD to have a stud RB. Now, RB is a position where you pick some guy in the 4th round and plug him in. NBA classic big men are the RBs of the league now.
Drummond is awful. Like holy , it's literally Taurean Prince all over again. By no means would I want him on this team rather than Aldridge.
If no Drummond, Who could be a defensive big man for LMA and his expiring contract?
Randle? But his value is off the roof right now.
Poeltl is fairly elite defensively. Can switch, close out, rebound, and block shots.
Aldridge has been horrible defensively but what about offense? We lose a lot of leads because Poetl can't score. No matter how good he is on defense you can't play 4 on 5 on offense. There were times during the Rockets game where in the 4th quarter they'd pass Poetl the ball and he could do nothing with other than turn it over. The Spurs need to a two way center. However Aldridge is an offensive asset to this team and you need scoring or the threat of it to win in the NBA.
All this tells me is that the Spurs need to trade DDR (he's going to play us into the playoffs or at least almost into the playoffs and ruin our draft position) and keep starting LMA and giving him tons of minutes. We need to be in the lottery this year and next.
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