Was Aldridge worth it, tbh?

[HarlemHeat37]

OP is a known commodity around here for bad basketball takes. Par for the course. Then uses Alts to agree with himself. A little sociopathic...

[ChumpDumper]

They are..the current Spurs that had Aldridge playing like a role player, Green struggling and over-relying on Parker/Ginobili are fool's gold, not sustainable in the playoffs, at all..

They got Aldridge to be a star player like he played vs. the Clippers, not the role player, which only works vs. ty regular season teams(see: Spurs are only 3-3 vs. teams with a top 10 SRS, so far, and have literally played vs. the easiest schedule in the NBA)..I'm skeptical, since he doesn't tend to show up in big games, though, but hopefully he does, this year..

lol fools gold.

You really do try to take every side in an argument.

[houston spurs fan]

Maybe Malik can weigh in here...

[Tully365]

Obviously Aldridge over Splitter is a no-brainer, and you don't turn down a player of Aldridge's caliber in his prime

You answered your own question.

[cutewizard]

http://www.latimes.com/sports/nba/la...220-story.html

[cutewizard]

The San Antonio Spurs were anxious to find out if free agent LaMarcus Aldridgewould join their team, knowing his decision could have a potentially devastating domino effect on the franchise.
"It was a little bit like poker, all in," Spurs guard Tony Parker said of last summer. "Meaning if we get LaMarcus, everybody's back. If we don't get him, I guess everybody will retire."
After the Spurs lost to the Clippers in the first round of the playoffs last spring, sending the reigning NBA champions on vacation much earlier than expected, the team faced many uncertainties. Would Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili retire? Would free agent guardDanny Green return? And how much longer would Gregg Popovich coach?
It seemingly was all riding on Aldridge, a 6-foot-11 power forward and four-time All-Star who was the most sought after player in free agency. Multiple teams tried to woo him, including the Lakers, Phoenix and Houston.


But Aldridge was impressed by the Spurs' down-to-earth, basketball-centered pitch. He was born in Dallas, had attended the University of Texas, and joining the Spurs meant he'd be closer to his two young children who live in Texas. He also liked the Spurs' championship pedigree. He signed a four-year, $80-million contract with San Antonio.
Everything fell into place — Duncan and Ginobili returned for another season and Green re-signed. With Aldridge on their roster, the Spurs are off to a fast start and have the second-best record in the league, 23-5, behind only 26-1 Golden State.
Still, the 30-year-old Aldridge acknowledges that the transition has been more challenging than he anticipated.
Aldridge went from averaging a career-high 23.4 points with the Portland Trail Blazers last season, to averaging 16.1 points in his first 26 games with the Spurs, his lowest scoring output since his rookie season, 2006-07. His rebounding also took a dip, from 10.2 a game last season to 8.8 with the Spurs.
"For the last seven years [in Portland], I've been the guy," Aldridge said recently, standing by his locker after another Spurs win. "I knew where my shots were going to come from, I had the lay of the team. To try to tone that down, I've been frustrated at times with myself, but it's a process, and I've been getting better at it."

[cutewizard]

LaMarcusssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssss A!

[100%duncan]

Wtf is with lma being a choker? Didnt he score like 40 pts in both games against and in houston to nail a 2-0 lead going into their homefloor? You cant fault him against the spurs since tiago owns him pretty much.

[Ice009]

Wtf is with lma being a choker? Didnt he score like 40 pts in both games against and in houston to nail a 2-0 lead going into their homefloor? You cant fault him against the spurs since tiago owns him pretty much.

That was a monster series from him, but apparently that series isn't the norm for him in the playoffs. I keep thinking of that Houston series as to what he is capable of, so hopefully he can rise up and play like he did that series for the whole playoffs for us. I know it's asking a bit much and it might be unrealistic, but I'm going to ask him to anyway.

[cutewizard]

[TD 21]

Wtf is with lma being a choker? Didnt he score like 40 pts in both games against and in houston to nail a 2-0 lead going into their homefloor? You cant fault him against the spurs since tiago owns him pretty much.

Like most players, the notion that he's a playoff choker is unfounded. He's had a grant total of three playoff runs (all on teams with zero chance of winning more than a round) since he entered his prime. He was fine in two of them and his struggles last season are clearly attributable to his hand injury, which required surgery.

This is the only sport where the term "choker" is thrown around so liberally. People pulled this with Green in the '12 playoffs, even though it was essentially his first playoffs and he had shot out of his mind for the first two rounds and was long overdue for a shooting slump. If that happens in baseball, it's accepted that it's law of averages. If it happens in basketball, someone is automatically labeled a choker.

[100%duncan]

Like most players, the notion that he's a playoff choker is unfounded. He's had a grant total of three playoff runs (all on teams with zero chance of winning more than a round) since he entered his prime. He was fine in two of them and his struggles last season are clearly attributable to his hand injury, which required surgery.

This is the only sport where the term "choker" is thrown around so liberally. People pulled this with Green in the '12 playoffs, even though it was essentially his first playoffs and he had shot out of his mind for the first two rounds and was long overdue for a shooting slump. If that happens in baseball, it's accepted that it's law of averages. If it happens in basketball, someone is automatically labeled a choker.

Yep. I just didnt get it or was it just a schtick? It doesnt make sense.

[MaNu4Tres]

Like most players, the notion that he's a playoff choker is unfounded. He's had a grant total of three playoff runs (all on teams with zero chance of winning more than a round) since he entered his prime. He was fine in two of them and his struggles last season are clearly attributable to his hand injury, which required surgery.

This is the only sport where the term "choker" is thrown around so liberally. People pulled this with Green in the '12 playoffs, even though it was essentially his first playoffs and he had shot out of his mind for the first two rounds and was long overdue for a shooting slump. If that happens in baseball, it's accepted that it's law of averages. If it happens in basketball, someone is automatically labeled a choker.

Would be a better world if idiots on twitter and on here would at least understand this.

[daslicer]

Like most players, the notion that he's a playoff choker is unfounded. He's had a grant total of three playoff runs (all on teams with zero chance of winning more than a round) since he entered his prime. He was fine in two of them and his struggles last season are clearly attributable to his hand injury, which required surgery.

This is the only sport where the term "choker" is thrown around so liberally. People pulled this with Green in the '12 playoffs, even though it was essentially his first playoffs and he had shot out of his mind for the first two rounds and was long overdue for a shooting slump. If that happens in baseball, it's accepted that it's law of averages. If it happens in basketball, someone is automatically labeled a choker.

He's played in 5 playoff series but I agree with what you are saying. He's only had 2 playoff series where he was real terrible. One took place in 2010 but he was real young along with not being the number 1 guy on the team at the time and it was against the best Suns team of the Nash-Amare era. The other series where he was awful in was against the Grizzlies but then again Portland had no chance of winning that series with their injury plagued roster and like you said he was playing with a broken hand. Even when you factor in those 2 bad series outside of his FG percentages his playoff average are on par with his career regular season averages. Take away those two bad series his FG percentages are the same as his regular season percentages. Every year the Blazers lost in the playoffs his team was not the favorites to win those series.

[k_nguyen93]

The Spurs won't have the capspace to get either most likely. They'll have about $72.5 million committed to Aldridge, Leonard, Parker, Green, Diaw, and Mills. Add in $5.5 million for Duncan hopefully coming back and we're at $78 million. Assuming Manu retires that leaves $11 million in capspace, which might be a tough sell for Red under this new tv deal. He'll probably make more staying in LA. And that requires not making an offer to West, which will look really bad to other free agents after he came here for the minimum. Even with his struggles early in the year West is much better than a minimum player. Also goodbye Anderson and Simmons. I think improvement next year is going to have to come from within, as I don't expect the Spurs to have money to spend until the summer of 2017 when the cap increases to $108 million vs the $89 million expected for next summer.

I guess the Spurs will have the MLE to make a run at Korver if they bring their guys back, but didn't Korver's wife all over that idea a couple of years ago when the Spurs almost signed him?

Well actually the Spurs made a run at Re during the 2013 season and we know they were already playing great that year and made the finals. From the Woj god himself:

My guess is the front office knew Neal was probably in store for a pay raise regardless of how the season turned out. They were definitely looking for a shooter willing to take a paycut as evidenced by the Belinelli signing that offseason. Probably tried to do some kind of package with Neal, expiring in Blair, James Anderson and picks. If you think about it, Re might actually have taken a paycut to play close to his offseason home plus coming from Orlando he was used to no state tax versus the cost of living in Los Angeles. Maybe not a 4 year contract but something short term like what Belinelli did. I do remember reading about how Korver's wife didn't want to go to San Antonio.

[Ed Helicopter Jones]

This might be the deepest Spurs team ever. You can't blame Green's subpar shooting on LMA being on the floor. In spite of his poor shooting the Spurs are still the number one defensive team and number 2 offensive team in the league. The only person whose offensive numbers have been affected negatively with the addition of Aldridge is probably Tim Duncan. Get Green clicking and it's going to be scary the types of numbers the spurs will be putting up.

The only 'fool's gold' I see at this point is the fact that the Spurs have played the league's easiest schedule so far. I'll be curious to see how we do against the Warriors and Cavs, and how we look once March/April roll around against teams like the Clips and Thunder. But to question the addition of Aldridge is pretty silly. Were he not on the team there'd be widespread panic about what happens to this team when Duncan and Ginobili are done. I don't sense that fear too much at this point. Splitter was a role player who couldn't be relied upon because of his health. Aldridge is capable of being the face of the franchise.

To me it's not even debate-worthy. But I suppose this discussion was able to fill 8 pages, so there's that.

[DAF86]

What's with LMA not seeing the court for the last 15 minutes of a close game? I thought he was doing fairly OK too.

[ChumpDumper]

What's with LMA not seeing the court for the last 15 minutes of a close game? I thought he was doing fairly OK too.

I think it was easier just to let Boris obliterate Indy small ball with his ass.

[DAF86]

I think it was easier just to let Boris obliterate Indy small ball with his ass.

And I think it would have been smarter to have Aldridge close the game out alongside Boris. At this point of his career Tim's confidence and/or feelings won't get affected for sitting out these kind of games, in fact he could use the rest. Meanwhile Aldridge, despite being the ultimate professional since joining the Spurs, has made some comments about him do caring about his numbers and getting benched in crunch time in one of the few close games we get seems like the kind of thing that would affect him. We were winning this game anyway, just let our star signing get his minutes.

[ChumpDumper]

And I think it would have been smarter to have Aldridge close the game out alongside Boris. At this point of his career Tim's confidence and/or feelings won't get affected for sitting out these kind of games, in fact he could use the rest. Meanwhile Aldridge, despite being the ultimate professional since joining the Spurs, has made some comments about him do caring about his numbers and getting benched in crunch time in one of the few close games we get seems like the kind of thing that would affect him. We were winning this game anyway, just let our star signing get his minutes.

I have no worries about LMA's alleged ego problems. ST and the krew blew this way out of proportion.

[Leetonidas]

Considering every team in the league is pretty much trash outside of OKC, GS, SA, and CLE, not sure saying the Spurs have had an easy schedule means much at this point

[DAF86]

I have no worries about LMA's alleged ego problems. ST and the krew blew this way out of proportion.

I don't know if they are being blown out of proportion or not but he did make comments like "If y’all want me to come here and average 12 or 13 points, that’s not who I am. I like scoring."

So I'm sure there's a part of him that isn't so thrilled about scoring 15 ppg and not seeing the floor in the last 15 minutes of a close game. That's why I think it would be smarter to play him as much as possible when the situation allows it, like in this previous game.

[ChumpDumper]

I don't know if they are being blown out of proportion or not but he did make comments like "If y’all want me to come here and average 12 or 13 points, that’s not who I am. I like scoring."

If that's a direct quote, I'd like to see a link to it.

[DAF86]

If that's a direct quote, I'd like to see a link to it.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports...sist/32211597/

[Spurs 4 The Win]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports...sist/32211597/

Lol, I wondered about this too, sounds to me like Pop said what he needed to hear to get him in the door so that we could perform the patented Spurs lobotomy and remove his ego.