http://espn.go.com/blog/san-antonio-...novic-hes-tall
LaMarcus Aldridge played nine years in the NBA before coming to San Antonio. Now that you've had him for a while, is there anything different or better than what you expected from him?
Popovich: I've said this before: he's a better defender and rebounder than I was expecting. We all knew he could score in a variety of ways. But he's a better defender and rebounder; changes shots. He's really a big factor in our defense being better this year.
Pop wants him to concentrate on defense, because he's confident that Aldridge will get the system sometime during the Rideo Road trip. Still, it's pretty awesome to see Aldridge blossom under Pop as an above average defender. If I had to give him a grade on his defensive effort so far in the season I'd give him a B+
Anyone who's been watching the games has to be impressed with his defense so far. Duncan's overall defense has improved as a result of that trust imo
We are #1 in defense right now....it's a big deal!
Pretty much what we've all be stating on here.
One on one post defense is quite good. It's his help defense and his perimeter defense that is suspect.
LMA is arguably the best power forward in the NBA
New system that lets players free style, makes it difficult to know who to rotate too. Kawhis switch changes every game, some players he switches on and some he does and then sometime he just doesn't make the play that further confuses things.
Parker does the same thing on his assignments, constantly stepping the wrong direction causing LA or Tim or west to have to recover their bad play.
The bigs get the credit for the blown assignment but it's the primary defenders job to be consistent so the big knows who to trail. Much harder for a big to recover.
I'm impressed at his transition defense these days. Watch him if one of our shots hits the rim, and he's out on the elbow. He hauls ass to get back to the paint.
It's scary when this team hits its 5th gear. When Danny and LMA start to impact the offense watch out.
I said he was a good defender after like 1 or 2 games.
Is there any real seriousness in that interview?
"I just knew he was tall."
"We don't practice much."
More impressed with his rebounding so far . . .
Also, Pop must be talking sarcastically here or has a very low bar.
Let's look at Defensive Plus Minus:
http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/sort/DRPM
Duncan leads the league at 6.13
Leonard at #4 at 4.76
West at #17 at 3.04
Anderson at #39 at 2.27
...
Aldridge #74 at 1.58
oh.... BTW offensive plus minus .... Aldridge rank is #208... swell for a max player, absolutely nice.
So maybe Pop was sarcastically comparing him with his offensive stats. He's a better defensive player than he is an offensive player. But that bar is pretty low!!
Last edited by ceperez; 12-30-2015 at 11:41 AM.
Someone's mad that Pop pissed on his latest shtick.
Heh.... what does Pop ing know? If he had the goods, he'd be up in here posting.
. West>Aldridge is pretty telling of the invalidity of this stat. Any +\- stat is pretty generic and meaningless.
LOL at #ceperez hating so hard
Lamarcus has already played 915 minutes this year through 40% of the season, and that's with Pop managing his minutes. He's on pace for ~2,275 minutes.
Compare that to Splitter's 1,030 last year (only made 52 games). That forced the team to give 1,120 minutes of Baynes and 936 minutes to Bonner last year.
The Spurs were only able to get 18 minutes per game out of Tiago last year in the playoffs, which forced Baynes into action for 40 total minutes during the series. We all know how that turned out. Even though Tiago played solid D, his inability to stay healthy OR play long stretches (or for that matter, stretch the floor while out there) limited his effectiveness. It bit the team in the ass in the playoffs because the team had to find someone else to throw at Blake for 20 minutes a game.
Aldridge played 41 minutes a night in the crazy HOU-POR series a few years ago (three OT games) and still had something in the tank against the Spurs the next round, though his shooting % went down a bit. With less of the burden, imagine having a guy who you can easily pencil in for 2x Tiago's minutes come the playoffs and is more matchup proof. You really can eliminate the fourth big from the rotation at that point.
I'm loving LMA's work on the defensive end this year, I wasn't expecting him to be anywhere near as good as Splitter there, much less far superior.
Completely unexpected. I thought they would loose a little bit, but gain on the offensive end. It’s amazing how he has bought in defensively (and has the instincts). so far more durable than Splitter...
The casual fans always look at offensive numbers before defensive effort... If Aldridge was averaging 20 ppg with a 47 FG% and playing Harden-like defense, the Spurs would a much less successful team. Instead he's rebounding and blocking shots at a better rate than his career averages while playing fewer minutes than his career average.
No surprise.
Which is why fretting over the Diaw/West combo is pointless. Pop can make it disappear when necessary.
Agree with this not only as it concerns LMA, but in general all players. If someone doesn't have highlight offensive plays, fir the casual fan he's worthless (someone calling DWorst familiar? Shifting on Anderson, who's turned out much better this season than ppl thought, etc.?)
To me LMA offensively has been streaky and obviously has at times struggled with what Pop wants having some underwhelming offensive games. I'd say he's very dependent on Tony and Td to set him up. When Tim rests he misses a significant partner and when Tony struggles, it affects everyone in that first unit. He hasn't been consistently good on his post ups and that is what Pop draws up for him in crunch time. Not going to say he's been good there except the early season Boston game.
We haven't seen too much action between Kawhi and LMA either and maybe that is being saved for other teams. We can only speculate on this.
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