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Pop can't do anything about it though. There's no player on the roster who can penetrate consistently and collapse the defense. There's a reason they've been close to bottom in points in the paint all season long.
Kawhi's drives & dish to Patty, and him passing to open Danny, was a beautiful play in the crunch time.
Also, Pop sat Kawhi and let LMA as main scorer on the court to get him going but it wasn't the case either in last games.
But if you think that our PGs don't look for LMA like Russ would do...Tell Pop it.
Pop can't do anything about it though. There's no player on the roster who can penetrate consistently and collapse the defense. There's a reason they've been close to bottom in points in the paint all season long.
Anyone expecting a trade this early in the season has to be new to this. It's either a trade in the summer, or at the deadline almost always. Teams usually hold out their best offers til it comes close to the deadline. Plus, a lot of teams like to give the team time to see if their perspectives change or if different variables arise -- then they start reassessing their perspective on the team and players around mid January.The J. McMullin rumors were the most exciting thing that has happened all season. On the other hand, the fact that they have not yet come to fruition is the biggest disappointment of the season.
Like LMA needs other player who collapses the defense to get buckets...He used to be the most deadly mid-range shooter bigman in the league, a simple P&R or P&Pop should be enough for him.
You need your best offensive players to be a threat at putting pressure at the rim and induce the weakside defense to move and rotate.
Aldridge and his jumpers dont do that. His points are nice, but they are fools gold because of the way he manufacturers those points which hardly ever open up better opportunities for the team or his teammates.
Meh. Sure, but he's not efficient, he's shooting 40% from 10 feet away to the 3 point line. He needs more shots close to the rim, where he's shooting almost twice less than last season and at a worse percentage. No one gets him easy buckets. And not just for him, of course, they work too hard for every point.
Aldridge started getting a lot of easy points last year whenever he lost the offseason pudge after January.
Once he got in better shape, he moved and ran the floor better. Hed be one of the first ones down the floor and he'd lock his man up as he established inside position between the basket and his man where they threw him a lot of early over the top passes for easy lay ups. Who knows if we will see that again.
Sometimes it seems like people never watched LMA in his whole career in Portland. He never was a post-up big, never got his most points close to the rim.
Of course it would be nice if he gets some easy baskets but those easy never been his most scoring. And his strong suit is what you hate, his mid-j.
Aldridge just needs to play more bully ball instead of turning and fading away like hes an SG. He's like the heaviest big man in the league... If he gets a wide open jumper, by all means..but when he does his fade away jumpers it does nothing for the team but hope a low percentage shot gets in.
If he bullies players, the defense will have to collapse. The closer he gets to the rim, the more open green and the rest of the guys are.
I think he's struggling with the idea of bullying bigs because he knows he's most likely going to have to pass the ball when they do collapse leaving Green and the perimter open.
And thats why Portland never did anything with him. And thats why Spurs wont win anything with him either. Even more so, now that we know he sits on his ass most of the offseason.
Fixed.
And I don't blame him. One thing is helping a young stud to be great like in Kawhi's case, but having to share his spots with a player who's past his prime is other.
While he's always been a great midrange jumpshooter, it's not entirely true that he shoots much more often from 10 feet away. Only a couple of times in his career he's shot as few times from 10 feet in as he has been this season. Also, his percentage around the rim has always been very good, lingering around .700. So they should use that strength of his more often.
The problem, to me, seems to be that he's not in a good shape yet, as MaNu4Tres has already pointed. Once he gets in shape he'll be able to establish positions closer to the rim and earlier than he's doing it now, which will help his game, just like last season.
Well, LMA came on strong late last season, hopefully he repeats that late-performance.
He's just got that Jay Cutler esque resting face, tbh.
Didn't really expect a trade to go down - I am definitely not new to this. But the breaking of the rumor so early in the season was so unusual that I gave in to my optimism. Hope springs eternal.
LMA's body language doesn't seem bad to me. He seemed engaged in the Washington game and in games that he played poorly in, he might check out but players react differently.
The Spurs just need someone who wants to be the man.. Everybody on the Spurs is so thrilled to defer to someone
Manu and Parker still want to be the man
Manu and Parker still want to be the man
Yo, delete a message in your inbox, I'm trying to send you a PM..
here we go again
how things have changed.
http://www.nba.com/article/2017/12/0...ntonio-spurs#/
Popovich said: “We broke bread a few times, talked about it, laughed about it, discussed what we thought needed to happen, and frankly 95 percent of it fell on me because I made an error in trying to change him too much. That might sound odd, but he’d been in the league nine years and there’s one way he plays on the offensive end and feels comfortable with. I tried to turn him into Jack Sikma, told him I was going to teach you how to play on the elbow, go on the wing, face up. It was confusing for him. It really didn’t fit his style of play. I was guilty of over coaching in a sense.
“We came to an agreement on what had to happen. Well, on defense, I told him ‘I’m going to get on you like I do everyone else. But on offense, I don’t even want to talk to you. When they double you, kick it. Other than that, you be LaMarcus Aldridge.’ You see the result right now. He’s happy, confident and kicking everybody’s butt.”
You can't argue with results. It's clear the effort has been there as a Spur on defense and his offense is now at the level we expect from him. Actually, I think he's playing a little bit above that so far this year. We'll see how it changes now that Kawhi's back, but I expect him to be more of a fit.
yeah, the body language is night and day compared to last year... and keeping the team at the 3 spot was badass of him. It's going to be nice with Kawhi back now, eager to see how the team is rolling come rodeo road trip time when Pop gets the rotations set
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