I have always been a strong LA supporter. He was a quite, keeps to himself kinda’ guy. That would sometimes come off as him not wanting to talk to anybody or seeming smug. That said, didn’t he say the same things about B-Roy?
It is interesting that all of his former coaches and teammates (high school coach, Nate, Vanterpool, RoLo) that they did interview spoke extremely highly of Aldridge - especially his work ethic. Vanterpool better be careful: "Vanterpool spent the surrounding 25 minutes of our interview gushing about how awesome Aldridge was to coach" That may be enough to get him fired by a front office that may still be butt hurt over losing Aldridge. BNM
If you think that's true, that If he and Dame had had better communication he'd have stayed.... Why did he QUIT on us in the playoffs??? Riiiiiiight....
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we all know how much you love your Lakers. I always hated it when Aldridge was referred to LA. No wonder he left. He probably got tired of hearing 20,000 rabid Blazermaniacs chanting "BEAT LA, BEAT LA, BEAT LA...". BNM
I got nothing to say about LMA. He didn't owe us anything. But (AND THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT) we don't owe him anything. No retired number. No wistful remarked about days gone by. It's over. His legacy is the Spurs completely.
I think people assume that athletes can't be "on the spectrum" and I think that's just clearly false, and I wouldn't be surprised if Aldridge was. (My prime candidate: Harold Miner.)
It's inexcusable, but that doesn't make it not understandable. (Is that a triple negative?) We're dealing with emotions here, and that often doesn't lead to rational outcomes. Most people have been in a work or social situation that snowballed on them to the point that they basically stopped functioning. Also, only two good things came out of that Memphis series: 1) CJ's breakout. 2) Meyers' breakout. Actually, that turned out to be a bad thing when it led to re-signing him. So, CJ was the only good thing about that Memphis series. Sure, LMA was part of things going poorly, but that's as much egg as it is chicken.
He definitely visibly quit on us, and on his teammates, in those playoffs. Then he took a separate flight home. Dame's team ain't got no time for quitters
An injured kawhi is still 1st fiddle in that ball club. Hell, a dead kawhi would still lead that club. Lamarcus is a forever beta.
Or if someone woulda had the foresight to just trade CJ for PG, draft Mitchel over Zack and Kuzma over biggie. I mean why are these guys paid if they didn’t see all that?
I was a huge Aldridge supporter. The first Portland team I ever became emotionally invested in was the Lillard/Matthews/Batum/Aldridge/Rolo team. But before that I was one of the few calling Aldridge the best big in the league before he actually got the recognition as such. However for everything Aldridge was. He doesn't come across as a good teammate. I don't think he can mentally handle his peers going at him like Lillard has done to Nurk so publicly. Heck he couldn't handle the best coach in the NBA going at him. Who deserves nothing but yes sir responses for how good he is at his job. You'd have to pick between Nurk or Aldridge at the 5. Portland couldn't run two 6"11+ players at the 4/5 against GSW.
