Im not making a case for or against LMA making the AS team but when I was playing around with his stats for this year I came up with this: http://bkref.com/tiny/9be5a I think that shows an impressive all-around player.
The problem with properly evaluating Aldridge (or any player, really, but Aldridge seems like one of the more complicated ones in this regard) is determining just how valuable he is on defense. While I hardly think PER is the be-all and end-all in terms of measuring production, I think it's a pretty good quick look. Defense, however, is still pretty dicey in basketball, since it's so team-oriented (baseball, for example, is a largely individual pursuit in the guise of a team sport). I think if you asked 100 different basketball observers to watch Aldridge play defense all season long and decide, without conferring, how valuable he was on that end of the court, you'd get some wildly differing answers, running from not too good to mediocre to quite good. You might even get some people who felt he was really valuable. I think Aldridge tends to be a bit underrated defensively. He's not a blocks or steals machine, but he's a solid man defender and a good help defender and he's very versatile...he can jump out on a wing for a short time and not have it be an automatic negative defensive result, in addition to defending both front court positions capably. Of course, that's just my opinion. But that's why I don't find it implausible that he could be between Stoudemire and Howard in terms of total value.
I find the LMA dichotomy on this board to be rather interesting, at least in terms of history. I think most everyone can agree that he is playing like most hoped he could at this point. The interesting part of the journey to me is how we all got to this point. I'll equate it to parents who scream at their kids to try and get them to behave vs. parents who try and offer constructive criticism to their kids as they develop and stumble at times. Don't even get me started on that foster kid Miller, though.
Westbrook is 8th in the league in PER. If we win our next 5 games and Aldridge keeps up his 25/10 pace, I think he will make it. That's a tall order but that's what it will take.
He won't make it. I think he's deserving, but he won't make it. It doesn't matter what he does over the next 5 games.
There's still time. Especially if he plays big on TV against Griffin tonight. Also, remember, it's the coaches who vote and those coaches have watched their PFs get torched by LaMarcus on a nightly basis.
i thought so too until i realized 11 guys are pretty much locks and stern is picking the 12th, AND knowing him he has probably already decided to pick love over LMA. what happens from this point likely makes little difference. i think LMA needs a carmelo trade, or someone to sit out (dirk looks pretty gimpy tonight) to have a realistic shot.
Why do you think Stern is biased toward Love? If the coaches select Love and it comes down to Aldridge or Griffin, I could see Stern selecting Griffin as a possible "face of the NBA" type pick. But I don't think Love has that kind of cache. (This is not an argument that Love doesn't deserve the bid, just that I'm not sure why Stern would particularly favour him.)
because love will get more buzz from the media if he isn't voted in and stern doesn't seem to give much weight to team record. i hope i'm wrong.
I think it boils down to this: Blake is putting up the kind of rookie numbers that generates enormous pub for not only his team but the league -- he's an attraction. K-Love is the first player to put up 30-30 since Moses Malone, he gives a witty interview and he's rebounding like Dennis Rodman but with a three point shot. Does that mean that they are more deserving to get in than LA? No, but his current all-star numbers are only about a month old and he plays in one of the smallest markets and his games are late at night when the majority of the country has already gone to bed. I know that shouldn't matter to coaches and he is playing on a winning team which helps, but I think he needed to start doing this from the jump if he wanted to be assured of getting into the game. I still think he's got something like a 20% chance FWIW -- that ten game win streak LMA was talking about with Cheryl Miller tonight is pretty close to the truth of what it would take for him to get the publicity to put him in the forefront of the minds of the coaches.
I think every coach that has coached a game against the Blazers has pretty much had LMA in the forefront of his mind. He's outplayed both Love and Griffin in head to head competition. I don't know if he'll get in or not, but he certainly is worthy of the honor.
Yup. It's not like he can't jump now. Dude is second in the league in dunks-- he just doesn't expend all his energy on throwing down massive facials like some other players do.
I could see that. Really though when you boil it down, Love, LMA and Griffin have all played well enough to be considered all-star worthy regardless of the talent level of their teammates or win-loss records. There are just too many really good forwards in the West right now.
Yeah, personally, I've never really worried about who actually makes the game (though I might care if I were one of the players). I never use "All Star" as a signifier of quality, but rather "All Star caliber," because a player can be on that tier even if he doesn't necessarily get into the game. So far this season, taking the entire season into account, Aldridge has been an All Star caliber player. (Taking just his last month and a half into account, he's been a down-ballot MVP candidate caliber player.) His development into that caliber of player (if it sticks) is far, far, far more important than whether he gets selected.
