In the grand scheme of things those teams came close but not close enough however. Of course it wasn't all their fault they can only do so much. It is odd that PFs don't win championships as the main guy (outside of Duncan) lately.
Maybe it's all about the money and fame. Aldridge was a fantastic defender in college. He probably looked at the contracts handed out and realized a guy who scores 20ppg makes more money than a guy who defends really well and is a great rebounder. Ben Wallace only had 3 seasons where he was making over $7 mil/year. Lifetime earnings of $84m over 15 years. Kevin Love is making $12m+ for the next four years, and will have made $75m in just his first 8 years. And assuming he doesn't completely break down, Kevin Love will probably be earning $5-8m/year into his mid-to-late 30's just passing and hitting outside shots. Being a good scorer is awesome if you are a big man. You may not win championships, but you make bank, the team promotes you, and you get to stick around in the league forever. Meanwhile, the talentless 7 footer standing next to you does all the hard work of trying to guard the Duncans and Aldridges of the world and taking all the contact underneath.
I don't think it makes a difference who your leading scorer is as long as you have multiple options. Now I agree that force feeding a big at the end of games will not work unless you have a guard who can keep the D honest. Shaq needed Kobe and DWade. Duncan needed Parker and Gianobli. LMA needs Lillard and Wes and Nic. We are not far off on offense from being a really good team. But we are on D. And we know what we need to fix that. A big physical center.
That is an interesting way of looking at it. I didn't think of it like that. I wonder if Aldridge will get to a point in his career where he feels comfortable going back to being a fantastic defender.
Well right now, I would be happy to have the success of Utah (Stockton/Malone) and SacKings (Webber/Bibby). Some argue that Sac was robbed one season against the Lakers. As for Malone/Stockton; they reached the finals twice and only Jordan's juggernaut team defeated them. I think one series when 7 games didn't it?
There have been plenty of power forwards on successful teams who scored well and rebounded/defended well. I doubt that scoring is all the LMA is thinking about. I'm starting to think that you don't like LeMarcus.
Yeah they led their teams, but it was Stockton who hit the big shot to put them in the finals one year. He always came up big when they needed him. As for Webber, that team was loaded with talent. He and Vlade (Who I see all the time at the grocery store) were great passers. It was Peja and Bibby who hit the big shots late in games. I think Sacramento is who we should copy. But we would need a passing center who can play D (I would kill for Sabas)
I don't know. I suspect the dye is cast and he is what he is. But I look at what Aldridge has become and I totally get why they are bringing Leonard along slowly. On a different team I think Leonard would be in second or third place for ROY. Not that he's anything that special in most facets of basketball, but the guy can score if you give him the ball and tell him to shoot. If you watch him he doesn't just take no-brainer shots. He throws up and makes some shots that are a pretty advanced degree of difficulty for a rookie big. He has some nifty passes to boot. Not a ton of this stuff, but a shit-load more than you'd expect out of a Przybilla-type rookie big man. On a really bad team, you give him 14-18 shots and he'd put up 17 or 18 points. Easily. He's got really nice range, he's so big that he's hard to block, and he is a good finisher around the rim. Of course your team would lose most nights because Leonard sucks at defense and is just now learning how to do little things in an offense that help teams succeed. I think the team is trying to inculcate in him defense as much as possible now, because once the genie of his offense gets out of the bottle it's not going back in again. Travis Outlaw is the ultimate example of how you don't want to bring along Leonard. With his athleticism and length, Trout could've been a very good help defender. But we tried to make him into Tracy McGrady 2.0 by telling him he could shoot whenever he wanted. He never learned to play a lick of defense. He's now a fringe player.
Every time you read a quote from Aldridge, what is he talking about? His scoring. Never his rebounding. Check it yourselves. I have been for a long time. That's why I say, our PF thinks of nothing except scoring points. Any team has about 3 positions who can score plus 2 positions who can rebound. The PF helps his team the most by focusing on rebounds more than points. For example, Batum could earn his big money better if Stotts would allocate some of Aldridge's shots to Batum. The team would get the same points but more rebounds (with Aldridge's changed priorities).
Good defenders usually have good basketball IQ. They tried to make Trout a better defender and they got more out of him then anyone else did. But as we know he had limitations.
Shaq was the leading scorer in L.A. when they won their titles, Kareem was theirs during their day, WIlt was too. They all had guards or wings that had the shot creating clutchness to win the ball games. But you think that the Lakers of 2000+ with Shaq could have won without Shaq?
I just can't respect your takes. I mean you said no PF leading scorer team has ever won a playoff series; which wasn't the case. You flip flop until you drop!
LMA is averaging 10.5 boards/game in March. It feels like he's playing closer to the rim and trying harder at rebounding right now. Maybe he's realized it's our only chance at making the playoffs and so he's going all-in. LMA is the kind of guy who gives you 85% every night, and 100% most of the time the chips are down like they are now. (At least on offense and man defense. He's significantly less motivated on team defense/rebounding.) It'd be nice if he were like Hickson or Matthews and his motor ran at 99% every possession. But he's just not wired that way. He isn't ever likely to change. Still a better option than almost any other PF in the game over 38 minutes/82 games.
I agree with Pinwheel on this. I knew Trout. I knew him pretty well. His limitations were his understanding of the game of basketball. I think they gave him a green light and let him play outside the system because that's the best he could do.
Nope. We are in agreement. You have to have both. I think it was Pat Riley who said it takes 12 players to win a championship.
Nonsense. Link? Many times, posters inform you that you get details wrong like that. You just skip forward on your merry way. You lose their respect, and now you use that very word.
Yeah, it's definitely true he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. Still, I think they could have tried harder at instilling some fundamentals in him. At the time, though, we had a really terrible team and were casting about in all directions for a guy who could score.
Alternatively, maybe it's easier to be a fantastic defender in college than in the pros, and this is as fantastic as he ever was.
