Seriously only Love is the only PF that is at the level of Aldridge. The difference. Love just plays zero defense and Aldridge plays it well, especially this season. Love is a better scorer though. Whatever the case, I would much rather Aldridge than Love
The difference is LA is someone you can throw the ball on the block or elbow and get great offense out of him. Can't do that with Love because he doesn't draw anywhere near as many double teams as LA
Truth! It's amazing that our team has one of the best low block scorers in the game. That's going to be money come playoffs
Loves a better rebounder/3 shooter/passer then LMA. LA is better at everything else. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk
Love played 18 games last year and has never been in the playoffs. I have no clue how people were saying he is the best PF in the game when the season started. Dirk has always been and is still better.
Has anyone else noticed that Love can't get his own shot without a pick/screen? You can't ISO him like LA.
Yep Aldridge can create his own shot. Love can't. At least not lot a traditional big. Love plays more like a SG.
This exactly! Been saying it for years, and Love fans don't want to hear it. He doesn't require a double team, and isn't a go-to-guy in an iso situation. His 3pt shooting is over-rated. And, his rebounding is a product of playing underneath the rim and playing "Hickson style" stat padder. It's not that LA has not been capable of getting that many boards, it's that he's not fighting his teammates for boards and his post game is farther from the rim. It's time people woke up, especially Blazer fans, and recognized. LA needs a Dr. Dre head phone commercial.
Now that LA has a LEGIT center playing next to him instead of a stat padding, pseudo center, we can put to rest the Love vs LA talk. LA is on another level than Love, manning the fort for the aging veterans Duncan and Dirk. Aside: Speaking of Hickson, looks like NBA.com's Jeff Caplan didn't get the memo from Portland on JJ. HANG TIME SOUTHWEST – The NBA hands out end-of-year awards for just about everything, so why not an MAP award? Most Adaptable Player. If such an honor existed, the Denver Nuggets’ 6-foot-9 starting center J.J. Hickson would (again) be a leading candidate. While undersized for the position, he played it all last season for the Portland Trail Blazers and had a breakout year offensively, averaging a double-double (12.7 ppg and 10.4 rpg). A free agent in the offseason, he signed with Denver where the talented-but yet-to-put-it-all-together 7-footer JaVale McGee was hyped as the starting center and 7-foot-1 free-agent Timofey Mozgov re-signed, too. That meant the bruising, 242-pound Hickson could return to his more natural position of power forward, albeit behind entrenched starter Kenneth Faried, and get back to battling guys more his size. Here’s what Hickson told me back in February about playing center for the Blazers and what it meant for his impending free agency: “The NBA world knows what my true position is and they know I’m sacrificing for my team, and I think that helps us even more knowing that I’m willing to play the ’5′ to help us get wins.” In July, Hickson, 25, signed a three-year, $16.1 million contract with the Nuggets. Five games into the season, McGee went down with a stress fracture to his leg and remains out indefinitely. First-year coach Brian Shaw could have picked Mozgov as the traditional choice to start in Shaw’s inside-first offense. But Shaw chose Hickson. “Some things never change it feels like,” Hickson said of starting at center again. “History does tend to repeat itself at times. I’m doing whatever it takes to win games and if it means playing center, that’s what I’ll do.” Hickson said Shaw came to him and simply told him, “You’re starting at center.” “Ever since that day, I accepted the challenge,” Hickson said. Since Hickson took over at center, the Nuggets (13-8) have won 12 of 16 games following a rough 1-4 start that had critics of the franchise’s sudden overhaul — specifically the firing of longtime coach George Karl — shouting told-you-so. Hickson is averaging 10.5 ppg and 8.2 rpg this season. He’s produced five double-doubles in his last 16 games — including an 18-point, 19-rebound effort against Oklahoma City — plus six more games with at least eight rebounds. As the starting center, he’s averaging 12.1 ppg on 51.9 percent shooting and 8.5 rpg in 25.6 mpg. Without All-Star-caliber point guard Ty Lawson in the lineup the last two games due to a hamstring injury, the Nuggets won both to finish their six-game all-Eastern Conference road swing 4-2. Hickson combined for 21 points on 50 percent shooting and 18 rebounds in the two games while essentially splitting time with Mozgov. “After every game, every practice I feel we’re jelling more and more and we trust each other more on the court,” Hickson said prior to the trip. “We’re playing together, we’re having fun, we’re learning how to close out games. Just the camaraderie amongst each other is great.” Initially, Hickson’s signing in Denver seemed curious because it seemed to mean his accepting a bench role behind Faried. But the Nuggets needed additional frontline toughness and Hickson is happy to deliver. He won’t earn votes for the All-Defensive team, but he’s also not the turnstile the advanced stats crowd makes him out to be. Part of it is simply that Hickson is undersized and out of position practically every game. Until McGee returns, Hickson is likely to continue to start in the middle. And even then, it’s not like McGee was tearing it up before his injury. Shaw saw fit to play McGee just 15.8 mpg as the starter, fewer minutes than even Karl — hardly McGee’s biggest fan — could stand bringing him off the bench. When McGee eventually does work himself back into the starting lineup, it will at least provide the opportunity for Hickson to return to power forward. Not that he won’t keep fighting to stay in the starting lineup, no matter the position. “I’d be lying if I said I came here to play backup, but that’s competition,” Hickson said. “That’s still to be determined and we’ll cross that road when we get there.” Until then, Hickson will just keep adapting.
Joe Freeman/OregonLive "The monster outing was both historic and clutch. Aldridge became the first player in franchise history and first in the NBA since Kevin Love in 2010 to record a 30-point, 25-rebound game. And he became the first player in the NBA to finish with at least 30 points, 25 rebounds and two blocks since Chris Weber in 2001." That's another thing Love doesn't give you that LA does: DEFENSE.
Finally, someone contributing over at ESPN gets it, even if it took a TNT game versus Houston. Daily Dime Thursday Dec 13th 1. Blazers Continue To Follow Aldridge's Lead By Danny Nowell | TrueHoop Network PORTLAND, Ore. -- One of the NBA's best-worn truisms is that it's a star-driven league. Whenever some member of the NBA's middle class -- the Nuggets, say, or the Pacers before the ascension of Paul George -- gets hot and picks up a couple of wins, fans and analysts rush to point out that it will be temporary. The shots will stop falling, the schedule will get tougher; in the past few years, "regression to the mean" has come into vogue for the skeptics. But what it boils down to, NBA watchers are trained to think, is that there are a handful of players in the league who can win a championship, an even smaller handful of teams that employ those players, and that no matter how many charming and plucky wins a team racks up, the title will be decided by the chosen few. As the Portland Trail Blazers became one of those upstarts, opening this season 19-4 to match their second-best franchise start through 23 games, that superstar criticism seemed an oppressive ceiling. The Blazers are deeper than last year, and boast a wealth of talent in their starting lineup, but their balance was also their curse. Like so many before them, the Blazers were an OK team that lacked a single stud, the top-end firepower that could stand up to a playoff battery. After his 31-point, 25-rebound effort against Houston in a 111-104 victory Thursday night -- the first such game in Trail Blazers history -- LaMarcus Aldridge is making that analysis seem weaker by the day. Last week, when the Blazers hosted the Pacers and Thunder in a litmus-test pair of games, Aldridge was magnificent, keeping pace with George and outdueling Kevin Durant while garnering "MVP" chants from the Portland fans. Against the Rockets, the chants got louder and more unified as Aldridge took control of the second half from the right block. The Rockets, unlike most of the Blazers' opponents, guarded Aldridge one-on-one, determined to snuff out the open perimeter shots Portland has feasted upon and force Aldridge to beat them. He was happy to oblige. The quintessential Aldridge possession comes on the right block. Most often, Nicolas Batum sends the ball in to him from near the corner, and Aldridge backs his man down before spinning baseline, shooting back over his right shoulder, against his momentum. It's one of the league's more distinctive go-to moves, and the Rockets found themselves unable to slow it down with just a single defender. Mixing in his midrange game with brawny post-ups, Aldridge is able to counter most any defensive tactic, stressing even a Dwight Howard-anchored post defense to the breaking point. Of course, Aldridge is not exactly an unknown. Now in his eighth year, Aldridge seemed entrenched as a good-but-not-great player, a finesse scorer suffering from a certain lack of variety. But he seems to have found an extra gear, putting to bed the predictions that he'd stagnated. His teammates are not surprised. "He's just growing. He's just getting better," said Blazers guard Wesley Matthews. "Everybody wants to put ceilings on players because of age, and this is your 'X' amount of years in the league, you're supposed to plateau. ... I don't believe that, and he's not a guy who believes in it. He just continues to get better." All-Star fan ballot results were released Monday, and Aldridge, somewhat predictably, placed eighth among Western Conference frontcourt players. Bigger, more highlight-friendly names like Blake Griffin, Kevin Love and others continue to garner more attention than Aldridge, which doesn't surprise him. "I'm never gonna get votes like that. That's just the reality of being up here and being in one of the smaller markets," Aldridge said. "People probably don't know who I am or what I do up here. ... I'm not flashy, I don't dunk, I don't do anything really exciting." Still, however the votes are cast, Aldridge's recent play against elite competition suggests that he's more than hot -- he's taken a huge step forward. And if that's the case, then Portland has unearthed the rarest of NBA commodities: a bona fide go-to superstar. And with a roster full of players that seem to complement one another perfectly, the Blazers may suddenly find that going as far as Aldridge can take them is further than anybody predicted. - By Ben Golliver
Ya, and I don't care about anyone who objects, the MVP chants make a difference and are warranted. I haven't read an article of late that did not talk about the fans chanting that. That's what it takes sometimes for the light bulb to turn on and put "MVP" and "LMA" in the same sentence.
According the some made up game rater stat on ESPN LA holds 2 of the top 5 best games by an individual player this season.
Kevin Arnovitz interview LA for True Hoop TV. [video]http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=10125352&ex_cid=espnapi_public[/video] After the Rockets game, he's a convert. Welcome Kevin. "The Amazing Aldridge" [video]http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:10129467[/video] It's actually the first time I've hear a National Media guy acknowledge that Claver, Barton, and Hickson were LA's starting "help." Never ceases to amaze me how watching a team play can change one's opinion.
Since, and including, the win @ GS (last 10 games) Aldridge is averaging per game: 25.9 points 13.0 rebounds 2.9 assists 0.7 blocks 1.1 steals 84.7% free throw shooting (7.2 free throw attempts) 50.7% shooting (19.5 attempts) 1.3 turnovers 1.5 personal fouls 36.6 minutes per game Last season he averaged: 48.4% on 17.8 FG attempts, 81% FT shooting on 4.7 attempts, 9.1 REB, 2.6 AST, 1.2 BLK, 0.8 STL, 2.5 PF, 1.9 TO, 21.1 PTS, and 37.7 minutes per game.
Nice article finds blazerfanatic! I hope he keeps that rebounding up! I would love for him to get up to 12 a game. If Aldridge averages 25/13, that is Shaq level!
