Zach's last year in Portland compared to LA's last year in Portland. One of these players was only 25 at the time and we dumped him for virtually nothing. We survived giving up a talented power forward before, and we will do it again. Noah Vonleh just might be the next great power forward in the chain.
I think Meyers is going to have a breakout year, but I think Vonleh is the future at power forward for us.
I'm definitely a bit concerned with Pop yelling at him and eliminating the mistakes in his game he'll have a very special season. We'll have to see what happens.
He's a volume shooter. People called Zach a black hole and LA averaged a full FGA more than Zach in his last year in Portland. I guess we shall see. I don't think he's suddenly going to toughen up and stop being a pretty pretty princess just because Pop says so.
Let's not push it; LMA was very, very good. Commanded a double team, was a decent passer out of the double team. Just..lofted up way too many 16 footers at an inefficient clip. But he was still quite good.
It's depressing to think how in 8 years we lost 3 superstar talents (Roy, Oden, Aldridge) and one All Star (Z-bo) without compensation for any of them.
I wonder if it occurred to LMA that their center is 39 years old. There's a pretty good chance he gets injured and LMA is stuck manning the middle while Pop goes with a small ball lineup for a large portion of the season. I love Tim Duncan, and I'd never wish an injury on anyone. But if one of my favorite players had to get injured.....
I get being pissed off at Alrdige, but saying he was "nothing special" undersells just how critical he was to this team's success the last couple of years. Losing him will probably shave at least 15-20 games off of last year's win total, Ed Davis, Noah Vonleh and Mason Plumlee will back-fill some of that loss, but there's going to be a considerable drop-off and it won't be easily replaced. That said, we weren't going to win a title with the previous incarnation of the team, so hitting the reset button was going to happen sooner or later, Aldridge forcing that choice on us just speeds up that process, so fine by me. Damn shame we didn't get something for him when we could though.
Well, my point is, we've had em before. We'll get them again. LA is just one more great power forward in a long line of great power forwards.