They don't need LA to be a 25 shot a night kind of guy. They needed someone to ease the burden off of Parker and Leonard. They don't need his rim protection or lack thereof yet with Duncan still around. The real test of this acquisition will happen after Duncan finally retires.
Good idea for a thread topic, Cmeese. As a long-time Aldridge critic, I stood up for you when you started posting here. A poster who is now banned was after you for noting Aldridge weaknesses. The main plus I can find is that he served as a decoy, drawing double teams, because his reputation outshone his contribution. Now we can return to conventional basketball. Because we lost 3 other starters, it may take till next summer to recover. I hope Olshey can do it faster.
You only hate the ones you love. I watched LA and saw all his potential and then I saw him waste a lot of that potential. As a center LA was a beast, he could score, draw fouls and was a monster on the glass. You would see flashes of that at times throughout the season but too often what we got was jump shot after jump shot after jump shot. He was way too good of a player to be that complacent. Kind of reminded me of how Sheed acted late in his career settling for threes when he could have dominated on the low block. LA with Matthews work ethic and attitude would have dominated this league. Instead we got a diva who had plenty of talent but who rarely lived up to his potential. That is why I was always so hard on him, why I often mentioned trading him and never stopped paying attention. LA has the skills to average 28 and 12 a night but he likely won't ever.
Exactly, Cmeese. He had the talent to be a decadal league star, but maddeningly wouldn't expand his game to conventional Power Forwarding, much less Centering, which is his natural position. He never had the energy, much less the mental juice, to last 4 full quarters. His moda was to score a lot in the first half, peter out, then Roy came to the rescue. His first two games in the Houston series showed what I knew he should look like all the time. But I'm not so sure when you say he'll never change. We (fans and management) were always soft on him, but Popovich is an old-fashioned yell-er. Someone needs to yell and yell and break his resistance. Let him know that this is not satisfactory. I expect Aldridge to improve a lot, both in the little things, and in the big strategy of how he's used.
I'm not so sure when you say he will change. Seems to me we used to have a coach known as "Sarge". barfo
SpongeBob SoftSarge's unconventional system ruined Aldridge. You have to start these young punks out right. If Popovich asks, I'm ready to fly to San Antone tonight.
It is certainly possible that Pop can get through to LA, I am not sure that it will happen though. I would also find it hilarious if he didn't listen to watch Pop and Buford ship his ass off to some place like Sacramento or Utah or New York wherever he would hate it the most.
Im missing it. Sly What the F did you do? Stren mad respect for taking it like a man! The real pussies are the ones in hiding really.
There are no personal insults allowed here but I realize that people need to vent. So instead of playing dad or a hard ass and telling people to stop insulting each other I will go into a post and substitute the name of the person being insulted with mine. Many times they will stop insulting people or they will start to vent their anger at me instead of their original target. Either way the forum goes back to talking basketball.
Sly changes all personal attacks to make them directed towards him so he did nothing the poster was pissed at me for trying to have a little fun. Plus this thread is important many of us who knew LA was leaving and called for his trade have already accepted he was leaving and have begun to live normal lives again. We are here to help.
Very nice SLy, THats also Stand up! Fair enough Cmeese. I was... not in denial, but actually truly believed and still do believe the Portland was still a consideration until free agency began. I thought the Batum trade was to appease him. Obviously I was wrong. Took a few minutes but, I then moved on. Ive never been one to see any positive about wasting time and energy on getting angry at things that have past that you cant change. I actually get more angry at those that don't get that and prefer to waste energy for days. But not everyone heals the same. I understand.
I like having low expectations makes it easier to deal with the ups and downs that come with the NBA. I feel bad for people who believed wholeheartedly that we were a title contender last year. We had talent but not the kind of drive it takes to win it all. Now we can all just enjoy watching this team develop and hopefully a few wins a long the way.
This revisionist history is nonsense. .9 would have never happened. Ooh but we would have a draft pick!
