Welcome to today’s “There’s a week left until training camp and I’d chew my own arm off if it meant I could blog about it” post.
Blazers Edge posted a link to a story on Rip City Project on Saturday night. It contained the following passage regarding LaMarcus Aldridge and a possible MVP bid:
It never ceases to amaze me how we go into seemingly every NBA season now with the hopes that Aldridge will finally get his due, but it never quite seems to materialize in the way that it should. Kevin Love and Blake Griffin are the flashy up-and-comers whom most NBA fans seem to recognize and heap praise on. And although Aldridge is every bit as good (and probably better) than both of them, he never seems to get the respect he deserves. Maybe that’s due in part to growing up in the NBA with Roy and Oden as far more recognizable teammates, but if so, the time for that is past. Last season, the Blazers cut the cord with their past, and chose to move into a new era that has Aldridge as the central figure.
Sometimes perception is just as important as numbers when you talk about someone having an MVP-type season. While Griffin and Love may put up bigger numbers, neither guy is as good as Aldridge on defense, and his arsenal of offensive attacks is far more vast than what either of his counterparts has to offer. Part of that is due to having more years in the league to develop, but because of Aldridge’s more well rounded game, the other two guys should not be mentioned before him in MVP talk.
Now, I’m not saying he will win an MVP, but wondering if he’s capable of having an MVP-type year.
Now, I’m not here to beat up on a small fan blog for posting a supportive piece about a player. The tone is pretty common on the series of tubes. “The media/people who don’t follow the team I like don’t understand how good the players are on the team I like and instead like other players as if they watched all the games and not just those of the team I like and therefore do not have enough information and they, not I, are woefully uninformed.”
But what I thought was interesting is the discussion of numbers versus versatility.
The way the above argument is framed, Love and Griffin have flashier numbers and that is why they receive the attention. In reality, Aldridge is considered less because of the issues with his numbers, not the superiority of Griffin’s and Love’s. Aldridge’s rebounding is in fact an issue. A lot of that is because of his role in the Blazers’ offense. You can’t throw out the usual pace argument, though, because his True Rebounding Percentage (percentage of all available rebounds snagged) still fell woefully behind Griffin and Love’s. That’s an issue.
But the core there is the versatility argument. Aldridge has more post moves than Love or Griffin, has the face-up jumper and some moves off the dribble (though Love’s versatility is pretty strong considering his range). Do we underrate versatility? You might be able to make that argument when we look at the candidacy of Derrick Rose, Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, Kevin Durant, even Steve Nash. But LeBron James kind of renders that point irrelevant. His strength lies not just in his brilliance, but in his versatility. That first point though, is where Aldridge gets tripped up.
He doesn’t shoot at an elite level. He doesn’t rebound at an elite level. It’s not enough to be able to do more than one thing if you don’t do any one single thing at a level which can be considered the best on any given night. He’s elite in the post so you can consider that, but it’s hard to really focus on that given how pitiful the Blazers’ offense was and how much they needed that, though that shouldn’t necessarily eliminate him. But the field goal percentage still hurts him there.
Now that I’ve made it seem like LaMarcus Aldridge is lacking in so many regards, let’s clear this up.
Aldridge is a fantastic player. He is the sun and the moon for the Blazers, and he’s remained so since his rookie season, despite the franchise constantly billing Brandon Roy and Greg Oden, then Nicolas Batum over him. He’s been an All-Star worthy player the past three years and yet still took so long to nab his spot. He doesn’t complain in the press, he doesn’t show up his opponent, he has an actual drop-step hook and he goes out and guns it every night when the Blazers aren’t tanking. He’s worthy of being on the list of consideration. He just can’t be considered a serious contender, because of the level of play in this league. It says nothing bad about Aldridge that he’s not on the serious list. It just says a lot about those who are.
And in the end, considering how he approaches the game, and his life, and the level of headaches he provides those around him, I’d rather have him than a lot of other candidates anyway.
