Portland Trail Blazers: 5 former stars who could push them over the hump

Stars that could push Trail Blazers over the hump: LaMarcus Aldridge

In a life sense, it’s safe to officially compare LaMarcus Aldridge and the Blazers’ relationship to that of the one ex-partner you simply never forget about. Even through severed ties, the two’s shortcomings are too closely linked.

Aldridge set fire to his Blazers’ past on July 4th, 2015, in hopes for warmer, deeper, more fulfilling summers in championship contention, which serves as the cruelest of ironies, considering the Blazers have actually played in more postseason games (40) than the Spurs (38) since 2015-16.

But if seeing Zach Collins modeling suits for 68 of a possible 79 games this past season, or watching Portland shuffle through bigs like UNO cards didn’t teach you a lesson on the importance of consistency, perhaps nothing will.

Aldridge’s raw numbers reflect a player prepared for the downturn of his career. 14 seasons and 34,518 minutes make that the popular idea to run to.

In November, I took a closer, film-study-type look into that, and a few things stood out: defenses sent “stunts” and all out “digs” — a brief lunge at a post player, to force a pass back out to the entry passer — as a way of getting the ball out of his hands.

Think about basketball fundamentally. For help defenders to be so willing to do that, this meant they didn’t respect the shooters around Aldridge (i.e. DeMar DeRozan, Dejounte Murray, Bryn Forbes, etc). I don’t think it needs spelling out how difficult it would be to do so in putting Aldridge in a system with the NBA’s premier deep-range shooter, and floor-stretching assassins. But just in case I do, I’ll spell it out for you:

“it” “would” “be” “dangerous.” There, spelled out.

Perhaps even more important than Aldridge’s 18.9 points or 13 straight 1,000-point seasons is the visceral effect a move of this caliber could have.

It’s alarmingly rare that we have players one year removed from All-Star appearances that are publicly open about the idea of wanting to come to the Portland Trail Blazers. And his pick-and-pop play fits all too well with Portland’s offensive tenets.

Per Jabari Young, the Spurs are planning to explore offers for the 7-time All-Star, as well as his talented co-star DeMar DeRozan. Aldridge has been relatively open about wanting to reunite with Lillard.

Portland’s performance in Orlando opened those doors a bit wider. It became painfully obvious the Blazers needed a fourth floor-spacer to allow Jusuf Nurkic a chance to operate in the post.

Aldridge quietly reopened San Antonio’s offensive ceiling by becoming a 38.9 percent 3-point shooter, shooting above league average in four of the five zones, including the deep left corner, which spaces a team out well. 2019-20 was the second-most efficient season of his career.

Aldridge isn’t your average 34-year-old. The Blazers would have some work to do to match salaries and appease the Spurs with a capable return package. But if there’s one forgotten star that helps Portland command league-wide respect, this is the one.