Is LaMarcus Aldridge Overrated?

The LA disrespect continues.

I think he is overrated in Internet polls, properly rated overall by Portland fans and media, and underrated by NBA fans overall.

I don’t think so. I feel like LMA is under appreciated by many of the fans. I think many people have put too much stock in Oden and have since taken their frustration out on Aldridge. Just being honest. Most the criticism I here from locals, he needs to play inside more, he needs to rebound more, he isn’t tough enough etc. are all things that Oden was supposed to provide. It’s why he was selected over Durant, yet Lamarcus continues to get hammered while everybody’s favorite center continues to get a pass.

Personally, I think over the next couple years LMA is gonna continue to grow. This time last year many wondered if he was even good enough to be the #2 next to Brandon. Now, we’re wondering if he is a franchise player.

Ultimately, I think its gonna come down to the system he’s in. Under Nate its gonna be hard to improve too much more on the season he just had. Obviously, he could be a little more consistent but his numbers are always gonna be a little under whelming cuz ISO ball for a guy who’s not very good at putting it on the floor isn’t exactly a winning combination. However, with more movement and some slightly faster play I think LMA could be one of the best 4s in the entire league.

Aldridge has been my favorite blazer since day 1 and was my fav college player when he was at Texas. He had an awesome stint last year which I think is a glimpse of what’s to come. If/when Oden gets healthy and if we an develop nolan we may be going places.

There’s only a handful of true franchise guys, guys that you can win you a title. The number is probably less than 10, easily.

Is LMA one? My feeling? No. I think he’s too psychologically fragile and too dependent on others to support him emotionally. He doesn’t strike me as the leading type, he’s more of the leaning kind. That doesn’t mean you can’t eventually win a title with him, you can, but he’ll likely get shifted back to that 2 or 3 position when the team or any team with LMA reaches that point. He’s a great player, but there’s something missing between the ears.

Overrated? In Portland? Yes. This guy was going through the motions for 4 years or at the very least not willing to go out of his comfort zone. He finally took it upon himself to beef up and add to his game but he wasn’t comfortable, he was afraid and if the pressure didn’t come down upon him like a ton of bricks with Roy & Oden being hurt…where would he be now? Probably still hunkering down in his comfort zone. It took a push from teammates like Camby and Dre to get him going and he gave the team 3 to 4 great months of basketball. The fans now treat him like none of the other crap ever existed, as if he’s their savior comparing him to all time greats like Duncan…hell, they even voted him into the top 3 of the all time favorite Blazers(sans a few)….4 months, that’s crazy. I’ve never seen a player go from being a very dubious “Robin”, to the entire JLA so quickly in the minds of people. Either crap has gotten that bad in Portland to where the fanbase has become desperate for heroes or they are drinking too much of the the M&M juice.

It’s trickled down to the media too. I think he was listed as the 11th best player in the NBA. It’s so bizarre because he was so hated on by people here and abroad to the point where he was underrated, but 4 months and suddenly he’s one of the best the game has to offer? Yeah, that’s overrated.

he is not.

Not given the way he played last year, how well and how reliably. He’s growing as a player and a leader, and he’s as visible (in a good way) in the community as anyone has been here for years.

I don’t understand how Wallace could be considered to be superior. I don’t remember him stepping up in the playoffs in any significant way. I don’t think his basketball IQ was that high. And yeah, LA is twice the offensive force Wallace ever was. As far as defense goes, Wallace was better at his peak…when he cared. That wasn’t all of the time, whereas I’ve never seen LA give less than 100%, even if his 100% wasn’t as good sometimes late in the season because he was understandably exhausted.

You gotta go talk to the Timberwolves

It’s not typical of something you say about a player of Aldridges tenure in the league. But I would say I don’t think Aldridge has reached his ceiling. I think Aldridge has had to discover himself and rediscover his role to this team. He stepped up last season, and I await the opportunity to see what Aldridge emerges once the N.B.A. resumes. I’d like to see what Aldridge can contribute when his minutes can be better managed, with the addition of some frontline depth.

  This was a team being built and manufactured to facilitate the best talents of a Brandon Roy. I hate to say it, but circumstance has forced change. How good could Aldridge be when the team plays primarily to his strengths?

  I thought Aldridge had a great season last year, despite being asked to do too much, and play far too many minutes.

  Is Aldridge overrated…underrated? It’s going to be up to Aldridge to define. And even though it[‘s usually said about rookies or sophmores…I don’t think we are done defining LaMarcus Aldridge.

  I thought he had a great season last year, BUT was disturbed by some of his commentary. Where perhaps diplomatically he defered leadership to Brandon Roy. I think Aldridge if he wants to take that next step, needs to realize he is the franchise player now, like it or not. Which means this team on most nights is going to thrive or die, based disproportionatly on his personal performance.

  Aldridge has all the skills…so much so that I would say, whether he can make the next step up, is really all up to him. To the very best, very very good isn’t good enough. I don’t think it’s a matter of whether anyone overrates Aldridge or underrates Aldridge.

espn is stil doing their ranking of nba players, and i wouldn’t be surprised at all if lma ends up in the top 25. to me, that’s elite status. if espn says it it must be true right :D

and will never be able to guard guys like Dwight Howard, or Tyson Chandler, or even a guy like Joel Przybilla, because he won’t put on the weight necessary to guard against that kind of strength. He is a very good PF, and actually would not be terrible playing SF. That said, look at what we used to say about playing Brandon out of position. You expect miracles when the same is done with LMA half the game? He is a very good PF, and will produce like one for years to come. Pair him with a defensive center that isn’t injured all the time, and let him do what he did this year as a number one option, and then you can really evaluate him. No, hes not Lebron, CP3, Wade, Howard or Dirk. That’s really all we can put definitively above him at this point. Durant, maybe better… but defense is still a question mark with that kid. Derrick Rose had a very good defensive cast around him and he disappeared with Lebron on him. LMA doesnt disappear when Howard goes on him. So you have maybe 7 guys above him for sure in the NBA right now. Look at LMA’s supporting cast for most of last year… is it really the kind of team you could switch him for one of those 7 and win titles with? Maybe Howard and maybe Dirk, but Dallas had a better supporting cast, Lebron and Wade are together now trying for a title, and LA the past few years has had the best big man threesome in the NBA. Big men win titles, and Aldridge is good enough to be number one of three or four down low. That should be enough to get him some respect, as long as we don’t forget hes still a cog and not the wheel.

then yes, he is overrated.

if people don’t consider him an all star or a top 5 power forward in the nba then he is underrated,

you can’t say someone is overrated or underrated when there is no unanimous opinion on someone

and this debate is quite a bit of huff and puff over nothing… there is a group of players with a wide variety of strengths and weaknesses at his position but that are roughly of the same value. Aldridge would have to separate himself from that pack to be a “franchise player.”

The only guys who are clearly better at PF are Dirk and Pau Gasol (yes I will take 10 years of ridiculous production over one stinker of a playoffs).

In LMA’s “group” so to say are:
David West
Amare Stoudemire
Kevin Love
Z-Bo
KG (yes, 2200 minutes of 20.6 PER and the best defense on the planet is enough to put him in the discussion)
Duncan (assuming you consider him a PF, see KG’s entry)
Bosh (put any of these guys in his brutal situation and see how they do)

So until LaMarcus separates himself from this pack, you can’t really talk about him as a franchise player. And yes, there are arguments you can make that show LaMarcus to be above these guys. Unfortunately, it is no clear thing, until he shows that the two month stretch of MVP-level play in midseason indicates a true trajectory instead of a blip.

Is Lamarcus a franchise player? Does introducing the term “overrated” ensure emotional responses?
Otherwise I pretty much agree with your assessment. Aldridge will have a lot of opportunities to rise or fall over the last couple years of his contract with the Blazers. If he can continue playing at last years level on the offensive end and the Blazers acquire some depth in the front court so we can see what LA looks like on D when he isn’t playing conservatively, we might see him rise from the “our” label to the “a” level franchise player.

I haven’t heard talk that he’s better than he is — but that awesome stint where he was leading the team last season before B.Roy got back, was some of the most fun Blazer ball I’ve watched in a while. Hope we get back to that once the season starts on Valentine’s Day.

that is encouraging, I feel like I haven’t seen many players change and improve their game as much as LMA has over the last two years. He may be an anomaly that continues to get even better than we imagine, That’s a big maybe though, I still think he’s worth his contract even now though.

Taking Dave’s subtext one step further:

I’m assuming the indirect modifier implies “the kind of player who can take this franchise to great heights, making this incarnation of the Trail Blazers memorable and distinct”.

I think the REAL underlying question is: Can we win a WCF or championship with LMA as the cornerstone of the team. There’s an implied assumption that big time winning isn’t possible unless we have at least one. Therefore, either LMA is a “franchise” player and we have a shot, or he isn’t and we don’t.

I reject that line of thinking, mostly. Yes you need at least one dominant player that can create scoring opportunities in the face of all kinds of defenses in order to seriously contend. But clearly the Heatles have proven that this is not a magic bullet. Boston’s Big Three had a lot more going for them than star power.

In that context, I can easily picture LMA as being a vital cog of a championship roster. Will he ever be a LeBron or a Dwayne Wade? Most likely never. But he possesses the both the individual talent AND the team first mentality to be a champion. The current league and NBA history are littered with mind-bogglingly good individual players who never sniffed a championship. I don’t see LaMarcus in that category. The question is, can we put together a lineup that includes LaMarcus that can contend? If not, we may someday repeat history and lament the Texas team that puts LMA and Durant together in 2016..

Aldridge was a franchise player for two months last year. Need to see his play from that stretch be extended for a full season before I sign off on him as a franchise player though. He sure came a long way from where he was in years past though.

But I don’t think he is a franchise player. He had a great season..probably the best for his career. He will make an All Star game, I mean he deserved it last year. He will be a good player for years to come, but he’s not the MAN. He is more like the second guy.

On a handful of others—maybe 8-10 depending on how you’d look at it—he’d be the second banana.

I bet Norsktroll strongly disagrees with LMA being a second banana.

Until mid December he was putting up some terrible numbers. From that point until the end of February his production was absolutely superstar calibre – his PER in that stretch (calculated by someone more mathematically inclined than myself) was 26.9.

Nevertheless, that is cherry picking as much as calling his early struggles or late season plateauing indicative would be. Truth in my eyes is that we don’t know what LaMarcus Aldridge can be for us because the range of performance he displayed last season was pretty varied. I don’t think top 3 at his position is out of the question, nor do I think regression back to 2nd banana level production is either.

He’s overrated…but not by me!