What is LaMarcus Aldridge's NBA legacy?
Aldridge's 15-year career came to an unexpected, abrupt ending Thursday when he announced his retirement after experiencing an irregular heartbeat on the court during his final game on Saturday. At 35, Aldridge is stepping away from the game just after signing with the Brooklyn Nets on the buyout market.
What has Aldridge accomplished during his NBA career? And what does his retirement mean for the Nets, who are favored to win the Eastern Conference? Let's take a look.
Key part of Blazers' resurgence
Aldridge will surely be most remembered for his time with the Portland Trail Blazers, who moved up two spots on draft night in 2006 to add him with the No. 2 overall pick. In a lottery littered with washouts during the first draft with the current age limit, Aldridge and fellow Blazers addition Brandon Roy (No. 6) stand out as highlights.
The two draft picks arrived in Portland during a low point in the city's love affair with the Blazers, whose 21 wins in 2005-06 were their fewest since the franchise's first two seasons as an expansion team. In the wake of the breakup of the high-payroll Portland teams in the early 2000s, the city was ready for a new, homegrown squad.
Although Roy (the league's Rookie of the Year in 2006-07) was quicker to develop and Greg Oden (who joined them as the No. 1 overall pick a year later) was more hyped, it was Aldridge who was able to avoid injuries and last with the Blazers. He was the lone Portland player from the rebuild left when Damian Lillard arrived in 2012; together they led the 2013-14 Blazers to the franchise's first playoff series win since 2000.
Lillard's series-winning 3-pointer in Game 6 is the lasting memory of that Portland first-round series against the Houston Rockets, but it was only possible because Aldridge was so dominant in the first two games. Aldridge combined for 89 points on 35-of-59 shooting as the Blazers won both of those games in his hometown of Houston to claim home-court advantage in the series.
By that point, Aldridge had established himself as one of the NBA's most feared post scorers. Never overpowering (Aldridge correctly identified himself as "skinny" when drafted by Portland in the statement announcing his retirement), he wreaked havoc on defenses thanks to a high release point on his turnaround jumper and the development of counter moves from his beloved left block.
Between 2013-14 (the first season of camera tracking) and 2018-19 (his last season as an All-Star), Aldridge's 5,234 post-ups were the most in the NBA by nearly a thousand, according to Second Spectrum data. He combined that volume with above-average efficiency. His teams' .978 points per chance on those post-ups ranked 20th among the 51 players with at least 1,000 post-ups in that span.
Late-career what-ifs
By the end of that period, Aldridge was in San Antonio, having left the Blazers as the most coveted free agent on the market in the summer of 2015 to sign with a Spurs team two years removed from winning a championship. The addition of Aldridge figured to push San Antonio to a new level after a relatively down 2014-15 by its standards (55-27), and it did: The Spurs won a franchise-record 67 games in Aldridge's first season with the team, tied for the seventh-most wins in NBA history.
There was only one problem: The 2015-16 Golden State Warriors were busy setting the league record with 73 wins, leaving San Antonio seventh in NBA history but second in the Western Conference. That meant a brutal matchup with the Oklahoma City Thunder in the conference semifinals, where the Thunder upset the Spurs before nearly doing the same to the Warriors.
With Kevin Durant in the Bay and Kawhi Leonard sidelined after spraining his ankle on Zaza Pachulia's infamous closeout into his landing spot in Game 1 of the 2017 Western Conference finals, San Antonio got swept in the deepest playoff run of Aldridge's career. The rise of Golden State's dynasty looms as one what-if in Aldridge's career; sadly, now the timing of his retirement looms as another.
After agreeing to give back $5.8 million in salary in a buyout from the Spurs, Aldridge signed for the prorated veterans minimum ($554,988) with Brooklyn in the evident hope of reaching the NBA Finals for the first time. He won't get the opportunity to add a championship ring as a contributor to his career résumé, which features seven All-Star appearances -- all in the Western Conference during a period when the conference was loaded with talent -- and five selections to the All-NBA second and third teams.
Playoff performance is the biggest question mark when it comes to Aldridge's case for the Hall of Fame. Based on my championships added method for assessing players' careers, Aldridge is a clear Hall of Famer based on his regular-season value (ranking 62nd in NBA history) and above the cut in terms of awards value (ranking 98th) but below the line in terms of playoff value (230th).
There's no perfect match for Aldridge's Hall of Fame case. Bob McAdoo, 226th in playoff value, probably comes closest. However, McAdoo had an MVP to his credit and added two championships as a reserve for the 1980s Lakers, helping him earn enshrinement in 2000.
Basketball-Reference.com's Hall of Fame index understandably puts Aldridge almost exactly at 50-50 to be selected. Ultimately, I think Aldridge will probably make it as the Hall continues to loosen its standards for eligibility. With Jack Sikma's election in 2019, every eligible player with at least seven All-Star appearances since the 1950s has made the Hall of Fame. (Joe Johnson, whose seven All-Star appearances all came in the East, will test this rule when he becomes eligible.)
Nets looking for guard help?
Surely, Brooklyn is disappointed not to have Aldridge in the mix for a playoff run. He'd started all five games he played at center, shaking off the rust after sitting out nearly a month before completing a buyout with the Spurs but showing impressive rim protection. Aldridge's block rate with Brooklyn (7% of opponent 2-point attempts) would have blown away his previous career high of 4%.
The Nets may particularly miss Aldridge in a potential playoff matchup against the Philadelphia 76ers and their All-Star center Joel Embiid. Aldridge presented the possible best of both worlds against Embiid with the ability to stretch Embiid out to the 3-point line on offense while creditably defending him on the other end. Without Aldridge in the lineup, Embiid was dominant in Wednesday's Sixers win over a short-handed Brooklyn team, scoring 39 points in 33 minutes.
The good news is the Nets still have plenty of options at center. DeAndre Jordan, who did not play due to coach's decision in the five games Aldridge was active, has returned to his starting role, with promising second-year center Nicolas Claxton as a backup. We also have yet to see much of fellow buyout pickup Blake Griffin as a center, something that was anticipated when he signed in Brooklyn. According to my analysis of lineup data from NBA Advanced Stats, Griffin has played more than two-thirds of his minutes with the Nets as a power forward.
Because of the depth in the frontcourt, Brooklyn will probably want to use the roster spot created by Aldridge's retirement on a ball handler. The Nets lost point guard Chris Chiozza to a metacarpal fracture in his right hand during Tuesday's win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. With James Harden (hamstring strain), Kyrie Irving (personal reasons) and Tyler Johnson (knee soreness) also unavailable for that game, Brooklyn was forced to play point guard by committee.
Irving returned to the lineup Wednesday, but the Nets could still use another reliable ball handler until Harden and Johnson rejoin him on the court.