San Antonio Spurs: 5 goals for LaMarcus Aldridge in 2017-18
1. Make the NBA All-Defensive team
We have spent most of Aldridge’s career focusing on his offense, but people forget that he can be a solid defensive player as well. During his few years with the Spurs, he has been able to tack on at least one block per game.
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Thanks to our friends at Basketball-Reference.com, we were able to take a closer look at Aldridge’s defensive statistics.
A player’s defensive box plus-minus shows an estimate of the defensive points over 100 possessions a player contributed. During his time in Portland, that number was 0.4. In San Antonio, it rose to 1.2.
This just proves that he can be serviceable on the defensive end. It is just hard to notice when you have Kawhi Leonard on your team. However, that doesn’t mean other players on the Spurs have gone unnoticed for their defensive efforts. Danny Green was also selected to the All-Defensive team last season.
Although it looks like Aldridge will be focusing more on offense this season, he can’t forget to deliver on defense as well. In an interview with ESPN, Popovich said that he was a major key to the team’s success protecting the rim last year.
"“But having said that, I think we are mostly talking about offense. Defense, he was fantastic for us. Now, we have got to help him a little bit more so that he is comfortable in his own space offensively, and I haven’t done a very good job of that.”"
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With that being said, don’t be surprised to see Aldridge being named to the All-Defensive team next season, especially with other Spurs players garnering attention.