LaMarcus Aldridge post fadeaway: Is it an all-time great move?

The turnaround fadeaway has been the go-to move for what’s become a Hall of Fame caliber career for LaMarcus Aldridge. But when all is said and done, should history remember it as one of the all-time great signature moves?

Any time the San Antonio Spurs are on television, LaMarcus Aldridge provides reasons why he’s a must-watch player.

Of course, there’s his dinosaur-esque approach to the game, where in the land of “giants,” Aldridge stands as one of the few with little intent on taking his game beyond the arc.

Then, there’s something calm and unassuming about his year-to-year consistency; he and LeBron James are the only two players to score 1,000 or more points in each of the last 12 seasons.

Opposing players have felt it before: the seven-time All-Star remains a nightly threat to quietly score 30 points, something he’s done on 80 occasions, according to Basketball Reference.

Just as likely, he’s a nightly threat to be the only 30-point scorer with nary a highlight reel, nary a mention. In most cases, he gets a quick box score showing at the bottom of the screen — assuming your eyes weren’t glued on a Blake Griffin dunk — and then, it’s onto the next day.

With that lack of exposure becoming such a norm, it’s worth wondering if fans and analysts alike will ever properly recognize one of the game’s most brilliant offensive maneuvers of this generation:

The patented LaMarcus Aldridge turnaround right-shoulder fadeaway.

The truth is, Aldridge’s fadeaway hangs a few rungs below some of the more memorable go-to maneuvers — think Kareem’s skyhook, Dirk’s similar one-legged fade, Duncan’s bank shot — but when its potency is measured, it stands right there among the statistical best.

It passes the very first litmus test of a great, trustworthy go-to: when the defense knows it’s coming and still can’t overcome the ensuing storm.

Here, it’s time to take a look at why Aldridge’s fadeaway hasn’t necessarily been given the respect it deserves (and if that’s warranted or not), a reasonable ranking for it among the great specialty shots, and where it stands in terms of metric statistics.