Aldridge

[Rastapopoulos]

LaMarcus has been BAD the first two games.

Denver game: 4-15 fg, -13
Houston game: 4 tos, 5 fouls in 24 mins (against midgets), -7

At one time he was king of the pluses. Didn't he start really slow last season too?

Meanwhile, Greg has been +6 both games, Outlaw has been +15 and +5.
Aldridge has taken 25 shots but just 3 fts in his 64 minutes.
Oden has taken 8 shots and 4 fts in his 47 minutes.

Maybe if Oden was in the same unit as Miller?

 

[Fez Hammersticks]

LaMarshmallow is making an early appearance.

This isn't the LMA we saw last year. It's only two games, yeah, but he's looked like absolute garbage.

 

[blue32]

I do notice he's getting the ball to far from the rim to start his moves.

 

[bluefrog]

Aldridge had a slow start last season too, granted we had a tougher schedule.

 

[BenDavis503]

Yeah he is being too soft. He needs to man up and get in the post and score. Didn't he gain some weight this summer??? Everybody was talking about how big his arms look and crap.

 

[BoBoBREWSKI]

It's only 2 games, but I do agree that he's got to play with more toughness. Games like last night is why get gets labeled as "soft".
Lets hope he's a beast tomorrow night!

 

[SodaPopinski]

In the first two games, has he taken any shots inside the paint?

Dude's falling in love with his jumpshot too much.

 

[LOTBfan]

I was frustrating how far off the basket he and our centers were all night. I know Nene is good and all, but it was ridiculous how far off the bucket we played, and every time the ball went to the low post it got kicked back out. It was almost as if there was a directive "thou shalt not dunk" or something. This was definitely a case of dying by the jumpshot... 34 freaking %!!!

Aldridge, don't make me boot you from my fantasy team!

 

[hasoos]

I am a big Aldridge supporter, but I have to admit the last few games have been rather uninspiring. Foul trouble. No production. It's like he is not mentally into the games.

 

[Wizard Mentor]

It may or may not be fair, but I can't control my increased expectations for LMA because of his contract. He wanted the responsibility (and $) to be the go to guy (after Roy). He's got the $, he's got the plays run for him, and he's let the team down. Yes, he will come out of his funk, but I can't help but be disappointed in his play so far.

 

[Ed O]

It's just two games. He'll be fine.

He might have gotten too much in his extension, but these last two games are just a blip and he'll be back to his normal self soon.

Ed O.

 

[hasoos]

Aldridge typically has started the season slow in the past, and finished the season strong. So I am not too worried. I just hate seeing it happen when we play a division rival in an early season game.

 

[hasoos]

Agree on both. I think we paid for his potential also, which I don't think LaMarcus has much of left. He is David West with less rebounding and inside game, but better defense.

I sure hope the frack not. Because Davis West has really dropped his effort in both of those departments. I was watching New Orleans the other night and it was so bad, that the announcers (New Orleans announcers) were literally begging for anybody but Chris Paul to start playing with some fire. Basically when West got his money, he started slacking.

 

[maxiep]

It seems our general game plan has been to run the first plays for Aldridge to get a mid-range jumper. I noticed we didn't run those plays in the Denver game. Aldridge never got in a groove. Perhaps he's the kind of player who needs to be involved early to be effective?

LMA is among the least of my long-term concerns with this team. He'll be fine. As for his upside, I think he has tons of room to grow.

 

[Nikolokolus]

I'll admit I'm not very excited by LMA's slow start, but foul trouble limited him against Houston, and the Denver bigs have always gotten under his skin with the way they play defense (lots of shoving and bodying up). My guess is that he'll get his groove by game five (sooner would always be better of course) and we won't really be talking about this too much farther down the line ... that is to say talking about him playing like garbage; I'm sure there will always be complaints about his lack of rebounding and desire to really bang down low.