LaMarcus Aldridge arrived in San Antonio with the hope that he could contribute in a significant way to a championship team. The now 11-year veteran left the Portland Trailblazers and Damian Lillard for what he thought would be greener pastures in Kawhi Leonard and Gregg Popovich.
In the 2015-2016 season, after two very impressive games in a second-round series against the Oklahoma City Thunder, the San Antoni Spurs were ousted in 6 games. Last season saw the Spurs make the Western Conference Finals, but a series-ending injury to Leonard led to a sweep by the Golden State Warriors.
According to ESPN’s Micheal C. Wright, Aldridge met with Popovich to air some grievances of his.
“It was me kind of being blunt about it, and being kind of forward,” Aldridge recently told ESPN during training camp. “He was open to it. I kind of just spilled my heart about how I felt about how things were, and how things had been going.
“I think he was kind of caught off guard. I don’t think he really had noticed [that I was unhappy]. But once I said it, he was great about listening, and it was good from there. I felt like I wasn’t really fitting into the system as best I could. I wasn’t really helping like I felt I could.”
Head coach and primary recruiter of Aldridge wants to accommodate the power forward as much as possible.
“We have talked about what we can do to make him more comfortable, and to make our team better. 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.”
The western conference has gotten much more competitive this season. Aldridge and the Spurs, according to the recent GM survey are thought to be the 3rd ranked team in the elite west.
If they want to reach those expectations, the Spurs are going to have to be able to coalesce better than they have the past two seasons.
