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Brooklyn Nets center LaMarcus Aldridge dropped a bombshell Thursday morning when he announced on Twitter that he's walking away from basketball for good. Aldridge's choice to retire is mostly grounded on health reasons, revealing that an irregular heartbeat he experienced during last Saturday's game against the Los Angeles Lakers prompted him into making the difficult decision.
Now that Aldridge will not play another second in the NBA, it's a perfect time to look back on what an amazing career he had in the pros.
LaMarcus Aldridge made it to the NBA back in 2006, when he was drafted second overall by the Chicago Bulls. His rights were then traded to the Portland Trail Blazers. He made his NBA debut on November 12 of that year against the Dallas Mavericks and instantly made an impact, scoring 10 points with eight rebounds in 19 minutes. His first basket? It was a short stab at the rim after a pump fake that sent Mavs big man DeSagana Diop flying into the air.
It was a move that he would repeatedly pull off throughout the rest of his career.
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Almost 15 years later, LaMarcus Aldridge would make his final field goal in the NBA, which was a bucket from point-blank range off a feed by Nets guard Joe Harris against the Lakers. No one had an idea at that time yet, but that eventually became the last bucket of the former Texas Longhorns star in the professional ranks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=415&v=Hdm4hz3ayb8&feature=youtu.be
All told, LaMarcus Aldridge had 19,951 career points in the NBA across 1,029 games. He averaged 20.4 points on 49.1 percent shooting from the field and 8.7 rebounds per game.
LaMarcus Aldridge retires as an accomplished player and one of the best players of his generation. He wasn't able to add an NBA ring to his list of accomplishments, but he was an integral part of the teams he played with during his peak, particularly the Blazers, the franchise he helped define from the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s.
