LaMarcus Aldridge will be making his seventh All-Star appearance this weekend, but his recent re-emergence as one of the best power forwards in the league is more than just about how good of a player he has been this season. It's also about the fact that he decided to grow up as a person.
In 2015, Aldridge decided to leave the Portland Trail Blazers to sign with the Spurs, hoping that he'd have a better chance of winning a championship there. Also, there were reports that he felt unappreciated by the Blazers, who put more focus on prolific scorer Brandon Roy (before he became injury prone) and a young promising player like Damian Lillard.
He was about to go the same route with the Spurs in 2016, as he felt unhappy with how coach Gregg Popovich was utilizing him. The two decided to talk things over, which led to Aldridge staying in San Antonio.
LaMarcus Aldridge learned from his mistakes and is now having a successful season despite being 33 years old. He has learned to forgive and forget, including his issues with Blazers and Lillard, who is now Portland's franchise player. The two reportedly apologized to each other, according to The Athletic's Jabari Young:
“We’ve fixed our relationship,” Aldridge said. “It wasn’t us. It wasn’t us having an issue with each other. It was the people around us generating things that wasn’t there. So, it’s harder to see when you’re in it, but I think now that we’re both on the outside looking back at it — we had that talk and it definitely made it better.
“It’s funny (when you’re) older, you grow up and see things differently,” Aldridge added. “I think I understand Dame’s view more. I think he understands my view. I think we just hashed it out. It wasn’t an argument. We just talked it out.”
And Lillard agrees with his former teammate:
“We both apologized,” Lillard said. “I think it was a lot of miscommunication from everybody but us. People were saying, ‘I heard LA didn’t like Dame because of this. And I heard Dame said this.’ We got on the phone and I was like, ‘Man look, I came to Portland looking at you like you’re LaMarcus Aldridge. I was trying to be the best compliment to you. I wasn’t in competition with you. I wasn’t jealous of you. I wasn’t trying to be nothing but (supportive). I felt like I was the point guard coming to Portland to help you out. I didn’t look at it like I’m taking over the situation.’
“And he heard otherwise,” Lillard added. “What I said to him was, ‘You was in the locker room with me every day. I never operated like that when you were around.’ And he was like, ‘My bad for letting other people get in my head about something that was right in front of me.’ I said, ‘I apologize for not forcing that line of communication or not making it clear to you that that was not the situation.’ I think it was something we both could’ve stepped up and handled a little bit better because there was no beef. Me and him never had a single argument, never had a single issue with each other.”
It's a nice thing to see when players begin to realize their past mistakes and learn from it. As for Aldridge, it took him a while to learn such things, but now that he does, he has become a better player, on and off the court.
Now, both LaMarcus Aldridge and the Blazers are taking a similar path. They are teams that are not good enough to win the championship, but they're competitive enough to make things interesting in the Western Conference.
So, what could have happened if both sides decided to stick together?
Ah, the possibilities.
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