San Antonio Spurs forward LaMarcus Aldridge is new to the Spurs but may not fit in to their system right off the bat.
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San Antonio always seems to get its way. This past summer, the franchise re-inked Danny Green to a discounted deal (four years at $10 million per, a bargain considering the impending cap boom), locked in Kawhi Leonard with a five year contract, snagged David West on a minimum deal and edged out other teams in the pursuit of perennial all-star LaMarcus Aldridge. The result? An almost universal sentiment that the Spurs are a favorite to win 2016 NBA finals. According to a recent NBA survey, 25% of GMs think San Antonio will win the championship, meaning that SAS received more votes than any other team in the West (including the Warriors, who received the nod from 17.9% of GMs). Even NBA 2k16 has the Spurs ranked number one overall. The bottom line is that anything less than a championship series berth for Popovich and Co. will leave Spurs fans disappointed and everyone else perplexed.
However, a closer evaluation reveals that Aldridge, San Antonio's marquee acquisition, might not immediately be the perfect fit that everyone is making him out to be.
For one, San Antonio's offense functions with different geometry than Portland's. Here's his 2014-15 shot chart side by side with that of Spurs (Aldridge's is on the left). Note the discrepancies in percentage of total shots by spot on the court (notated as "DST"), and focus in on the midrange areas:
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The Spurs play an accidentally analytically friendly game, and while Aldridge is a moderately efficient player, his propensity for taking midrange shots doesn't quite fit in with the Spurs' system. For instance, almost 40% of Aldridge's shots came from the three leftmost mid-range areas in the above shot charts, whereas only 11.1% of San Antonio's shots came from the same spots. Overall, last season Aldridge took 423 shots between 15 and 19 feet from the basket (the most "mid-range" shot there is) while the Spurs'
whole team launched 875 shots from the same distance, barely twice that of LA. Optimists might spin this in a positive light; the Spurs don't take many shots from the left mid-range, and LA can provide them with solid shooting from those zones. However, a more rational analysis is that San Antonio's offensive system doesn't often manufacture mid-range jumpers from the left side and that Aldridge might struggle to consistently find the shots that he's comfortable taking.
Aldridge will also need time to adjust from a touches standpoint. Last year, Portland's offense was essentially a two-man show starring LA and Damien Lillard. Aldridge had a 30% usage rate and Lillard sported a 26.7% rate, both figures that surpass that of any player on the 2015 Spurs. To put this in perspective, LeBron James, who always seems to have an abnormally large workload, had a 32.4% usage rate (fourth highest in the league--LA and Lillard were both top 20). From a macro level, the standard deviation of usage rate of Spurs' players was only 3.27 percentage points while it was 4.68 points for Blazers players. Basically, Portland had a more concentrated offensive scheme compared to San Antonio (whose touches were more evenly spread throughout the roster). Aldridge will need time to adapt to an offense that doesn't allow the ball to stick with one player.
In the same light, San Antonio is known for it's ability to generate quick post-up opportunities that catch defenses off balance,
as seen here.
Aldridge likes to sip his tea and take his time on post-ups, like he does here.
This kind of post-up will mess with the fluidity of the offense, clog the lane for prospective cutters and subsequently drive Popovich nuts. Luckily, Aldridge is a savvy post player who'll learn to speed up his processes. This could actually bode well for him. According to data provided by Grantland, Aldridge shot 51% when he held the ball for two seconds or less and 42% when he held it for more. Thus, we could see an uptick in his field goal percentage as he meshes with the system. But there's going to be a learning curve.
All in all, it's a safe bet that LA will ultimately fit in the Spurs offense. However, it won't happen overnight, and I expect him to have growing pains for at least the first quarter of the season. In the uber-competitive West, this could have postseason repercussions come April in terms of matchups. With an aging roster, San Antonio's success relies on Aldridge and how well he can re-tailor his game to the Spurs offensive machine.
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