Where does LaMarcus Aldridge rank among Blazers players ALL TIME

[TroubleS0me]

Make list a of where he ranked among all-time Blazers greats

[Dr Positivity]

Drexler, Walton, Lillard, Porter, then LMA or Sheed, with Uncle Cliff not too far behind them. Lucas and Roy are light on longevity.

[HeartBreakKid]

Drexler, Walton, Lillard, Porter, then LMA or Sheed, with Uncle Cliff not too far behind them. Lucas and Roy are light on longevity.

Isnt Walton light on the longevity also?

[jptremblay]

Drexler, Walton, Lillard, Porter, then LMA or Sheed, with Uncle Cliff not too far behind them. Lucas and Roy are light on longevity.

Isnt Walton light on the longevity also?

Not when he is the guy that bring their only championship to Portland while being the finals MVP.

[penbeast0]

CJ? Buck? Kersey? Paxson? Petrie?

Career win shares as a Blazer:
1. Drexler
-------------
2. Lilliard
---------------
3. Porter
4. LMA
5. Rasheed
6. Kersey
---------------
7. Buck
8. Paxson
9. Sabonis (surprised me!)
10. Uncle Cliffie

[TroubleS0me]

just realized Roy could have been higher if not for injuries

[Doctor MJ]

Off the top of my head:

1. Walton
2. Drexler
3. Lillard
4. Porter
5. Sheed
6. Aldridge

One thing I'll just address up front is that I have zero qualms about putting Walton at the top despite his short career. It would certainly hurt Walton against stiffer competition, but none of these other guys have done anything that matter anywhere near as much as what Walton did for the Blazers, and while that's clearly about more than just playing basketball, Walton was also better at playing basketball than these other guys.

But with that said, over on the Top 100 thread, I'm advocating for Lillard without really addressing Walton right now, so the contradiction should be noted.

In the Top 100, while I still consider things from a franchise perspective to an extent, it's a bit more of a "Who would you draft?" thing for me. I think peak Walton gives you a better chance to win a title than Drexler or Lillard, but would you rather bank your GM/coach career that everything will come together like it did in 1977 when you know how touch & go his injury situation is going to be? Probably not.

But for the Blazers, Walton actually did it.

I've only talked about the Top 3 so far, and that's because I do see it as a clear cut Top Tier. I could see arguments for Aldridge as high as 4, or I could see him lower (Buck & Sabas come to mind), but he's definitely in that second tier.

[TroubleS0me]

Off the top of my head:

1. Walton
2. Drexler
3. Lillard
4. Porter
5. Sheed
6. Aldridge

One thing I'll just address up front is that I have zero qualms about putting Walton at the top despite his short career. It would certainly hurt Walton against stiffer competition, but none of these other guys have done anything that matter anywhere near as much as what Walton did for the Blazers, and while that's clearly about more than just playing basketball, Walton was also better at playing basketball than these other guys.

But with that said, over on the Top 100 thread, I'm advocating for Lillard without really addressing Walton right now, so the contradiction should be noted.

In the Top 100, while I still consider things from a franchise perspective to an extent, it's a bit more of a "Who would you draft?" thing for me. I think peak Walton gives you a better chance to win a title than Drexler or Lillard, but would you rather bank your GM/coach career that everything will come together like it did in 1977 when you know how touch & go his injury situation is going to be? Probably not.

But for the Blazers, Walton actually did it.

I've only talked about the Top 3 so far, and that's because I do see it as a clear cut Top Tier. I could see arguments for Aldridge as high as 4, or I could see him lower (Buck & Sabas come to mind), but he's definitely in that second tier.

Sheed over LA? why

[Doctor MJ]

Off the top of my head:

1. Walton
2. Drexler
3. Lillard
4. Porter
5. Sheed
6. Aldridge

One thing I'll just address up front is that I have zero qualms about putting Walton at the top despite his short career. It would certainly hurt Walton against stiffer competition, but none of these other guys have done anything that matter anywhere near as much as what Walton did for the Blazers, and while that's clearly about more than just playing basketball, Walton was also better at playing basketball than these other guys.

But with that said, over on the Top 100 thread, I'm advocating for Lillard without really addressing Walton right now, so the contradiction should be noted.

In the Top 100, while I still consider things from a franchise perspective to an extent, it's a bit more of a "Who would you draft?" thing for me. I think peak Walton gives you a better chance to win a title than Drexler or Lillard, but would you rather bank your GM/coach career that everything will come together like it did in 1977 when you know how touch & go his injury situation is going to be? Probably not.

But for the Blazers, Walton actually did it.

I've only talked about the Top 3 so far, and that's because I do see it as a clear cut Top Tier. I could see arguments for Aldridge as high as 4, or I could see him lower (Buck & Sabas come to mind), but he's definitely in that second tier.

Sheed over LA? why

Well, I think Sheed was a better player.

Back when Sheed was in Portland quite frankly I wasn't that high on him because I thought of him as a guy who was falling short of his potential in part because of an attitude problem. When we got a chance to see data like +/- numbers though, it became clear that Sheed really seemed to impact like a star at all times. While Sheed was generally considered the best player on those teams, it was always seen as something of an ensemble in part because no one was a super-high volume scorer, but the data really makes clear that Sheed stood out over everyone else more than I realized.

This matters for peak consideration, but also matters in terms of blame for the Blazers fading while Sheed was still young. Given that he was having really quality impact basically the whole time, I think I overrated how problematic his attitude was to on court play.

Moreover, to the extent it matters: It's worth noting that Sheed was very popular in the Blazer fan community, rather than someone the fanbase loathed.

What I'll also say though is that Sheed's turn with the Pistons further shapes how I see him as a player in general, and thus informs my assessment of Sheed in Portland. This was a flexible dude who really played without ego in relation to his teammates.

Which brings us back to Aldridge whose ego was a problem. Aldridge happily talked about being a Blazer for life until Lillard started eclipsing him. It was such a strange thing to me at the time because the Blazers clearly weren't going to be contenders built around Aldridge so I'd have expected him to embrace having more talent on the team, but instead he got insecure.

And I'll note, something similar happened in San Antonio. While one can look back on those Spurs and think that Aldridge was looking to upgrade from Lillard to Kawhi, the reality is that he was not expecting Kawhi to be the better offensive threat (Kawhi had only averaged 16 PPG the previous year), and when it became clear that Kawhi would be the focal point of the new offense, Aldridge asked for a trade and only relented when Pop assured him that he still was a part of the plan.

I know it's rather ugly for me to talk about Aldridge's ego while we're in the wake of him retiring to protect his life - something I feel nothing but for him on as I still remember what happened to Hank Gathers - but the truth is that Aldridge was a 2nd banana who got insecure when he was asked to play 2nd banana, and that was a problem.

A horrible, horrible problem? Maybe, maybe not, but I'd note that in practice it was more problematic for his teams than Sheed being Sheed.

[KobesScarf]

Maybe 6th behind Walton Lucas Drexler Lillard and CJ

[penbeast0]

Maybe 6th behind Walton Lucas Drexler Lillard and CJ

Mo only spent 3.5 years in Portland, not sure he belongs in this company.

[feyki]

Drexler and Lilliard are clearly ahead of him. Then we could argue his Blaz career against Porter,Walton,Roy kind of names.

[TheBomb81]

Drexler, Walton, Lillard, Porter, then LMA or Sheed, with Uncle Cliff not too far behind them. Lucas and Roy are light on longevity.

Isnt Walton light on the longevity also?

Not when he is the guy that bring their only championship to Portland while being the finals MVP.

He also won the 1977-78 MVP.

[TheBomb81]

I Think he ranks in the 6-7 range.

[trex_8063]

I assume this is asking "based solely on his career in Portland"......which is a question I reallly struggle with, as I don't break up my player-career evaluations into "X-amount of value in a Blazer jersey, Y-amount in a Spurs jersey....", etc. I just look at a player's whole career, and ignore the uniforms.

Off-the-cuff, I think I probably still have Drexler as #1 for his career in Portland, and Lillard is up to #2.
After that, it's either Terry Porter or LaMarcus Aldridge for me (if I broke up their respective careers, I suspect it would be really close).

I'm not sure there's anyone else tremendously close for me. Sheed maybe.
Jerome Kersey, Buck Williams, Bill Walton would come after, but I don't think any of them would be particularly close to Porter or LMA for me.