Aldridge is a pillar of stability for team
SAN ANTONIO — For LaMarcus Aldridge, maybe it was a flashback to the attention he got in last season’s playoffs against Denver. Maybe it was a foretaste of things to come next season.
The Spurs’ All-Star big man found himself swarmed in the middle of a gym Friday on the city’s West Side.
It wasn’t just a double team or a triple team Aldridge faced, but whatever it is called when 250 kids bum rush a person at once.
Aldridge did not have a ball in his hands, only a few of the 300 new iPads he had bought as a surprise gift for schoolchildren at a Boys and Girls Club of San Antonio.
Exclaimed one girl, who couldn’t have been more than 6 years old: “I’ve wanted one of these since I was little!”
“It’s amazing,” said Aldridge, who paused his offseason training sessions in Houston to fly in for Friday’s Back To School event. “You always have to give back. There’s a lot of kids out there who need things, everything.”
In a way, Aldridge’s appearance at the Boys and Girls Club marked a return to his Spurs roots.
Four years ago, not long after Aldridge signed a four-year, $80 million deal with the Spurs that at the time was considered a blockbuster, one of his first public appearances was to present back-toschool backpacks to children at the George Gervin Academy.
Aldridge, 34, feels a strong connection to the Boys and Girls Club. Growing up in poverty outside of Dallas, he was a regular at his local branch.
“It was a place I used to go to when I was younger to make me feel safe and keep me out of trouble,” Aldridge said. “(The way) I grew up, I didn’t have much. Having a place like this to go to and having different resources helps make things better.”
In four years since coming to the Spurs from Portland, Aldridge has become a pillar of the team’s community outreach strategy.
He has become a source of stability on the floor as well. Once a newcomer hailed as the biggest free agent signing in club history, Aldridge — on the cusp of his fifth season in San Antonio — remains the team’s second-longest-tenured player this season, behind only Patty Mills.
In a summertime of change across the NBA, in which most of last season’s Western Conference playoff teams either added or lost significant pieces, Aldridge’s constancy is one reason the Spurs like their chances to stay competitive.
He isn’t Tim Duncan — who, by the way, is joining the coaching staff as an assistant — but Aldridge has become one of the new standard-bearers of Spurs culture.
“He’s kind of like Timmy now; you take him for granted,” coach Gregg Popovich said last season. “He comes in and scores his points and rebounds and takes care of the defensive end, and you expect it every night because he’s such a pro.”
Like anyone else associated with the NBA, Aldridge followed this summer’s player movement frenzy with eyes wide open.
In the West alone, the Los Angeles Clippers got better with the additions of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. The Lakers added Anthony Davis to a roster that already included a fellow named LeBron James. Houston swapped Chris Paul for Russell Westbrook.
The Spurs, for their part, added journeymen DeMarre Carroll and Trey Lyles via free agency and re-signed stalwart forward Rudy Gay. The team’s most consequential roster “addition” could come in the form of point guard Dejounte Murray, who was coming off an All-Defensive team season when he blew out his knee last fall.
Will the Spurs have enough to remain in the conversation of the new-look West?
“We’ll have to wait and see,” Aldridge said.