Is Aldridge moving to the bench for good?
For the first 90 minutes or so after arriving at Chesapeake Energy Arena on Wednesday, Spurs center Lamarcus Aldridge went through a routine that felt familiar.
He stretched out his 35-yearold tendons and ligaments, got some shots up, jogged through a layup line, and slipped on a silver and black jersey with No. 12 on the back.
When tipoff against Oklahoma City arrived, Aldridge did something decidedly unfamiliar to him. He took a seat.
“It’s definitely a different task, coming off the bench,” Aldridge said.
This might become Aldridge’s new normal in San Antonio. It isn’t exactly old hat. Until the Spurs’ lastsecond 102-99 loss at OKC on Wednesday, Aldridge had started 1,030 consecutive games in which he had appeared, including the playoffs.
His last time coming off the bench was Feb. 26, 2007, nearly 14 years earlier to the day, when Aldridge was a rookie still finding his way in Portland.
The streak of 980 consecutive regular-season starts was the second-longest in the league since his 2006 draft class. First on the list is a fellow named Lebron James, who has made 1,059 starts without coming off the bench in that span.
“It’s very different,” Aldridge said after his 26-minute backup stint produced 11 points and seven rebounds at OKC. “I’m still trying to figure it out, how to be ready to go.”
For Aldridge, the new role was
part of a night rife with adjustment. He had not played at all since Feb. 1, having been sidelined a little more than three weeks dealing with a right hip flexor injury.
Aldridge missed only six games in that span, as the Spurs had four contests postponed by a coronavirus outbreak.
While the rest of the Spurs were quarantined for five nights in Charlotte last week, Aldridge tried to keep his shooting stroke polished in San Antonio.
His best-laid plans were waylaid by the recordsetting snowstorm.
“I was stuck at home,” Aldridge said. “I missed probably two or three days (of shooting). Up until then, I was in every day.”
When Aldridge finally got back on the floor with the Spurs, he rejoined a team in COVID-19 chaos. The Spurs traveled to OKC leaving six players behind, including five in NBA health and safety protocols. Five of the absent players would have logged heavy minutes — Demar Derozan, Derrick White, Keldon Johnson, Rudy Gay and Devin Vassell.
The club had a total of 10 healthy bodies to face the Thunder , and that included two players elevated from the G League (Luka Samanic and Tre Jones) and one on a two-way contract (Keita Bates-diop).
With so many cards missing, coach Gregg Popovich reshuffled his deck, leaving analytics darling Jakob Poeltl as his starting center, installing Trey Lyles at power forward and bringing a seven-time All-star off the bench.
“You can imagine it being tough on a guy like that,” guard Patty Mills said of Aldridge. “He’s obviously a well-deserved All-star for multiple years. This is where the professionalism comes in for him, seeing the positive in the situation.”
Short-handed and out of sorts, the Spurs still led OKC by as many as 11 points in the second half and by eight in the fourth quarter before running out of steam at the finish line.
It took a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from the Thunder’s Luguentz Dort to keep the Spurs’ skeleton crew from taking the game to overtime. Allowed to play for the first time since Feb. 14, the Spurs aimed to be more than just happy to be there.
“It was a blessing just to be able to do what we love to do,” said point guard Dejounte Murray, who led the Spurs with 27 points. “Not being able to work is not a good feeling.”
Having experienced the longest layoff of anyone on the active roster Wednesday, Aldridge acknowledged a bit of rust.
He made two of his three attempts from 3point range, but went 1 of 7 on shots from inside the arc. His lone successful 2-pointer was a driving baseline dunk in the second half.
“I didn’t feel as bad as I thought I would,” Aldridge said. “My shot didn’t feel great. My rhythm didn’t feel great. It’s just about getting my legs back and just trying to get back in the swing, basically.”
After the game, Popovich hedged when asked if Aldridge’s move to the bench might be permanent.
“Tonight he had to test it all out, see how he felt, get his minutes,” Popovich said.
If Aldridge’s shift to the second unit is not temporary, it would mark something of a “circle of life” moment for him. It had been so long since Aldridge’s last appearance off the bench, the venue that hosted that bygone Portland game no longer houses an NBA team.
It was played at Key Arena in Seattle, where the local NBA team relocated to Oklahoma City in 2008.
A 21-year-old Aldridge backed up Zach Randolph and Jamaal Magloire in Portland’s frontcourt that night. Also in the Blazers’ starting five was Ime Udoka, who would go on to become one of Aldridge’s coaches on the Spurs.
Aldridge scored 12 points with eight rebounds in Portland’s loss to the Supersonics. By the Blazers’ next game against Charlotte, he was elevated to the starting lineup.
Aldridge had been an NBA starter ever since — until Wednesday.
“I don’t know the feeling of being an All-star and having the career that he has had and now having to come off the bench,” Murray said. “He’s been professional about it. I tip my hat to him.”
If Aldridge remembers what it was like to come off the bench during the George W. Bush administration, more than 1,000 games of starting muscle memory have wiped out that feeling. If this is how his Spurs career is set to finish, Aldridge is determined to make the best of it. It will require a new routine, and a new normal.
“It wasn’t perfect tonight, and I don’t think it’s going to be perfect for a while,” Aldridge said. “It’s going to take some time for me to figure it out.”