LaMarcus Aldridge on Portland days with Patty Mills, NBL and more
LaMarcus Aldridge on Portland days with Patty Mills, NBL and more
Aldridge discusses the Lillard trade, Blazers memories with Mills, physicality in modern basketball among other topics.
Following the aftermath of the recent Damian Lillard trade, it felt somewhat serendipitous that LaMarcus Aldridge arrived at Melbourne’s NBA Store last Friday. Aldridge —who was in town to tip off NBA Fan Month, a month-long celebration of sport in Australia, leading up to the start of the 2023-24 NBA season— caught not only the NBL’s season opener, but also the AFL and NRL Grand Finals.
Credit: James Rush
As one of Lillard’s longest tenured teammates, the former Portland Trail Blazer power forward shared with The Pick and Roll that he was “happy for Dame to finally be on a contender”, and surprised that the Milwaukee Bucks prevailed. “I didn’t hear that [Milwaukee] was really in the running… but [Lillard’s] whole goal was an opportunity to win a championship, and I’m just happy that [Portland] sent him to a place where he could actually have a chance to win.”
He remains both optimistic, and a little wary, about the Bucks’ championship aspirations. “I’ve been a part of this whole, ‘they’re the favourites now’ before in Brooklyn,” Aldridge said, in reference to his time with the infamous Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden iteration of the Brooklyn Nets. “But you got to let it play out and find some chemistry and go from there.”
With a more relaxed, or at least, less championship-or-bust outlook, Aldridge shifted to what the Lillard trade meant for the Trail Blazers moving forward. “I think [the organisation] and fans are ready to regroup and restart. No organisation wants to do it, but they’ve drafted some very talented young guards, and I think they can use these new guys [from the trade] to help the team grow faster.”
On Mills and growth
Aldridge then went on to discuss another former teammate in Patty Mills, and reflected on their time together. With the pair having played together both in Portland, San Antonio, and Brooklyn —Mills previously joked that “he couldn’t get rid of the guy”— LaMarcus smiled at the memory of their shared tribute video upon their return to San Antonio.
Aldridge had watched a younger Mills struggle for playing time over his two years in Portland, and spoke about how he was similarly excited when Mills found opportunity with the San Antonio Spurs because they saw his value. That faith was repaid when Mills subsequently became a key reserve with the Spurs, and went on to score a crucial 14 points in the third quarter of San Antonio’s 2014 championship-clinching game against the Miami Heat. Aldridge credited Mills as a big part of the Spurs’ championship run back then, and applauded Mills’ growth, on top of his rise as “an amazing leader”.
After 12 years in the league, storied green and gold heroics on the international stage including the honour of Olympic flag bearer, and an impressive body of work via the Team Mills Foundation and Indigenous Basketball Australia, the image of Patty Mills today as the consummate professional and inspiring leader is seemingly unassailable.
That wasn’t always the case, as Aldridge shared.
“Patty’s not going to like that I’m going to say this,” Aldridge laughed. “But when he got drafted, he was hurt. It was December, and back in the States, it’s cold. So Portland let him come home to rehab, and [because Mills] had just got drafted, Patty just started partying, partying, partying. And when he came back, he was a little chubby because of the drinking, and I was like, ‘yo, how did you leave here skinny and come back fat?’ And he’s like, ‘mate, it’s summer back home’.”
“But that’s not who Patty was,” Aldridge emphasised. “My first impression was that he was a big party guy, undisciplined, but that’s the opposite of who he is. He’s hyper-professional, he eats right, doesn’t drink. But it was still cool to see his growth.”
Mills’ journey on understanding his pace and speed, while reworking his conditioning was covered by Warren Yiu previously:
The Spurs have a mantra: pounding the rock. It’s an ethos that echoes across their training facility, front office, and within the locker room. The saying, based on a quote from social reformer, Jacob Riis, signifies the importance of commitment towards process; there are no quick fixes, silver bullets nor any short cuts towards success. Instead, success is derived from patience and trust.
And so it was in the summer of 2013, that Patty Mills slowed down and committed to pounding the proverbial rock. He spent the entire summer with personal trainer, Jason Sumerlin, to rework his body into one that was becoming of an elite athlete. Whilst Mills didn’t lose much weight over that fateful off-season, he dropped his body fat percentage from 12-13 percent to a staggering 5.8 percent, returning to Spurs training camp in October 2013 in the best physical shape of his life.
According to Gregg Popovich: “He ate very well, watched what he put in his body, worked his body and did it the whole summer.”
On NBL, NBA and physicality
“[Last night] was a good game. There’s a great atmosphere and great fans.” Having watched the NBL’s opening game between Melbourne United and South East Melbourne Phoenix the night before, Aldridge also likened the NBL’s level of physicality to the NBA, back to when he was drafted in 2006. “Compared to where we are now in the NBA… [the NBL’s] definitely more physical.”
In contrast to the physical, plodding games from Aldridge’s earlier days, the modern NBA has become a much faster paced, and higher scoring affair. Interestingly though, for a big man such as himself, when asked if the NBA had moved too far away from physicality, Aldridge understood the NBA’s need to become faster. “I remember watching a 67-68 final score, with both teams slugging it out. And now guys get to put their skills on display more. It’s better for the game.”
Unlike the archetypical bigs of an earlier age, where bruising physicality, inside play and foul taking were the tools of the trade, the NBA today prioritises different skills, that make the game a better sport, both in terms of athlete safety, and also from an entertainment standpoint. Offensive spacing is almost an essential trait, while speed and defensive versatility are effectively changing the roles and physical requirements of big men in the league.
Would Aldridge have considered being a Next Star?
Aldridge’s journey to the NBA was in an era before today’s ecosystem of development pathways surfaced, ranging from NCAA basketball to NBL’s Next Stars program, to the G League Ignite and more; he was asked if he might have been tempted to have played in Australia, had the Next Star option been available back when he chose to go to college. “For me, I wanted to go to [the University of] Texas, because I’m from Texas, and so for me it was sentimental… I wanted to experience what it would be like to go to college and be a kid for a year.”
Still, with the NBA having changed so much over the course of his career, Aldridge could see the appeal of the Next Stars program and how it prepares players for the NBA, unlike the prep to pro generation of yesteryear. “My time was tricky; I could have gone pro out of high school, or went to college. Now they have college, the G League, and I understand why guys would want to play out here.”
He probably still would not have come to Australia as a Next Star. But as someone who averaged 19.1 points across 1076 career games and made his mark as a skilful shooting big, there’s no doubt that the seven-time All-Star would have adapted and thrived in today’s NBA, had he grown up in today’s environment.