The Bubble Spurs impressed, entertained, and showed flashes of unrealized potential—all without one of the team’s cornerstone figures in LaMarcus Aldridge. The 35-year-old sat out after undergoing shoulder surgery in April and so, too, did Trey Lyles, leaving a smaller group to play a style that relied far more on dribble penetration and less on the diet of static post-ups and elbow-level pick-and-pops that have defined Aldridge’s game.
I’m admittedly uncomfortable with how much of the following reverts to LMA shirking midrangers for threes. I have no interest in pushing the agenda of Big Three-Pointer, which is a tired and uniform kind of analysis that also clashes with one of the most memorable performances I’ve seen in person: Aldridge hanging 56 on the Thunder in January 2019.