Portland Trailblazers fans surely have a lot to look forward to after seeing their team reach the second round of the playoffs in the Western Conference last season. Only a few people would have predicted that the Blazers would secure a 4th seed in the playoffs much less beat the Houston Rockets duo of Dwight Howard and James Harden in the first round. I bet fans would also be thrilled hearing that their star LaMarcus Aldridge has been voted as the best Power Forward in the NBA in a 2014-15 GM survey conducted by NBA.com.
Aldridge is coming off the best season of his career and has reached a whole new level of respect from everyone around the league. Aldridge was tied by Blake Griffin (both garnering 25% of the votes) for the Best Power Forward title in the GM survey - by far the tightest race among the five positions. It can be argued that Aldridge, at the moment, is better than Blake Griffin at the position because of his lethal shooting touch and slightly better rebounding game but that would be another story entirely.
But how impressive is Aldridge's nomination this time? Pretty impressive especially if you consider the fact that he has been trailing behind two of the best power forwards of all time in Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki in the category for the last three seasons of his career according to Mike Tokito of Oregon Live:
Aldridge finished fourth in the category the last three seasons. Last year, Aldridge got 6.9 percent of the vote, with Tim Duncan finishing No. 1 at 31 percent. In 2012, he got 10 percent of the vote, which was topped by Love at 30 percent. In 2011, Aldridge got 10.7 percent, with Dirk Nowitzki finishing No. 1 at 41.1 percent.
But last season was Aldridge's time. He took a big leap averaging career highs of 23.2 points and 11.1 rebounds. Aldridge was also voted as an All-Star for the third time in his career, was voted to the all-NBA third team, led a young Portland squad to a 54-28 record and a first-round, 4-2 playoff victory over Houston, the franchise's first series win since 2000.
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