LaMarcus Aldridge (photo. Aaron Hewitt)

*Reprinted from Dime #46, on sale now*

Everybody loves the Blazers. And while that mainstream love is usually spent on Brandon Roy and Greg Oden, the real secret to Portland’s potential success is consistently ignored. Meet LaMarcus Aldridge.

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LaMarcus Aldridge answers the question before the question mark lands, as if reciting a monologue he’s been practicing all summer long.

What’s the one thing the Blazers were missing last year that would have…

“Greg Oden,” Aldridge says, quickly, in the same way every TV head has been programmed to mash the two names together — greGOden — when referencing his much-hyped rookie teammate. “The big body, the blocking shots, having two guys who can score in the post … that’s what we needed last year.

“We feel like we should make it to the playoffs now,” Aldridge adds. “We know it’s not gonna be easy, but we all worked hard in camp and I think we’ll get it done.”

For the past year and a half, if Aldridge hasn’t been answering questions about Greg Oden or Brandon Roy, the two most visible figures associated with the Portland Trail Blazers, he’s been fielding queries about rookie Jerryd Bayless, or Spanish import Rudy Fernandez, or Sixth Man of the Year candidate Travis Outlaw, or head coach Nate McMillan, or even French teenage prospect Nicolas Batum. Meanwhile, the man who averaged 17.8 points, 7.6 rebounds and a team-high 1.24 blocks last season, who was among the NBA’s young stars chosen for USA Basketball’s Select Team to scrimmage the Redeem Team in the weeks before the Beijing Olympics, is a mostly forgotten commodity.

“I’m not worried about whose name they say first or who people talk about,” Aldridge says. “At the end of the day, we all need each other, from Brandon Roy down to the last guy on the bench. You see someone like Leon Powe in the Finals last year; he had something like 25 and 10 in Game Two, and that helped push [the Celtics] through. You need everybody on the team to be successful.”

And in today’s NBA climate, where the concept of the “Big Three” (Garnett-Pierce-Allen, Duncan-Parker-Ginobili) has replaced the idea that championship foundations are built upon two superstars (Jordan-Pippen, Kobe-Shaq), Aldridge’s value should be all the more obvious. “I don’t know why he doesn’t get more attention — it’s just politics, really,” says Blazers fourth-year swingman Martell Webster. “But LaMarcus knows that the only thing he can control is what he does. He doesn’t really care what the media says. He’s got his eyes on becoming an All-Star. That’s what I really respect about him. He knows what he wants.”

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photo. Aaron Hewitt

Going into this season, the Blazers were the NBA’s favorite shiny new toy. Every fan, writer, blogger, analyst and expert had Portland down as its sleeper squad; a darkhorse getting so much shine, the term no longer applied. Roy was coming off his first All-Star appearance, Oden was making his long-awaited pro debut, Outlaw was coming off a breakout season, and Fernandez had shined in the Olympics while Bayless killed it in his Vegas Summer League run. Between ESPN, TNT and NBA TV, the Blazers had 20 games scheduled for national television, and it seemed every credible basketball source was fully convinced Portland’s 41-win record from the previous year — which included a memorable 14-game win streak covering parts of November and December — was guaranteed to improve, with prognosticators going as high as taking the Blazers to unseat the Utah Jazz as the ’09 Northwest Division champs.

“Nah, I don’t feel like it’s added pressure,” Aldridge says. “We put more pressure on ourselves than anyone else. The margin for error is small, but like last year, with every team winning 50 games, I don’t think that’s gonna happen every year. Still, we have to start out strong. We can’t think about making mistakes, just playing basketball the right way. If we do that, things will work out for us.”

Whether the Blazers can get close to the 50-win benchmark and reach the postseason for the first time since 2003 depends largely on Aldridge, and how the 23-year-old, 6-foot-11 forward/center shares the floor with the 20-year-old, seven-foot Oden.

“We have different strengths,” Aldridge says. “My main strength is being able to shoot; his is being able to dunk on whoever is in the lane. So I know he’s gonna be inside a lot and I’m gonna be outside, and I’m comfortable playing out. It’s never gonna get too crowded. I think we used this preseason to learn how to read each other. He can have all of the paint. I’m more in my natural position at the four; last year I was playing out of position a lot.”

Aldridge has seen his role change a few times already since he was taken No. 2 overall in the 2006 draft by Chicago and traded to Portland the same day. As a rookie he came off the bench behind power forward Zach Randolph some nights, started at center some nights, and from game to game guarded everyone from Paul Pierce to Pau Gasol. Going into Year Two, with Randolph having been traded and Oden supposed to be on the way, LA was penciled in as the starting four in the preseason. But when Oden had to have season-ending microfracture knee surgery, Aldridge became a starting center/forward hybrid, assuming responsibility as Portland’s go-to guy in the paint. And now, in Year Three, he’s had to adjust his game again to suit Oden. If he does it right, the Blazers could be as good as everyone wants them to be.

“He’s an All-Star player,” says ex-teammate Randolph, now with the Knicks. “He can shoot the basketball, he’s strong, he runs like a deer. He’s going to continue to get better and better. This is what, his third year? Sheeeit.”

The transition from Randolph to Aldridge as the Blazers’ interior anchor represented more than just one talented forward taking over for another; it signaled a fundamental shift in the organization that — as much as the success on the court — has turned the current Blazers into one of the League’s darlings. “Good guy” picks like Roy, Aldridge, Oden and Webster, plus the purging of players whom the Blazers faithful had turned on, helped reclaim a fan base that once ranked among NBA’s most loyal and loud through the mid-1990s, but had fallen out of love during the “Jail Blazers” era headlined by Rasheed Wallace, Damon Stoudamire, J.R. Rider, Randolph and Darius Miles.

“The one thing the Blazers did last year was they got their home court back,” says TNT analyst Doug Collins. “They got the fans excited about their team again.”

Aldridge, whose home in the Portland suburbs features a theater room, workout room, and houses his massive collection of Air Force 1s and Jordans, has seen the results first-hand.

“I saw it turn around last year, from us not having nobody at the games to having sellout games,” he says. “Blazermania is definitely back. When you’re out traveling, in the city, just going out to eat, you see how much the fans appreciate you and get excited to see you. Going to the games, you just feel it everywhere.”

“The fans love LaMarcus. The community loves him, and they embrace him,” says Webster. “Even though we all understand the whole thing with Brandon and Greg getting most of the attention, LaMarcus knows he’s loved in the city and in the organization.”

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photo. Aaron Hewitt

LaMarcus Aldridge grew up in Dallas, in a time when the NFL’s Cowboys defined success — and bad behavior — in pro sports. For letting one influence take hold and not the other, LaMarcus gives primary credit to his mother, Georgia, and his older brother, LaVontae, a former junior college ballplayer who, at 6-foot-10, taught LaMarcus to play the big man’s game.

As he blossomed into an All-American at Seagoville High School, where he engaged in a few head-to-heads with an older Texas phenom, Chris Bosh, LaMarcus’ senior-year decision ultimately came down to two choices: the NBA or the University of Texas.

“He ran like a deer, I’m telling you,” says Texas coach Rick Barnes, recalling his first impression of the state’s top recruit in 2004. “He could really run and he loved to run. He could cover ground and really block shots. He was on our radar early. I looked at his potential and you just knew it would all come together for him.

“LaMarcus is one of those guys, once you’re around him, you kind of fall in love with his personality and his realness,” Barnes says. “He is without question the most mature player I’ve ever coached. He’s five years beyond his age in terms of maturity.”

“He’s mature beyond mature,” adds UT assistant athletic director Scott McConnell. “He’s got the next 20 years planned out financially, and he keeps a tight circle. He’s a straight shooter, and that’s who he likes to have around him are other straight shooters.”

In what has since become a piece of Longhorns lore, there’s the story of when Aldridge injured his hip midway through his freshman year — an injury that ended his season and basically prevented him from entering the 2005 NBA Draft — but continued to work on his game, nonstop, even when he could barely walk.

“He was on crutches and wasn’t allowed to stand much,” Barnes says, “so he put a stool over on one of the side baskets, and in practice LaMarcus would sit there for two and a half hours and practice his shot and his passing.”

Texas senior guard A.J. Abrams, a freshman when Aldridge was a sophomore, also relayed the stool story through the grapevine. “Because of the way he worked hard to get back from his injury, everyone saw him as a leader of the team when I got there,” Abrams says. “He’s a pretty cool guy, real down to earth — that’s what I like most about him. Even though you knew and he knew he was gonna be doing big things, he was always just a regular guy.”

In two years at Texas, LaMarcus developed the game that would make him a high Lottery pick: polished post moves and the ability to score inside despite his thin frame, a jump shot that’s increasing in range by the day, plus steadily improving rebounding and shot-blocking skills.

“First and foremost, I know that I can shoot. I can shoot the 18-footer, and I worked on bringing my range all the way out to three,” Aldridge says. “Being able to shoot the ball is always a good threat. I can play out of the post, too. I’ll score most of my points in the post, on pick-and-rolls and hitting the 18-foot jump shot.”

Although still very much a work in progress, LA put up numbers against the League’s best last season: 27 points against Tim Duncan on opening night; 30 points, 10 boards, and three blocks against Pau Gasol and Memphis in November; 22 and 12 against Dirk Nowitzki in November; 36 points against Carlos Boozer in December; and 31 against the Shaq/Amare Phoenix frontcourt in March. But it didn’t take much to read between the lines and see (sans Duncan) that the aforementioned list isn’t one of all-world defenders — which is why Aldridge spent this past summer striving to get stronger and be more consistent against every level of competition.

“If anything, he might get more points this year with Greg around,” Webster says. “He can get you points inside the paint, and when the guards penetrate he can knock down jump shots. He’s something of a clean-up man; with the two big guys going for rebounds, he can get putbacks and get to the free throw line.”

Part of Aldridge’s summer schooling was against Team USA, where he was tested against Bosh, Boozer, Dwight Howard, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony.

“Those were the best players in the NBA, and the only way they felt they could bring back the gold was to play defense,” Aldridge says. “It was all defense-first. When I came back here (to Portland) I felt even more confident to speak about it to the team, that we have to focus on defense more. They felt they can’t beat nobody unless they play defense, so we should be the same way. And Coach Nate (Team USA assistant) was there — he saw first-hand even more than me.”

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As this issue went to press, Oden’s opening-night foot injury meant another role change for Aldridge; that he’d slide back into the role of Portland’s main weapon in the paint for up to a month while Oden recovered. Naturally, he relished the opportunity. In Portland’s first game without Oden, a national-TV contest against San Antonio, Aldridge took a team-high 22 shots, and on one play in the second half he stuck a smooth turnaround jumper over Duncan, then turned and gave a long look to the Spurs’ bench. Later in the half, with the Blazers protecting a small lead, Aldridge nailed a trey in the corner, and with about 30 seconds left, he hit another clutch 20-footer. Aldridge finished with 23 points in a Blazers win.

“I will tell you one thing, there’s a fire in that belly of his,” Barnes says. “Some guys show it different — some guys are phony tough guys that fake it, but there’s nothing phony about LaMarcus. Believe me, I know. You don’t work as hard as he does and approach things like he does without that fire.”

“He wants to be an All-Star. That’s what he’s shooting for,” Webster says. “That’ll be determined in February so nobody knows for sure, but he’s preparing himself for the best. That’s what LaMarcus does; he prepares himself for the best and prepares himself for the worst on a night-in, night-out basis. He shows up looking to build an All-Star resume.”