So much for the Portland Trail Blazers and Toronto Raptors being “sub-contenders” in their respective conferences. Spurred by awesome play of their leaders, the Blazers and Raptors sport two of the league’s top-five records at 16-4 and 15-5, respectively. And now LaMarcus Aldridge and Kyle Lowry are receiving the due of which they’ve been worthy over the past two seasons. The pair have been named Conference Players of the Week for games played between December 1 and December 7.
Aldridge led Portland to a 3-0 week with wins over the Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, and New York Knicks. The three-time All-Star averaged 27.0 points and 11.7 rebounds per game, including a monstrous 39-point, 11-board performance in the Blazers’ comeback road win against the Nuggets.
The versatile big man – who has added the long-ball to his repertoire this season – was clutch all week long, too. He scored consecutive baskets in the waning moments of the Blazers’ narrow win at Madison Square Garden last night, including this tough fallaway jumper:
Lowry helped Toronto to a 2-1 record despite the recent loss of DeMar DeRozan. The relentless point guard averaged a league-best 29.3 points per game while shooting 49.2 percent from the field, and doled-out 8.7 assists a night, too. Lowry went off for a season-high 39 points in the Raps’ back-to-back road win over the Utah Jazz.
Like Aldridge, he also put a game away when it was on the line. Lowry hit this huge pull-up jumper to put the Sacramento Kings down six with just over a minute left on Tuesday:
It’s time to take Portland and Toronto seriously. Thankfully, the basketball world has already come around on their two best players – not that Aldridge and Lowry made it easy to do otherwise.
What do you think?
Follow Jack on Twitter at @ArmstrongWinter.
Follow Dime on Twitter at @DimeMag.
Become a fan of Dime Magazine on Facebook HERE.
