The photo once occupied a prominent spot in LaMarcus Aldridge’s now former living room in Portland: a large framed poster of him dunking on his childhood idol.

Tim Duncan probably doesn’t remember the moment from years ago. In 18 NBA seasons, he has been dunked on often.

But when Duncan found it worth his while to peel himself off his San Antonio couch this month, put down the video-game controller and hop a plane to Los Angeles, it told Aldridge all he needed to know about the Spurs team he was thinking of joining.

“I think it showed how much he wanted to play with me, too,” Aldridge said Friday at the news conference introducing him as the biggest free-agent signee in team history. “I think that was priceless.”

Priceless doesn’t precisely describe what Aldridge means to the Spurs.

The four-year contract worth more than $85 million that Aldridge signed Thursday — the maximum the Spurs could legally offer — quantifies it nicely.

A four-time All-Star who has averaged at least 21 points in five consecutive seasons, Aldridge is the sort of big-name, big-money free agent the Spurs have never before been able to lure.

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His arrival energizes a Spurs offseason that has reinforced their status as a Western Conference power, while also providing a clear path ahead toward the post-Duncan era.

“We knew the time was going to come where our guys couldn’t play forever,” Spurs general manager R.C. Buford said. “To have the opportunity to land this type of player doesn’t come often to us.”

Even as he becomes a significant part of the Spurs’ present and future, the 6-foot-11 Aldridge arrives with one eye affixed on the past.

In choosing to join the Spurs, Aldridge, 29, also joins a lineage of All-Star big men that dates to David Robinson in 1989.

Just as it was when Robinson beget Duncan, Aldridge is set to play alongside Duncan before accepting the torch from him completely.

Should Aldridge finish the length of his contract in San Antonio, it will give the Spurs one of the NBA’s top big men for 30 consecutive seasons.

It is a legacy, however daunting, that Aldridge vows to do his best to uphold.

“I’m not going to be David Robinson. I’m not going to be Tim Duncan,” Aldridge said. “Those players only come around every 20 years. I’ve got to be myself.”

Though the factors pointing him to San Antonio were many, Aldridge called the decision to join the Spurs “a leap of faith.”

It wasn’t easy, he said, to leave behind Portland, his home for his first nine NBA seasons.

Aldridge admitted he second-guessed himself over the past week.

What finally convinced him to make the move was a good night’s sleep.

Last Friday, he informed Portland general manager Neil Olshey he wouldn’t be back with the Trail Blazers. He went to bed that night with his mind made up he was coming to San Antonio.

“When I woke up (Saturday), I still felt comfortable with it,” Aldridge said. “I didn’t freak out in the middle of the night, I didn’t wake up screaming ‘No!’ So I ended up sticking with the decision.”

A chance to return to Texas played heavily into Aldridge’s choice.

He is a native of Seagoville, outside Dallas. He is a University of Texas alum and has a son living in the San Antonio area.

A chance to play for an organization Aldridge has always admired from a distance also loomed large.

Then there is the opportunity to team with Duncan — whom Aldridge called “the best power forward ever to play the game” — and to perhaps one day take the baton from him.

Aldridge said it meant a lot that Duncan made the July 1 trip to Los Angeles to help recruit him.

“He was huge in my decision,” Aldridge said.

There are questions of how Aldridge’s game might mesh with that of his former hoops hero.

He and Duncan are both power forwards. Aldridge is not built to defend big, bruising opposing centers, and that prospect might not be in 39-year-old Duncan’s best interests, either.

Buford believes that the transition will be less difficult than advertised.

So, too, does Aldridge.

“They’ve shown over the years they can plug in any guy in this system and have them perform at a high level,” Aldridge said. “I think my life is going to be easier. I’m going to get easier shots.”

For those reasons, and maybe untold others, Aldridge decided to pack his bags and move from the Pacific Northwest to South Texas.

Somewhere on the U-Haul to San Antonio is a cherished photo of one All-Star big man dunking over another, a scene that now can only occur in the Spurs’ practice gym.

Aldridge has one word for the change, as do the Spurs.

Priceless.

jmcdonald@express-news.net