Umm, sure? Becuase the Pop hasn't been credited enough, he needs me to pile on. A more interesting q - why don't you fault them for not playing Duncan enough and getting home court rather than getting trounced by the Clips in the first round of the playoffs? Answer: Your brain has constructed a narrative that everything the Spurs does is golden and Pop is King Midas.
Some of that absolutely is luck. The Spurs landing the #1 pick in that draft despite the Celtics having the worst record(and owning two picks in the lottery) saved that franchise. At the time they were in turmoil with the injury-riddled season, Holt having just bought the team, the organization demanding a new arena, and Pop having fired Bob Hill and taken over as coach. I lived in San Antonio at the time and the fanbase was furious about the latter. What's funny is to juxtapose their turnaround with what happened to the Celtics when they missed out on the #1 pick(and #2 for that matter). They wind up with Billups and Mercer, Rick Pitino immediately regrets taking the job(he expected to be coaching Duncan), and aside from some very brief success in the postseason in 2002 and 2003, they basically sucked for the better part of a decade til Ainge traded for Garnett and Allen. I agree also that Duncan being willing to play for peanuts is a giant stroke of luck. That's extremely rare in the NBA. Just look at Kobe and his max deal from a couple years ago. Or the one Dream signed in the latter stages of his career. Or Ewing's with the Knicks when he was already on the decline. And now Dwayne Wade getting 20 mil from the Heat. Combine Duncan's paycut with the ones for West and Manu(and Parker and Green accepting below market deals) and either Pop is the best salesman I've ever seen or they're engaged in the biggest under the table deals in the history of professional sports. What's not luck though is the way they've been able to build and rebuild repeatedly around Duncan. Manu, Parker, Kawhi, Splitter. Those are all guys they drafted or traded for the rights to. None were lottery picks. Green, Diaw, and Mills were players they picked up. That's not luck. That's shrewd drafting and scouting. For that, they deserve credit.
Well, you claimed everything was luck. So, to claim that Duncan's longevity was simply a gift, I thought it would be appropriate to point out the more likely cause. I called them out for not closing out that last game for HC. Pop likes to coast throughout much of the regular season to rest his aging starters, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Last season, it clearly backfired. They still seem to have had a lot more success than anyone else, with the resting their stars strategy.
Why don't they use the "more likely cause" of longevity extending treatments on Tony Parker, who looked like a washed up shadow of his former self last year at the ripe old age of 32?
Maybe he just had a bad/injury plagued season or maybe he's just declining But we're talking about longevity not on court performance. TP has been in the league over a decade and he'll probably be in the league 3-5 more years. That's longevity. Manu's career would likely be over if he were not provided the rest necessary.
Lol, yes. Honestly, I don't think West or Kobe are idiots for doing what they did. They made the choices that meant the most to them. I hope they find happiness in the results. But, I think the choices of the both of them make the NBA worse. The league works best when players are earning their market values. When players are paid more than they're worth, like Kobe, it makes their team unable to compete which is boring. When they are underpaid like West, it stacks the team and other teams can't compete with them, which is also boring.
West is getting what the market is offering him, or not far off of it. Again, I'll repeat - I don't think he opted out to join the spurs for the vet minimum, I think he thought he could secure more years & guaranteed cash AND play for a contender. It didn't work out so this is the best of bad options. I don't know if he goes through with it knowing how soft the market was for him/the size of his pay cut. Let me also be clear and say I don't even think West is that good anymore. He isn't what he was 2 seasons ago.
Well, at least there is another team to complete with the overpaid Cavs., that could be only a good news for the rockets fans since both teams are not young. The rockets are not going to win the West next year regardless of the West signing. GS, OKC, and Spurs are better than the rockets before the West signing anyway. We still have a long way to go.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Live shot of downtown San Antonio <a href="http://t.co/lxzgFeLCp1">pic.twitter.com/lxzgFeLCp1</a></p>— Dan Carson (@DrCarson73) <a href="https://twitter.com/DrCarson73/status/618157386117873664">July 6, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="sk" dir="ltr">Popovich status: <a href="http://t.co/aSu2Nyzhiy">pic.twitter.com/aSu2Nyzhiy</a></p>— Kenny Ducey (@KennyDucey) <a href="https://twitter.com/KennyDucey/status/618157704847192066">July 6, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
It's the HEB commercials. SA's Big Three are in dozens of them. I see them in Austin often enough (when I watch TV with commercials, which isn't that often, to be honest). West will probably join them, along with Aldridge. Pushin' cabbages and stuff. It's honest work and probably pays well. HEB is all over the place in Central Texas.
we don't have a very large window. . Dwight is past his prime and probably has 2 good years left in him. He's a big man with no post or shooting skills. He's going to take a big drop after 32.
LOL. Exactly... two Finals appearances in last 3 years and 1 championship. This year was the first year in how many years, that we passed the first round? All of a sudden, we are walking around like the big man in town. Simply put, Spurs got better this year. And we have virtually the same team. Spurs have the same core they had for 10+ years with Coach Pop, Old man Riverwalk, TP and Manu. Now they they reloaded with new blood in Kawhi, LMA, West, etc. They are gonna be good..
No, I think David West is an idiot for taking such a large pay cut (or opting out and vastly over estimating his market value) and the Lakers are idiots for giving Kobe his big contract. Kobe taking this big old contract makes him a genius.
A lot of sour Rockets fans laughed at Aldridge for signing up to a team with no center. Well, they still have no true center. But they do have a bunch of capable, albeit old, bigs doing musical chairs at the 5 spot. I wouldn't be surprised if Duncan came off the bench next season.
Considering that their overall season and post season were both markedly inferior I'm very happy that they can now present a challenge next season.
