SpearsNBAYahoo Marc J. Spears [rQUOTEr]Spurs announce they will retire Bruce Bowen’s No. 12 jersey on March 21 at the Minnesota Timberwolves game.[/rQUOTEr] WojYahooNBA Adrian Wojnarowski [rQUOTEr]Strong reaction to Bowen jersey retirement, but I agree with Spurs. Bowen was an immense part of championship identity, beloved in SA.[/rQUOTEr] ESPNSteinLine Marc Stein [rQUOTEr]Spurs just announced they're retiring No. 12 worn by Cal State Fullerton's own @Bowen12 on March 21. Major props to my fellow Titan/ESPNer[/rQUOTEr]
As part of the celebration, the Spurs are releasing a statue of Bowen's knee being crammed into an unsuspecting groin.
Totally disagree with Woj's take. A dirty role player with limited skills shouldn't be on the rafter. Bowen would have been a fringe player if not for Duncan and Co.
Seems akin to retiring Mario Elie's number. Beloved player, important cog to the championship teams, personality imprinted the personality of the whole team in those championship years. But, still a role-player. You don't retire those. That's to say nothing of his reputation as a dirty player. Also, they traded his butt as a cap throw-in for Richard Jefferson right before his retirement. They can't pay him the respect to let him retire a Spur, but they want to retire his number?
That's ridiculous. I will admit that he was a pretty solid defensive player and he became a decent 3-point shooter later in his career, but there are a laundry list of guys form those Spurs teams that deserve to have their number retired before Bruce Bowen.
8 years with the Spurs 5 All-Defensive 1st Teams 3 Championships (starters on all of those squads) May not be HOF but it is worthy of getting a jersey retired IMO. As far as the laundry list goes. All that I can think of are: Duncan (obviously, 4/4 championships, leader of all those teams) DRob (2/4 championships, would have had his # retired without them) Parker (3/4 championships and been improving since) Ginobili (3/4 championships and still a beast) Don't think that is exactly a laundry list (especially since all of those guys would probably have their numbers retired without a single championship under their belt).
Nice job, Spurs. Definitely won't catch me dissing the Lakers idea of retiring Fisher's number anymore.
