Are the Spurs winning this way one of the best things that could happen for basketball?

I am not really arguing with you. The conventional wisdom says that if you have the best stars, you win. The Heat has the best player. They also have younger stars than the Spurs.

The whole point of this Spurs hype is that the Spurs did not win by star power. They have good (and young!) role players who stepped up and beat the hell out of the still in prime Heat stars.

Kawhi Leonard is no Tim Duncan or Magic Johnson. He's not supposed to win the FMVP at 22.

 

Other than LeBron, who would be considered a star on the Heat?

 

uh... Chris Bosh and Wade?

Their performance vs the spurs (which was mainly due to the spurs) doesn't exclude them from the star argument.

Both were all stars and played like it during the RS and during the EC playoffs.

 

Player A: 16.2ppg/6.6rpg.
Player B: Miss 1/3 of the regular season and put upt 19ppg/4.5rpg/4.7apg.

You really believe that name recognition aside, those are all-star players?

 

Probably even worse than the garbage that surrounded him back in cleveland, that he also managed to carry to the finals on his back.

Even this early in his career, it's safe to say Lebron has already done "the most with the least" in the recent history of any team sport- just imagine what he could do with a REAL team, coach etc.

 

Who said scrubs? They are good players, but not really superstars - just a well put together talented team that played their roles correctly.

Led by an amazing coach.

DD

 

Other than umm.. Leonard... , who would be considered a star on the Spurs?

Player A: 15.1ppg/9.7rpg; played <30mpg
Player B: 12.3ppg/4.3apg; played <23mpg
Player C: 16.7ppg/5.7apg

Are you trying to say that LeBron made Bosh become a non-star?

People are talking about Miami being an old team. But the average age of their Big 3 is 5 years (5 years!!) younger than the Spurs' Big 3. Go figure.

 

Wade might be a "younger star" but he's in a very steep decline that goes beyond just this series. Bosh is basically an all-star level talent now when motivated...the rest, well, nothing needs to be said.

The Heat had the best player, the Spurs had a better team. True in the regular season and the playoffs

 

Come on, Heat got complacent, satisfied and lazy. They are tired in a way.

Spurs may be old but they have a system in place, are hungry, driven and their young one is playing like a star....

that are 4 stars and some excellent role players plus Pop for them

 

Uh, wade and bosh's 18-19 PER during the 2014 playoffs puts them about the same tier as James Harden's underwhelming Portland series, and not far in front of Terrence Jones. But yay! Terrnce for all star!

 

What is the obsession with "stars" and calling players like James Harden a "star" when he was not even an all star until the Rockets let him take every shot and rest on defense. If conventional wisdom says the teams with the best "stars" win, then the Clippers or Thunder would have won. But they didn't because they didn't have the best "team".

I've said this before, but the years the Lakers won the title, it was guys like Derek Fisher, Robert Horry, Rick Fox, Ron Harper, AC Green, Byron Scott, and Kurt Rambis who made them the best "team". Just like when the Rockets won in the mid-90s...it was guys like Robert Horry, Sam Cassell, Kenny Smith, Mario Elie, Otis Thorpe, and Mad Max that made them the best "team". The Miami Heat were a sort of anomaly the last two years because Lebron and DWade are both among the greatest players of all time, but this year it seems that the miles are catching up to Wade and he is no longer at the top of his game. The current Lebron, Wade, and Bosh need a better supporting cast and guys like Ray Allen and Birdman did not show up like they did the previous year.

I don't get your Kawhi Leonard statement...why is he not supposed to win the Finals MVP? He has no chance at being a "star" or something? Who is the "star" police anyway that says this guy is a "star" and not that guy? Leonard is a solid young player that plays both sides of the ball and has a ton of athleticism. I would say that he does have a lot of potential to be a "star".

 

The mavericks won with team basketball, the celtics did in the 80's, the pistons beat la in 2004 with team basketball, the lakers and showtime was built around a pass first point guard. This is nothing new. This is how teams win championships. Yes there are years where one or two great players will their teams to titles but even on those teams the superstar typically gets his teammates involved. Sharing the basketball and team defense is always the model. The Rockets will take the next step when Harden buys into this, until then we're just pretenders. It was the same for most great players. Not until them buy in to team ball will their team reach ultimate success. Here's hoping Harden was paying attention during the finals and here's to hoping Mchale was watching Pop who shows that you are supposed to coach your superstars and not act like their best friend

 

If Popovich was coaching the Rockets, the first thing he would do is get rid of Harden and Howard.

Harden because Popovich only wants players that play both sides of the ball. Everyone on the Spurs plays offense and defense and also runs the plays that they are told to run. Harden tends to do his own thing when they don't call his number.

Howard would get the Kobe treatment times 10 if he were playing for Popovich. Kobe takes basketball very seriously and Howard likes to make a joke of everything. Pop even yelled at Dwight at last years all star game and kicked him out of practice for not paying attention. Granted, the all star game is supposed to be for fun, players and coaches that win multiple rings care about winning every game.

 

You didn't get my point. It's not about Leonard's potential. It's about the fact that he won the FMVP award so young.

You don't win a FMVP at the age of 22 unless you are a super talented player, guys like Magic, Duncan, and LeBron. The Finals MVP is supposed to be the best player on the championship team. Winning an NBA championship is very difficult. Being the best player on that team is even more special. Being able to do that so young is extremely rare. Leonard was not a special player until a week or so ago. That says volume about this Spurs team. If they had any star at all, Leonard would have no chance of getting the MVP award. He was supposed to be just a good young role player.

People talked about the Pistons winning without a true superstar. This Spurs team had even less.

 

Tim Duncan is a star...even if his statline isnt off the chart hes broken more records and closer to MJ than any other player right now. Not sure how you could exclude him from being a HOF superstar, 5 rings, most double double in playoff history, 14x nba all star, passed Kareem in career points etc.
Plus hes shown he doesnt need to play 40 minutes and try to do everything to win a ring. Unlike most young players these days, I think the Spurs have the recipe to be a champion without max players. Remember max does not mean the player is a superstar or any good, look at DWill and Amare.

 

The Finals MVP is essentially determined by the best player in the span of 4-7 games. Any player on any team can get into a zone and become the best player as long as you get opportunity to do so. With the aging of the core group (Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili), Pop gave more opportunity during the season to Leonard, Splitter, Mills, and Green which ultimately gave all of them confidence to step up when they needed to in the Finals. I don't think Leonard is going to be in the category of Magic or Tim Duncan, but I wouldn't be surprised if he made some all star games in his career. I'm sure you will see a lot more of Leonard next year as possibly the second option on offense and the best defensive player on Spurs.

You don't think Tony Parker is a superstar? And I know Tim Duncan is old, but I would still consider him to be a superstar. I would take both these guys in the playoffs than a lot of the other players that many consider to be todays superstars. Playoff experience is worth something too.

 

agreed. I was watching some 90s bulls vs Seattle playoff finals basketball and it reminded me of the Spurs teamball with crazy athleticism of the old Miami. They have lots of important players that stepped up like Kerr, and Rodman on top of Pippin and Jordan. It was amazing basketball in the 90s and I think the Spurs might be the first team in a long time to bring that type of intensity on both sides of the court.

 

I don't think its ever been a good strategy to put all your eggs on three players. The Heat were able to win it all twice, but I think they were sort of an anomaly and did get decent contribution from guys like Ray Allen, Udonis Haslem, Shane Battier, and Birdman.

If Morey decides to go after Carmelo Anthony, it will show that he knows nothing about basketball. It's strange because I thought Morey was all about sabremetrics, but he seems to be the opposite and falling over for players with big names. To me, the only method where getting Carmelo would make sense would be to trade Harden for him. It doesn't make any sense to add another iso scorer to the team and taking up 2/3 of your cap limit on players that essentially do the same thing. If the Rockets are serous about winning, they need to address their real problem and that is defense and turnovers. They could also use someone to help Dwight on the boards as Dwight is not the same beast that he used to be before the back surgery. But it seems Morey is less concerned with winning than he is with getting players that can sell more jerseys.

 

Duncan, Parker. ESPECIALLY Duncan, I consider stars. And as you mentioned, their lack of counting stat comes from lack of minutes. But that's besides the point. The point is that Miami was built on the foundation of stars. The Spurs are not. Miami's entire strategy is that they have more top-level talent than their opponent and win through stardom. The Spurs don't adhere to this strategy.

It's necessary for Miami to have their stars create high volume of shots, since their role players cannot do so. So the system only works if LeBron, Wade, and Bosh all can shoulder a large amount of offensive burden. So even some drop off from both Bosh and Wade makes a huge difference to their system.

Also, I didn't mention defense. Miami had the 12th defense in the NBA in the regular season. Something that fans generally dismissed as coasting. But their playoff defense, Miami ranks 9th out of 16 teams. Spurs were 3rd. And this defensive ranking comes despite the fact that before the Spurs, Miami played no team that's even average on offense among Pacers, Wizards, and Bobcats. Miami's defense from their top 3 and others dropped significantly from the past.

 

Even the Pistons had allstars maybe borderline but they were allstars.

It remains to be seen how many championships this socalled 'team without stars' can win.

They are stars just do not fall under the category of flashy superstars.