Duncan Robinson Rose Parks Bryant Oh wait, this is clutchcity.net, therefore all Spurs bigmen are 'scrubs'. Daniels/Porter/Parker and Smith in spot duty will take care of the point just fine. A shooting guard who takes good shots, makes wise court decisions, shows up for the playoffs, has some size, and will have the same twin towers backing him up as that great defensive wizard DA did. That's fine...man, he must be a Spur acquisition, therefore he is automatically awful. Apparently someone thought he was good enough to be on the NBA All-Defense 2nd team, garnering the 3rd highest vote total among forwards. Gee, it must just be his name, eh? As for no shooting, the guy apparently can shoot the trey decently. What % qualifies one as "no shooting"? Please, dispense your wisdom... What is up with all this Samaki Walker wood? Better than Ho Grant? Get real. Walker was so good the 6'6" Malik Rose beat him out to be the first bigman off the bench. Walker is a talented player, but there's a reason he couldn't really crack the rotation in SA. As for Elie versus Smith... ....good one. Now that is just stupid. Feel free to flame away since I don't agree with some of you that the Spurs will barely break .500 and struggle to make the playoffs. JJ had plenty of rooster and other meats during the summer of '99, which led to his permanent status on IR. Carrawell was given a 2 year guaranteed deal for the minimum. His agent is/was Duncan's agent and supposedly Duncan liked Carrawell or something along those lines...in any event, I guess the Spurs are a horrible franchise because they rewarded the guy that hit some big shots during their title run with a 3 year deal paying him $1.75 mil a season, and then they gave some guy the minimum for 2 years? Oh no, say it isn't so... I believe I referred to him as being "possibly" the best SG since Ice. Of course, Alvin was a monster on the court (and off the court, unfortunately). Seeing as how Vinny Del Fleugo and Mario Elie were the Spurs' SG for most of the 90s, one does have to look back in history in order to gauge DA's game. But...who is better for the next 2 seasons? Playoff disappearing DA or playoff performing Smith? Bad shot selection DA or good shot selection Smith? I'm glad you are the eager beaver who spends his time looking through my posts for anything that is potentially contradictory. Good luck with the 'discrediting' work. The way I see the league, you have the Lakers on top until proven otherwise, then either Sacto or SA, then Philly, and then the rest. It's unfortunate that some of you cannot separate hate from your takes.
I just love how Spurs fan goes from thinking Derek Anderson is their 2nd best player to implying he sucks and they're better off with Steve Smith...
The quote appears on the first page of this thread, and there's no "possibly" in it. And as the person who posted it, I should mention that it only took a minute or two to find. I got the itch to search after reading your criticisms of DA and thinking, "That may be true ... but I'll bet he wasn't saying any of this before Anderson's talks with SA went off the rails." And sure enough, you weren't. Yeah, there's a lot of anti-Spur silliness being posted by Rockets fans in this thread, but you're not exactly dripping with objective appraisals yourself, MrPangloss ("all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds").
Perhaps during your enthusiastic digging efforts you failed to notice: "02-19-2001 02:47 PM" on the post. DA faded in April and was stymied by that defensive duo of Anthony Peeler and Felipe Lopez in May before his mid-air collision. Thus, my opinion has changed. Yeah, back in February. What is not objective? Believing the Spurs will still be better than the Mavs next season? Pray tell...
Mr Spur, you are the classic spur coach...er, fan, i swear. now lemme get this right. in february, he's the best sg since Ice. two and a half months later, he sucks. that's real consistent. and real credible. and i didn't even have to use the search button. can you say BANDWAGON? so, if he stayed, would he still be as bad as you say he is? naw, he'd be great, and just had a bad break in the post season. since he's gone, though, he had bad shot selection. tell me, Mr Spur, and don't conveniently dodge this... how is his shot selection SO BAD when he had a BETTER 3 point percentage than sharp shooting steve smith????? let's not even bring bruce bwen into this conversation. i'm just gonna assume you know that he sucks. i know, i know, all defensive 2nd team....yea. remember scottie pippen? his defense in houston was stifling. yea right. and if you ever played a day of basketball in your life, then you know that if you are the penetrator, you're going to make some bad decisions. ask cuttino mobley. ask kobe bryant. it's the nature of the beast. that said, you won't have to worry about that with steve smith. he'll be standing at the 3 point line shooting a lower % than DA did, wearing his concrete nikes. as for defense, you say it doesn't matter about his defense since he has little dave and timmy behind him. hmm, how long will they be behind him after they are in foul trouble from smith's man blowing by him? talk to dave about the LA series. kobe and shaq had him shackled with fouls. oh yea, that's right. bruce bwen is the kobe-stopper. tee hee. that's funny. how much do you wanna bet kobe b**** slaps bruce bwen for 35+ while shaq stomps on the mermaid for 35? oh, and about bwen not having to defend guards as quick as baron davis in the west. ummmm, 1. kobe 2. francis 3. marbury 4. mobley 5. nve 6. bibby 7. stoudamire 8. fisher 9. payton 10. DA those are all guards capable of blowing by bwen pretty consistently. oh yeah, in case you didn't notice, those are all players IN THE WESTERN CONFERENCE. i can rattle off a hell of a lot more from the east. if you're relying on bruce bwen to be your perimeter stopper, be prepared to fall from your high horse....
how is his shot selection SO BAD when he had a BETTER 3 point percentage than sharp shooting steve smith????? Anyone on the Spurs has their 3 point percentage inflated to a large degree because of the post presence and constant double teams that Duncan and Robinson command. In fact, I'll be willing to bet that Bruce Bowen, the player you say can't shoot, will shoot over 40% from the 3 point line next year. When you get the open shots that the Spurs system gives perimeter shooters, it's hard not to have a good percentage. i'm just gonna assume you know that he sucks. i know, i know, all defensive 2nd team....yea. remember scottie pippen? his defense in houston was stifling. yea right. And the link between Bruce Bowen and Scottie Pippen is what? The Spurs won't be asking Bowen to cover the Baron Davis' and Steve Francis' of the league... those are Antonio Daniels assignments, and he is a pretty nice defender in his own right. now lemme get this right. in february, he's the best sg since Ice. two and a half months later, he sucks. that's real consistent. and real credible. and i didn't even have to use the search button. can you say BANDWAGON? If you watched the Spurs at all, you'd know the DA of the 2nd half of the season and the playoffs was not near the player Spurs fans hoped he would be by his early season promise. He got locked up against the Twolves shooting guards, and started talking about the max salary and 25 shots a game against the Lakers. If DA was on the Rockets, I'd bet you wouldn't like his game as much either.
ShandonWhatever, you are the classic rocket bandwagoneer...er, fan, i swear. What's even more consistent and incredible is your ability to misrepresent another poster's POV. Please show me where I said he 'sucks'. I haven't. I did point out that he 'faded' in April and had trouble in the playoffs versus the likes of Peeler and Lopez. Saying that a player is the 'best since' another player is not comparing him with that player, it is comparing him to the players that have come since then. For DA, that was AlvinR, WillieA VinnyDN,and MarioE. DA's play as of February merited such a comparision. As of May, it did not. You might want to step off of your high horse now before you fall into its sh^t shortly. Big deal. Give Smith those looks in SA and we'll see what happens. When you pulled up the stats and performed your expert analysis, you must've overlooked the fact that DA shot 9.0% less on his 3s the season before. As someone who has bothered to watch the games, I can tell you that DA has a worse shot selection than Smith. That's great, let's get more touches to the guy who produces less each time he has the rock. DA's halfcourt game is not as good as Bryant's or a number of other guards. He is primarily a slasher who has trouble creating off the dribble. DA's 3 point% will drop next season and Smith's will increase. Yawn. You forgot the 'bling bling' part. Anyways, more contact will be allowed by perimeter defenders next season. DRob and Duncan will have less ground to cover to cut off a drive. I didn't say he didn't have to defend quick guards...I think that must've been the voices in your head. Let's see.... AI Sprewell Cassell Marbury Davis Armstrong AMiller Snow Stackhouse Terry in the East. ...the primary difference between the East and West is the distribution of talented bigmen. Bowen doesn't have to be a "stopper", all he has to do is play tough physical defense for 30 minutes, knock down a couple of shots, and that is it. Bowen/SJackson is a clear improvement over what the Spurs had there last season. I'm sorry I think the Spurs will make the playoffs next season. I really am. Bling bling and all that.
Mr. Pop/ Coach Spur, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Verse, Let me talk to the Spur's front office worker for a minute. Why do you continue to speak and avoid the REAL questions, and have NO substance to your posts? You still have yet to answer the questions on HOW you seem to know all the INSIDE STUFF on the Spurs moves and thoughts on players... I think you read and see what you want to read in the posts, because you are SO OFF on some of your posts that it's amazing you even know player's names!! You know let me end this MYTH about Bruce Bowen being a DEFENSIVE STOPPER right now...Just because you are named to the 2nd team does not mean you can contain anyone. All you have to do is score MORE than your opponent, and keep you man below his average. Sounds simple right? Can Bwen do this against the 2-3's of the league...No!! Because he has no O!! It would not be that bad if Kobe scored 30 on you because no one can stop him, but if you score 22 on him it stings even less. That's what DA brought to the table, and Bwen will be LUCKY to score 13. Don't say DA didn't do it cause he was the 2nd leading scorer on the team behind Duncan. At least with DA their was a chance of winning against the Lakers...if you read Verse's post, and watched the playoffs their problem was trying to find OFFENSE to combat the Lakers. It doesn't matter if you stop the Lakers and get the rebound and come down court and CAN'T get a shot off...Thanks Mr. Pop for listening to my side. But make NO mistake, if you say something else STUPID...i will be back.
Apparently I have posted a take that is not 100% negative in re Spurs. Thus, I am now a member of the Spurs front office. Brilliant. Please show me where I said that Bowen was a "defensive stopper". I have only pointed out that he was cited for his defensive play last season. Bowen & Stephen Jackson & DFerry > DFerry & Elliott in the WCF. Porter and Ferry are going to the bench, AD is moving to the 1, Smith at the 2 and Bowen at the 3. Yes, that is an improvement. Quick, one of you two twins flame me because I just made a comment that is favorable to the Spurs. A healthy Stephen Jackson is better than a hobbled Sean Elliott. The Spurs have built a team that is better defensively and offensively. They have built a team that will benefit from the rules changes. This team is improved over what took the court in the WCF. I am sorry that you hate the Spurs so much that nothing they do is ever positive.
Again, we are not talking about the 27 year old Smith, we are talking about the 33-year old shadow of him. This is the same player who was supposed to be the final piece of the Portland puzzle over two years ago. This is the same player who lost his starting job last year, who was part of a monumental choke in a game 7 two years ago, and who was part of about the most underachieving regular season team ever last year. If this was the Smith of 1995, I might put the Spurs as nearly equal to the Lakers. But at this point Smith is an offensively skilled small forward who can't play there because he can't match up with them. Think about it this way. The Spurs will have 3 new starters who wouldn't have started games last year on their previous teams except for when the regular starters got injured. The best of their new starters, is a now unathletic guard with bad knees--the Spurs doubtfullly will be able to get 30 effective MPG for 82 games from him. Also, as DA was young and could play heavy minutes, and the Spurs are very thin at back-up 2 because of previous solid back-up is now the starting 1 (as if this is an easy transition both in terms of positions and from back up to starter--I wonder how many players have done this well). To conclude, besides the obvious inclusion of questionable quality starting NBA players into the 3 available starting positions for the Spurs, how can you ingore this impact on chemistry on the court? After all the happanings for other teams or against Spurs, I still put them at #3 in the league. I have no bias against them any more than I do for any team other than the Rockets (for) or Jazz or Blazers or Seattle--you can guess how I feel about those 3. I am just an outsider calling it like I see it.
thank you Desert Scar, the thing is MrSpur can't accept my viewpoint because i have a lil attitude with it. but it doesn't change the facts. the spurs still got worse. the spurs are still a 2nd rate organization. and the spurs still got their asses kicked by the lakers last year. correction... the spurs GAVE UP AGAINST THE LAKERS LAST YEAR! CARE TO ADDRESS THAT ONE MR. SPUR?? WHY DID YOUR TEAM GIVE UP LIKE LITTLE b****ES? DON'T DENY IT. POP EVEN SAID IT HIMSELF...THAT IS...IF YOU DO WATCH BASKETBALL...
BTW, 2nd rate organizations are very proud of 2nd rate championships... P.S. BLING BLING!!! you like that, huh?!
Verse, Please don't tell me you're sticking up for Phil Jackson and his asterisk BS after all that us Rockets fans have put up with concerning our championships after all these years...
"lakers may not be doing so hot right now, and the spurs and sixers are getting all the hype but believe me, the lakers will be there in the end." Cool, i was right The Spurs are not going to have a better record than the lakers . By getting Lindsey Hunter < Mitch Richmond, and Samaki Walker the Lakers made themselves a better team this offseason, not worse.
LilStevie, actually, i agree with phil on this one. i can empathize with unjust criticism. but this is not unjust. look at it this way. what if there was a 9 game nfl season and the houston oilers,,,err tennessee titans won the championship. should that be seen as the same as the 16 game season where the st. louis rams win? of course not. it's still a championship, but it is tainted because no one had to run the complete gauntlet. in the games that are missed, you miss out on teams having the opportunity to gel, possible injuries, different seedings as a result of more games played, players that take longer to get in shape, etc. there is NO comparison between the spurs *championship and the rockets' 2 championships. we played the full gauntlet, and beat everyone in our path. the spurs played a little over 1/2 a full season then got hot in the playoffs. look at new york. they came in as the 8th seed. realistically, in a full season, they would have come in higher, since they gelled late in that season. who's to say who they would have been matched up with given a full season. would they have still made it to the big dance? who knows. remember the sonics back in the early/mid 90s and the hex that had on us? our two championships we didn't have to go through seattle, and i am damn glad. had we played a *season, maybe we would have been matched with them and probably wouldn't have made it. i mean, if the nba plays a 30 game season, should it be considered the same as the regulation 82 game season? of course not. the nba has scheduled the 82 game season for a variety of reasons $$ being #1, of course. however, i do believe that after 82 games, the teams have settled into the correct rankings. LilStevie, the arguments against the rockets were bunk. all they said was that we were lucky we didn't have to go through jordan. i say f#ck jordan. he's lucky he didn't have to go through us. but either way, we played a full season. hell, everyone played a full season, and if mike decided he wanted to gamble,,,err, i mean play baseball instead, then so be it. that has nothing to do with us. we "played the nba game" the way it was supposed to be played - in completion. the spurs "played" a shortened game. we read the book. they read the cliff notes. phil's right.
It shouldn't matter how many games were in a season, as long the playoffs were the normal set up and they were. The lockout season was 50 games long, not 32. The Spurs proved that they were the best team in basketball that season, they swept through the Lakers and the Blazers. They went through the tough and physical play of the playoffs in its regular form. They won the championship. It's that simple- the Spurs were the best team in basketball during 1999. No ifs, ands, or buts. That is why I don't believe that it should be considered "second rate" or any other bs of that sort, because 28 other teams couldn't do what the Spurs did, they weren't even challenged.
BTW, in Phil Jackson's defense, he claims that he made the "asterisk" statement <b>before</b> the lockout season, so it wasn't intended to be a rip against any particular team. But I do also agree that the Spurs were simply the best team that year. 15-2 in the playoffs is convincing, shortened season or no.
