If Spurs are Best-in-the-West, how do Rox catch them?

We need to find a guy with a big schnoz who drives uncontrollably in the lane, flails his arms about and has the ref bail him out. This player would most likely be found in Europe or South America.

 

There are three models of Champions that have won in the last 5 years.

1.) The best starting 5 plus strong bench (Pistons)
2.) Top player at his position and top 3 overall and top 10-15 in a few others (Spurs)
3.) Two top Ten players and some other guys that can hit shots.(Lakers) (Chicago also was build in this mold.)

We most closely resemble number three. There are some key things that they had that we do not.

1.) 4th quarter defensive prowess. We might have had it during the season but we did not have it in the playoffs... age, fatique... whatever cause us to blow leads in games we should have won. These teams pulled away in the 4th we did that in 2 games... but they were consent doing it.
2.) Rebounding. All of those teams where great rebounding teams. We are an average rebounding team at best.
3.) They put the pressure on the other team with thier best players. This is key. We did that some in that dallas series but not enough.
4.) All of them had one if not many highly touted defenders. Bowen, Wallace, Kobe, Fisher... when he was healthy and younger. All of these guys are defenders that get you stops and calls.
5.) They all went to the free throw line. Kobe, Chauncey, Shaq, Duncan, Parker... then all went... not always made... but went to the line a lot. Let the players rest... put pressure on another team.
6.) All of those teams had guys that got the scorers into position to score, Brian Shaw, Robert Horry (The best post passer in a really really long time.) Micheal Jordan, Fisher, Billups, Wallaces (This is based on the Picks for Hamilton so not true setup men.)

So looking at this is the one guy that gives us all that? Well I am not sure.

As for catching the spurs... we need some flexiblity which we could get next year but this year we might be stuck a little bit.

I like the draft this year and think there a lot of the types of guys we are looking for. (Tons of PG, many many PFs. Alot of 6-8 6-10) Getting another 1st and a second seems to be a want so we can start to build talent on the cheap and the contracts do not kill us. This allows us to start to stockpile some talent without killing the Cap space.

Then we use our cap space on shorter term cogs. Bigger contracts but short short term... CD really started doing that last year and made moves to move out some of the bad contracts. We only really three long term contracts so we are in pretty good shape after next year.

Keep T-mac and Yao... get a really good post passer and build from there. The loss to Dallas sucked but I still think we are a top 4-6 team in the west.

Fierguard

 

The Spurs have built their marvelous team thourgh smart drafting. Bruce Bowen went undrafted, Ginobili was like the 57th pick, parker the last pick of the first rounde, beno like one of the last picks of the first round, and i believe they got this other great player in braizl or somewhere like that and he's really doing good. If we want to compete for a long time with the great teams in the west we got to improve our scouting. Dallas has great scouts as they took howard, daniels, and harris in the last couple of years. So we're going to have to really pick it up.

 

Exactly! The Spurs have been the best team in the NBA over last few years, but their payroll is only in the middle of the pack. That's their trick. Their 2nd unit would make a decent starting team in the league.

The Spurs are the model we need to emulate.

 

Fierguard, one of the best analyses I have seen in a lot time. Most of the time people want to oversimply things, thanks for not doing that.

BTW they acquired Bowen via FA from Mia. The Spurs have a "marvelous team" because they tanked for Duncan. Even Pops admits all they had to do is not screw it up. TD gets too little credit for where the Spurs are, his teamates, coaches and org get too much credit.

 

WE NEED A POWER FORWARD.

 

I think you're over emphasizing how the Spurs acquired Duncan. Who cares, what happened....happened.

We won the draft lottery to take Yao with the 5th worst record in the league. Does that mean our acquisition of Yao is any less credible---the way you are making it sound with the Spurs and Duncan?

 

No, he is saying that because, the year before the TD draft, the Spurs had some injuries. Robinson was hurt and so they started off slow. Later, though, Robinson got healthy enough to play and other guys improved...but the Spurs packed it in anyway just so they could continue to suck and have more chances at one of the surest #1 picks in the last 20 years.

As for their draft ability, right now they have four players on their roster that they drafted:
Duncan, Ginobili, Parker, and Udrih.

 

Great post! And two of the best teams right now, Pistons and Spurs both have that defensive stopper at the wing (Prince, Bowen) as well as strong rebounders.

I think the Rockets could go to the next level if we could get a much better, athletic swingman to pair with McGrady and a solid PF.

 

Uhh, Robinson played in 6 games the entire season.

Conspiracy theories are always fun but let's get serious here, that team was a MESS. Everything from the above mentioned to Human Highlight's last [real] season to sub-par seasons from their guards. A flat out mess. If you wanna accuse them of tanking---and they very well could have, that's fine by me. I just hope you realize before you make that accusation that finishing with the worst record by no means guarentees the #1 draft pick due to the lottery. The Spurs are a smart organization so I would imagine they might take that minor detail into consideration.

Are you pointing this out in an effort to praise them? I would hope it wasn't otherwise....

 

I agree with gater and a few others. The best way for rox to move up the food cahin is for ming to get to the point to where he can consistently score and put pressure on the defense. Mcgrady will always do his thing, but if Ming gets to the 20-23ppg range the rox will take off and mcGrady will be evn better. I have a name to throw out there for people. Raja Bell. He's a very good on ball defender plus his offense has come around. He's unrestricted also. People also forget that we were missing Howard in the playofs. Many will discount him, but he was the guy hitting the 15fter and getting inside for easy buckets. Something Bowen nor Padgett could do in the playoffs. The Rox are closer to unseating Sa than any other team in the west including Dallas or Phoenix.

 

I like this post and the ideas in it alot better than the thread you started about SAR. Welcome back, although I was just a guppy when you left.