San Antonio: The Quiet Giant

Tweet Wow! It feels like its been forever since I last posted something. One would think that after four years of University I would have learned to manage my time by now but this clearly is not the case. Better late than never I suppose. 

Continuing my take on the NBA, I feel that tonight is a good night to talk about the Spurs, especially since Pop ruined TNT's potential ratings by sending Tony Parker, Danny Green, Manu Ginobili, and Tim Duncan home early, right before a marquee match-up with the Miami Heat. My first thought? "About time!" I have been waiting for a quirky Popovich story for quite some time now and am glad that he delivered in a big way. Obviously, not everyone was happy about this, but I actually think its both brilliant and hilarious. The reason I like this move by the Spurs is that they know championships are not won on a Thursday night in November. Popovich is thinking long term all the way here, he is absolutely entitled to give his best players a rest if he thinks that they need one. To him, it doesn't matter if they lose an extra regular season game, what matters is that he keeps his players fresh for the games that actually count. Am I a little bit upset that I wont get to watch the best match-up of the year so far? Absolutely. Am I mad at Popovich? Absolutely not, the man is a brilliant coach and people should not be questioning him at this point. As an added bonus, Popovich will get to see what he really has on his roster. He can see if guys like Gary Neal, Cory Joseph, and DeJuan Blair deserve spots in the rotation or not (what better way to evaluate your players than against the defending NBA champions?), and he ultimately may find an x-factor for the playoffs that he didn't know he had.

Now that the major talking point of tonight's game is out of the way I can talk a bit about the Spurs in general. First of all; how are these guys still so relevant? They are winning games and dismantling teams like its 2003 and Tim Duncan has not looked this good in almost five seasons! How good has Duncan been this year? Apart from his numbers being up across the board, he is also top-5 in the league in PER, the go-to formula for evaluating NBA players. Duncan is playing so well that I am beginning to think that he was injured over the past two seasons and was just playing through it. Whatever the case is, if he can maintain this level of performance throughout the season, the Spurs should be considered a serious contender for the title. The more I follow the NBA the more I realize that teams like the Spurs (particularly from 1999 and on) are very rare and it saddens me to know that they can't continue this forever, at least not with this group of players. When was the last time a team in the NBA was picked to 'finally fall off' for almost eight years running and never wavered? Will we ever see another team put together a decade's worth of fifty win seasons, multiple titles, and several great players while flying completely under-the-radar? A team so many people labeled as 'boring' and dismissed them just because ESPN told them to do it, yet even when they give people what they want (a high-scoring Juggernaut that plays beautiful basketball) the people still disrespect them? I realize that most of what I have said does not apply to die-hard NBA fans who take their time and actually watch the games before forming opinions, but these fans are few and far between. So I urge you: forget about your bias, watch this team, and appreciate the things they do, it might be a long time before you see something like them again.

Conference Finals Could Determine the Future of the NBA

Tweet You may be wondering where the article I promised in my last edition of playoff awards (the one devoted to San Antonio) is. Simply put: it is on hold. The article is a celebration of how San Antonio has managed to embrace the 'team over the individual' concept (something fans of North American sports always crave and ask for, but hate it when they get it), Tim Duncan and his under-rated career, the brilliance of Popovich, and many other things that have defined the Spurs, but that have also been unappreciated for far too long. Kevin Durant and the Thunder of Oklahoma city do not want me to post that article.
Before you continue reading this, please note that I have nothing against the Thunder winning, I just think that future NBA seasons would be better if San Antonio or Boston capture the NBA title this year.

The ode to the Spurs was going to be my finals preview (obviously, they have to make the finals for this to happen), as well as a hopeful thought that the NBA would now move back to an era where teamwork and individual sacrifice would once again be crucial to success. Where watching beautifully executed plays and sequences that could only come from having an unquestioned trust in your teammates (think Ginobili behind-the-back to Tony Parker) would occur on a nightly basis. Where superstars would forego the chance to break a scoring record, in order to truly elevate their team mates, or as I like to call it: the anti-Kobe. And lastly, an era where you would not watch a guard pound the ball for 22 seconds and then launch an off-balance three with the shot clock expiring (and yes, that one is called a 'Westbrook').

The run that the Dallas Mavericks had last year wasn't just beautiful because they beat the NBA's resident villain, the Miami Heat, it was also beautiful in the way they did it. Jason Kidd did not just dribble up the court and pass it to Dirk Nowitzki; the Mavericks moved the ball (often all five players getting a touch)  looking for the best possible shot. If that shot happened to be a Nowitzki fade-away, then so be it, but the point is that Dallas played as a team and it was a big part of why they won. Another thing that contributed to the Mavs' success was that their role-players knew exactly what their roles were. Watching the thrilling Boston-Miami game last night and seeing Spolestra just throwing line-ups out there hoping that they would work (Norris Cole in after Lebron fouled out) reminded me of just how important role players (and coaching) can be. Rick Carlisle of Dallas made sure that players one through twelve on his roster were ready to play if they were needed. That is why Dallas had great moments in their title run such as Brewer changing the pace of game one against the Lakers, or J.J. Barea changing the complexion of the finals.

I guess that what I am trying to say is that it would be good for the NBA if the formula for winning titles went away from "let's build a super-team" to "let's maximize what we have and win that way". The Spurs and Celtics do not have much in common with a lot of teams in the league (teams such as the Lakers, Clippers, Pacers, Grizzlies etc.) they are not as athletic or as talented (at least in terms of their best players). Yet the Spurs and Celtics outlasted all of those teams and have a good chance to make it to the NBA finals, all because they set individual stats aside for the greater good, in this case winning a title. If the Heat or the Thunder win the title, then the Brooklyn Nets pursuit of teaming up Deron Williams with Dwight Howard (both guys had a hand in the firing/resignation of a coach recently) is justified. More and more stars will take the easy 'non-Duncan' way out and just team up instead of working hard. That is why I am rooting for a Spurs and Celtics finals, one that may not get the ratings of other match-ups, but one that could benefit the league in a way not seen since the early 80's.