zocool16
06-08-2012, 04:29 AM
This is a piece I wrote early Thursday on the Spurs' future for a blog I have with a couple of buddies. Thought I'd share it. Take care, guys
http://mctsports.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/spurs-are-finally-dead-for-now-2/
Spurs are finally dead – for now
By zocool16
The Spurs’ exit from the 2012 playoffs was gruesome. It was the equivalent of a king’s beheading. Winners of 20 games straight and with several people starting to question their vincibility, they were kicked around four consecutive times by the Thunder, into their offseason grave.
But while the young, athletic Thunder made the Spurs look ordinary at times, the search for anyone who can make them look mortal is still on. The end to 2012 was straight out of a horror movie, but the year proved – yet again – the Spurs are the ones playing the Freddy-Krueger role: resurrected every time they’re thought dead in the offseason.
After their fourth championship in 2007 and a run in the West finals the year after, the Spurs supposedly finished their cycle of greatness. The 2009 playoffs did little to dispute that as the Mavericks took advantage of the third-seeded, injury-riddled Spurs and added another layer of dirt over their championship tomb with a first-round ouster.
In 2010, as a seventh seed, the Spurs dusted themselves off and repaid the favor by eliminating No. 2 Dallas in the first round.
Swept by Phoenix in the next round, the Spurs again had few believers going into 2010-11. They shrugged it off and won 61 games before getting taken out by the physical Grizzlies in the first round.
After that, some even predicted San Antonio would miss the playoffs in 2012.
But no, San Antonio won 50 out of 66 regular-season games to go into the playoffs as the No. 1 seed.
In total contrast of 2011’s gaffe, San Antonio swept through the first two rounds and took a 2-0 lead on the Thunder that had ESPN analysts asking if it could sweep its way to a championship. The Spurs were the Michael Phelps’s of basketball.
That was a week ago. Then Kevin Durant and Co. got their scythe and executed San Antonio out.
While there were a few reasons for the cataclysmic descent of the Spurs this time around, the biggest one was the Thunder. They grew up in a hurry as the series progressed. Durant, already a scoring tormenter, reached a new level while almost all of his teammates stepped up.
On the other side, San Antonio had to rely on a guy it traded for midseason (Stephen Jackson) to help a starting unit that had to cast aside guard Danny Green due to his inefficacy against Oklahoma City.
But although Green was not among the reasons the Spurs made the series competitive to the end, he embodied the reason why – in 2012 – San Antonio came back from the death for a third consecutive movie: Gregg Popovich found Green, a player very few knew about, and made him thrive for his team.
Green had never started an NBA game prior to this season. Once Ginobili broke his hand in the fifth game of the year, Green got his chance and made the most of it by averaging 9.1 points per game and shooting 44 percent in 3-pointers in the regular season. Through the first two rounds of the playoffs, Green made 46 percent of his threes.
Overshadowing an otherwise-great season, Green went 4-for-23 against OKC.
Regardless, this is how Popovich continues to keep the Spurs relevant. He keeps the old core of Tony Parker (30), Ginobili (34) and Duncan (36) – players whose minutes are managed and who, due to this, still play at a high level – and surrounds it with youth and players that get little recognition until they put on a Spurs’ uniform.
In the 2011 offseason, Popovich traded promising young guard George Hill for a pick he turned into a younger and even more promising player in Kawhi Leonard, who averaged 8.6 points in the playoffs and became the Spurs’ top one-on-one defender.
After the disappointing loss to Memphis last year, Leonard (20) and Green (24) represented the new blood infused into the Spurs’ supposedly-decaying corpses in 2012. That role of new-life breather belonged solely to Gary Neal, an undrafted three-point specialist, the year before.
At this point, most should have learned the lesson: the Spurs’ long-term perishability lies within Popovich and the front office’s. Where no one else sees a way for the Spurs to still matter in the championship picture, they do. Duncan’s durability and Ginobili’s health is tops in Pop’s to-do list every year and, this offseason, his new task will be continuing to get young and figuring out a way to beat the Thunder, a league-wide problem.
Whether they accomplish it or not, it’s another story. But once the latter stages of the playoffs roll around next year, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the same “old” Spurs there again, striped sweater and knife-gloves in place.
If you’re not a Spurs fan, it sure is a nightmare.
http://mctsports.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/spurs-are-finally-dead-for-now-2/
Spurs are finally dead – for now
By zocool16
The Spurs’ exit from the 2012 playoffs was gruesome. It was the equivalent of a king’s beheading. Winners of 20 games straight and with several people starting to question their vincibility, they were kicked around four consecutive times by the Thunder, into their offseason grave.
But while the young, athletic Thunder made the Spurs look ordinary at times, the search for anyone who can make them look mortal is still on. The end to 2012 was straight out of a horror movie, but the year proved – yet again – the Spurs are the ones playing the Freddy-Krueger role: resurrected every time they’re thought dead in the offseason.
After their fourth championship in 2007 and a run in the West finals the year after, the Spurs supposedly finished their cycle of greatness. The 2009 playoffs did little to dispute that as the Mavericks took advantage of the third-seeded, injury-riddled Spurs and added another layer of dirt over their championship tomb with a first-round ouster.
In 2010, as a seventh seed, the Spurs dusted themselves off and repaid the favor by eliminating No. 2 Dallas in the first round.
Swept by Phoenix in the next round, the Spurs again had few believers going into 2010-11. They shrugged it off and won 61 games before getting taken out by the physical Grizzlies in the first round.
After that, some even predicted San Antonio would miss the playoffs in 2012.
But no, San Antonio won 50 out of 66 regular-season games to go into the playoffs as the No. 1 seed.
In total contrast of 2011’s gaffe, San Antonio swept through the first two rounds and took a 2-0 lead on the Thunder that had ESPN analysts asking if it could sweep its way to a championship. The Spurs were the Michael Phelps’s of basketball.
That was a week ago. Then Kevin Durant and Co. got their scythe and executed San Antonio out.
While there were a few reasons for the cataclysmic descent of the Spurs this time around, the biggest one was the Thunder. They grew up in a hurry as the series progressed. Durant, already a scoring tormenter, reached a new level while almost all of his teammates stepped up.
On the other side, San Antonio had to rely on a guy it traded for midseason (Stephen Jackson) to help a starting unit that had to cast aside guard Danny Green due to his inefficacy against Oklahoma City.
But although Green was not among the reasons the Spurs made the series competitive to the end, he embodied the reason why – in 2012 – San Antonio came back from the death for a third consecutive movie: Gregg Popovich found Green, a player very few knew about, and made him thrive for his team.
Green had never started an NBA game prior to this season. Once Ginobili broke his hand in the fifth game of the year, Green got his chance and made the most of it by averaging 9.1 points per game and shooting 44 percent in 3-pointers in the regular season. Through the first two rounds of the playoffs, Green made 46 percent of his threes.
Overshadowing an otherwise-great season, Green went 4-for-23 against OKC.
Regardless, this is how Popovich continues to keep the Spurs relevant. He keeps the old core of Tony Parker (30), Ginobili (34) and Duncan (36) – players whose minutes are managed and who, due to this, still play at a high level – and surrounds it with youth and players that get little recognition until they put on a Spurs’ uniform.
In the 2011 offseason, Popovich traded promising young guard George Hill for a pick he turned into a younger and even more promising player in Kawhi Leonard, who averaged 8.6 points in the playoffs and became the Spurs’ top one-on-one defender.
After the disappointing loss to Memphis last year, Leonard (20) and Green (24) represented the new blood infused into the Spurs’ supposedly-decaying corpses in 2012. That role of new-life breather belonged solely to Gary Neal, an undrafted three-point specialist, the year before.
At this point, most should have learned the lesson: the Spurs’ long-term perishability lies within Popovich and the front office’s. Where no one else sees a way for the Spurs to still matter in the championship picture, they do. Duncan’s durability and Ginobili’s health is tops in Pop’s to-do list every year and, this offseason, his new task will be continuing to get young and figuring out a way to beat the Thunder, a league-wide problem.
Whether they accomplish it or not, it’s another story. But once the latter stages of the playoffs roll around next year, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the same “old” Spurs there again, striped sweater and knife-gloves in place.
If you’re not a Spurs fan, it sure is a nightmare.