Anyone have that Hollinger Insider Article?

[mikekim]

The recent one about the spurs being a dirty team. I just wanted to see a national sportswriter take the spurs side in this thing. Someone posted it here a while back but he only put the little annoying sample that espn seemingly puts on every article now.

I'm cheap and don't want to pay for Insider. Can anyone paste it on here? if they aren't morally troubled by it that is

[Kori Ellis]

I do not know if this is the one you wanted, but here you go.

Spurs: NBA's new villains
by: John Hollinger
posted: Wednesday, May 16, 2007

SALT LAKE CITY -- You know what I love about this suspension stuff in the Spurs-Suns series? Finally, the Spurs are the villains. Took 'em long enough.

How long were these guys going to roll up 60-win seasons and make deep playoff marches before somebody got angry about it? Usually a team this successful provokes almost instant, visceral hatred -- think of the Yankees, Lakers and Cowboys of recent times.

Yes, the Spurs are in a pea-sized market, so we're not constantly swarmed by obnoxious Spurs fans. But other small-market teams have provided a lot more animus for the rest of the league. Certainly nobody was a big fan of Oakland's Bash Brothers, for instance, and the Jazz were public enemy No. 1 throughout the West for much of the 1990s.

In this case, however, the Spurs were such nice guys that nobody could get upset about it even while they were getting their brains beat in. David Robinson? Sean Elliott? Steve Kerr? Avery Johnson? It's tough to cast guys like that as the enemy.

So in a way I'd like to thank Robert Horry for giving us something to get riled up over. Even now, the Spurs' case as villains is a bit tenuous -- they don't do the smug, we're-better-than-you thing that's expected from the enemy, and their personalities couldn't possibly be more vanilla. After a decade of dominance, about all they have on their villain resume is a shot to the crotch, a wayward kick and one hard foul.

But sometimes, that's all it takes. After countless years of seeing the Spurs crush all comers, it seems Western Conference fans are finally getting angry about it. Denver fans had it in for Manu Ginobili in the last series; now Bruce Bowen and Horry are the chosen ones in Phoenix. If the Spurs advance, I have no doubt the raucous Utah crowd will have a favorite target, as well.

None of this may matter a wit on the basketball court, but in a weird way it's a good thing for the NBA. The league does best when there's at least one dominant team that everyone either loves or hates, and the decline of the Lakers has left a void in that department the last few years. Maybe San Antonio is finally ready to step up to the plate as the bad guys.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



As usual, Jazz coach Jerry Sloan was good for a few quick thoughts on Tuesday about the fracas. Mostly, he was amused by what passes for physical play in today's game (despite coaching the league's most physical team, I might add).

But with the current rule being that players who leave the bench area automatically get a one-game suspension, Sloan has as much need as anyone else to keep his players on a leash when things get hairy. Sloan said it's tough to keep players under control in such a situation, but added, "We all try to make sure they don't go out there. They've been told."

They did a good job of that in Game 4. Two different situations could have provoked a couple wayward steps onto the court a la Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw, most notably the flagrant foul on Mehmet Okur by Jason Richardson. But cooler heads prevailed and Utah had a full contingent for Game 5.

Perhaps that's because Sloan wasn't in uniform. One of the more fiery players of his era, Sloan admitted he might have been good for a suspension or two, but seemed a bit thankful when he noted, "They didn't have any rules then. You could go wherever you wanted to go."

[mikekim]

Yes! (in marv albert voice) it is. Thanks. It's shorter than I expected. I guess I expected a breakdown of foul calls/foul shots along with the ratio of flops to whistles with a variable of crowd noise or something...

but yeah, thank you

[Kori Ellis]

It was just in his blog section, it wasn't a real article.

[mikekim]

Ah... I see. I wish more national writers would stick up for the spurs though. Bill Simmons was going well until the huge chunk he wrote about Bruce Bowen in the last one.

I really don't understand how people (esp. sportswriters) can't see how great of an organization the spurs are. And if they grudgingly admit that, how great of a team the players and coaches form.

[Strike]

Even with as little as I care about the sports media's takes on San Antonio (They never seem to get any credit for their accomplishments), it's nice to actually see an article that doesn't just bash the "dirty" Spurs.

And that article raises a pretty good point. For the most part, there is no team in the league that fans "love to hate". Just so happens that the Spurs have been the most successful team in the last 10 years, save the Lakers dynastic 3-peat. The Lakers have been a widely hated (and loved) team for decades so that's easy.

But after many many years of nothing from San Antonio, many people must be tired of seeing the Spurs win championships and beating the "golden boys" of the league. Like the Patriots of the NFL, no one likes to see the same team be that successful for such a long stretch of time. So now, thanks to some comments by a good player on a flash in the pan team, now the microscopes have been aimed at San Antonio. And now the Spurs have been pegged as "dirty".

I, for one, love it. The amount of attention the Spurs are getting just shows that they're obviously doing something right. You don't get hated for sucking. You get hated when everyone is tired of being 2nd.

So Suns fan, Dallas fan, whatever fan, keep it coming. I welcome all the hatred, trolling, smack talking and whining.

Studies showed that half of the people who listen to Bill O'Reilly, Al Franken, et cetera, hate their guts. Yet, the people that hate them listen more and longer than the people that love them. Proof that hatred is an unbelievable waste of time.

If you hate something, why keep fueling it?

[L.I.T]

Eh, I've decided that the national media's admiration of the Spurs was superficial. While they went around dutifully winning 55-60 games a year and the occasional championship without raising a fuss; they could point to them as a model franchise and swoon over their dedication to winning the 'right way'. All the while secretly hiding their man-lust for small-ball.

As traditional teams slowly went by the way side (through regulations and a dearth of quality big men in the drafts) they could let their secret desires out of the closet and begin rabbit humping the legs of small-ball wizards (like Nellie, D'Antoni and Colangelo). They began to slowly insert condemnations of traditional ball in their columns and raise small-ball/run and gun to a glorified status. Despite that fact that this style had been around for decades yet lacked a championship pedigree, they began to hail it as the evolved state of the NBA. Now we read about how 'traditional' coaches like Carlisle are dinosaurs.

Of course, they conveniently forgot that traditional ball wins, and will always win. In last years playoffs, and this years, they've seen their carefully constructed milieu falling to pieces. They're bitter, angry and are illogically using a franchise they used to universally praise as a scape-goat for their own failings.

The hypocrisy and inconsistency is the most galling aspect of this whole series. The Suns fans are easy to understand, they're basically chihuahuas: small, whiny and only capable of incessant yapping. You can't blame them for staying true to their nature. (I generalize of course, there are some decent Suns fans out there, right?)

But the media, ah they are the true scum. How they've comported themselves casts a shadow on the so-called objectivity of sports journalism. What was once a proud profession, is now barely worth paying attention to.

[Strike]

Eh, I've decided that the national media's admiration of the Spurs was superficial. While they went around dutifully won 55-60 games a year and occasionally won a championship they could point to them as a model franchise and swoon over how they went about winning the right way. All the while secretly hiding their man-lust for small-ball.

As traditional teams slowly went by the way side (through regulations and a dearth of quality big men in the drafts) they could let their secret desires out of the closet and begin rabbit humping the legs of small-ball wizards (like Nellie, D'Antoni and Colangelo). They began to slowly insert condemnations of traditional ball in their columns and raise small-ball/run and gun to a glorified status. Despite that fact that this style had been around for decades yet lacked a championship pedigree, they began to hail it as the evolved state of the NBA.

Of course, they conveniently forgot that traditional ball wins, and will always win. In last years playoffs, and this years, they've seen their carefully constructed milieu falling to pieces. They're bitter, angry and are illogically using a franchise they used to universally praise as a scape-goat for their own failings.

The hypocrisy and inconsistency is the most galling aspect of this whole series. The Suns fans are easy to understand, they're basically chihuahuas: small, whiny and only capable of incessant yapping. You can't blame them for staying true to their nature. (I generalize of course, there are some decent Suns fans out there, right?)

But the media, ah they are the true scum. How they've comported themselves casts a shadow on the so-called objectivity of sports journalism. What was once a proud profession, is now barely worth paying attention to.

Well said.

[cly2tw]

For comfort, you Spurs fans could always turn to Charley Rosen, who seems to hate the Suns with their playing style from his guts.

[sanman53]

If the Spurs advance, I have no doubt the raucous Utah crowd will have a favorite target, as well.

Beno

[ambchang]

For comfort, you Spurs fans could always turn to Charley Rosen, who seems to hate the Suns with their playing style from his guts.
We all hate Charlie Rosen.
Oh crap, I just generalized! Am I going to jail for this?

[Extra Stout]

Hollinger is the "dirty" stat geek over at ESPN.

[MadDog73]

As traditional teams slowly went by the way side (through regulations and a dearth of quality big men in the drafts) they could let their secret desires out of the closet and begin rabbit humping the legs of small-ball wizards (like Nellie, D'Antoni and Colangelo). They began to slowly insert condemnations of traditional ball in their columns and raise small-ball/run and gun to a glorified status. Despite that fact that this style had been around for decades yet lacked a championship pedigree, they began to hail it as the evolved state of the NBA..


I love this... like Bob Bass didn't advocate and George Gervin didn't play this style (and lose) in the 70's.

"It is my belief that you cannot throw a set offense at another professional team for 48 minutes. You've got to let them play some schoolyard basketball." - Bob Bass

[tmtcsc]

I've got alot of respect for Jerry Sloan and his teams. They always play hard, physical, smart and whatever you want to call it. Hell, his team used to play "dirty" too. Karl Malone would cross the line sometimes and so would Stockton. But they were winners and used to kill us in the playoffs.

Pop modeled his teams after the Utah Jazz. Only, we have Tim Duncan and broke through to 3 Rings. Yessssssssssss (Insert Napolean Dynamite voice here)...

[MadDog73]

Hmmm, while looking for that quote, I found some evidence that the Spurs were a dirty team:

http://www.remembertheaba.com/San-Antonio-Spurs.html

On March 24, 1976 the Spurs went into McNichols Arena and beat Denver 135-122, snapping the Nuggets' 26-game home winning streak. In fact, it was the second straight year that the Spurs had broken a 26-game home winning streak by Denver. Because the Spurs kept breaking Denver's home winning streaks, and because of several on-court fights between the teams during the 1974-75 season, a strong rivalry developed between the Nuggets and the Spurs.

Nuggets' coach Larry Brown called the Spurs a "dirty team" and yelled at George Gervin during a 1976 Denver loss at HemisFair Arena. Bob Bass got up from the Spurs bench, told Brown to shut up, and offered to fight him. After the game, the Nuggets' boss said "I don't like anything about San Antonio, their coaching staff, their franchise or their city. The only thing I like about San Antonio is guacamole salad." Naturally, the Spurs' rowdy group of fans, the "Baseline Bums," caught wind of Brown's quote. The next time the Nuggets visited HemisFair Arena, the Baseline Bums were ready. Nuggets' forward Gus Gerard remembers that: "The next time we came down there the people were throwing avocados out on the floor and dumping guacamole salad on the players. When Larry (Brown) went to the locker room, they had something like dime beer night that night, so they were pouring beer over Larry's head. That was pretty wild."


I assume avocados were cheaper then? :lol

[bresilhac]

Eh, I've decided that the national media's admiration of the Spurs was superficial. While they went around dutifully winning 55-60 games a year and the occasional championship without raising a fuss; they could point to them as a model franchise and swoon over their dedication to winning the 'right way'. All the while secretly hiding their man-lust for small-ball.

As traditional teams slowly went by the way side (through regulations and a dearth of quality big men in the drafts) they could let their secret desires out of the closet and begin rabbit humping the legs of small-ball wizards (like Nellie, D'Antoni and Colangelo). They began to slowly insert condemnations of traditional ball in their columns and raise small-ball/run and gun to a glorified status. Despite that fact that this style had been around for decades yet lacked a championship pedigree, they began to hail it as the evolved state of the NBA. Now we read about how 'traditional' coaches like Carlisle are dinosaurs.

Of course, they conveniently forgot that traditional ball wins, and will always win. In last years playoffs, and this years, they've seen their carefully constructed milieu falling to pieces. They're bitter, angry and are illogically using a franchise they used to universally praise as a scape-goat for their own failings.

The hypocrisy and inconsistency is the most galling aspect of this whole series. The Suns fans are easy to understand, they're basically chihuahuas: small, whiny and only capable of incessant yapping. You can't blame them for staying true to their nature. (I generalize of course, there are some decent Suns fans out there, right?)

But the media, ah they are the true scum. How they've comported themselves casts a shadow on the so-called objectivity of sports journalism. What was once a proud profession, is now barely worth paying attention to.

Excellent post. Thanks.

[Cry Havoc]

Eh, I've decided that the national media's admiration of the Spurs was superficial. While they went around dutifully winning 55-60 games a year and the occasional championship without raising a fuss; they could point to them as a model franchise and swoon over their dedication to winning the 'right way'. All the while secretly hiding their man-lust for small-ball.

As traditional teams slowly went by the way side (through regulations and a dearth of quality big men in the drafts) they could let their secret desires out of the closet and begin rabbit humping the legs of small-ball wizards (like Nellie, D'Antoni and Colangelo). They began to slowly insert condemnations of traditional ball in their columns and raise small-ball/run and gun to a glorified status. Despite that fact that this style had been around for decades yet lacked a championship pedigree, they began to hail it as the evolved state of the NBA. Now we read about how 'traditional' coaches like Carlisle are dinosaurs.

Of course, they conveniently forgot that traditional ball wins, and will always win. In last years playoffs, and this years, they've seen their carefully constructed milieu falling to pieces. They're bitter, angry and are illogically using a franchise they used to universally praise as a scape-goat for their own failings.

The hypocrisy and inconsistency is the most galling aspect of this whole series. The Suns fans are easy to understand, they're basically chihuahuas: small, whiny and only capable of incessant yapping. You can't blame them for staying true to their nature. (I generalize of course, there are some decent Suns fans out there, right?)

But the media, ah they are the true scum. How they've comported themselves casts a shadow on the so-called objectivity of sports journalism. What was once a proud profession, is now barely worth paying attention to.

You win at the internet. :clap

[NO LIMIT ARMY COMMANDER]

http://www.hoopshype.com/general_managers/bob_bass.gif


Nuggets' coach Larry Brown called the Spurs a "dirty team" and yelled at George Gervin during a 1976 Denver loss at HemisFair Arena. Bob Bass got up from the Spurs bench, told Brown to shut up, and offered to fight him.


Godspeed, General Bass.