SRJ
06-14-2007, 06:01 AM
http://spursmetrics.blogspot.com/2007/06/dawn-of-dynasty.html
It's just twenty minutes before first light here in Victoria, Texas - a big small town two hours to the Southeast of the AT&T Center in San Antonio. Since that building opened up, the AT&T has hosted some memorable NBA playoff clashes: a buzzer-beating Stephon Marbury shocker. A Tim Duncan immortal game (21, 20, 10 and 8). 0.4. A hyper-tense Game 7 versus Detroit. Nail-biting agony against an in-state rival. Of course, should the expected come to pass in Cleveland Ohio tonight, there won't be another NBA game played at the AT&T for four and one-half months.
I happen to have that building in mind because it seems, to the casual observer, to be one of many lines of demarcation separating the 2003-05-07 Spurs from the first banner bunch in San Antonio Spurs history, the Alamodome-dwelling 1999ers. A local radio host in San Antonio, Walter Pascacrita, makes the point that four titles in nine years isn't quite a dynasty - after all, the host points out, there is just one player common to the 1999 and 2007 rosters.
Now, the last point seems to have some legs to it, so I will address it last. I would first like to make mincemeat of the idea that the "four titles in nine years" standard doesn't equate to a dynasty. First of all, do we have an accepted metric on what a dynasty is or is not? A sports dynasty isn't a math equation - there's no ready made formula to define it. If we restrict the discussion on dynasties solely to basketball, then perhaps we would do well to rely on precedent rather than on math.
The NBA's first dynasty was brought to us by the Minneapolis Lakers, coached by John Kundla and led by George Mikan. Those Laker squads won five titles from 1949 to 1954, coming up short in 1951 against the Rochester Royals. (You know them now as the Sacramento Kings) Three years after the last of George Mikan's championships, a second NBA dynasty would begin - the Red Auerbach/Bill Russell Boston Celtics. This group would win nine titles from 1957 to 1966, losing in the 1958 NBA Finals to the St. Louis (now based in Atlanta) Hawks. When Auerbach stepped down following the 1966 season, Bill Russell assumed the role of player-coach and won back-to-back titles after the eight-peat (Jesus!) was interrupted by the 1967 Philadelphia 76ers.
Now we have a precedent for a dynasty - five titles in six seasons. Both the Lakers with Mikan and the Celtics with Russell met this standard. In fact, without the benefit of historical perspective, one could have argued in 1962 that the dynastic standard wasn't especially difficult to meet since two franchises had already acheived just that after only sixteen seasons of NBA basketball had been played.
Let us all be thankful that the idea of this particular dynastic standard didn't take hold after the 1962 season, because when Magic's Lakers won five titles in nine seasons, when Jordan's Chicago Bulls teams won their first five titles in seven seasons, or when Shaq's Lakers won three straight titles, each team's claim to a dynasty would have been turned back with a snarky, "Get back to me when you win five titles in six seasons." And according to the letter of historical precedent, that's a completely justifiable position to take.
Fortunately, NBA observers in the sixties weren't so obsessed with ranking everything and everybody. And just as fortunately, we have no commonly accepted standard with which to define a dynasty.
Now that we have seen that an artificially imposed standard fails to satisfactorily define a dynasty, we must then address the issue of the 1999 Spurs - are they the first leg of a four-rings dynasty, or the odd team out of the 2000's Spurs? The argument made by San Antonio radio host Walter Pascacrita, as I mentioned before, was that the 1999 team could not be part of the group because only one player appeared on the roster of both the 1999 and 2007 Spurs.
Well, let's look at that by way of using a none-too-obscure riddle.
This versatile big man, capable of playing forward or center and dominating the defensive paint with blocks and boards, led his team to multiple championships under one coach who at one time was the head coach and general manager. Nine seasons after his first title, this all-time great big man was the only player on that ninth-season championship team who had played on the first one.
If your answer to that riddle is Tim Duncan, you are correct.
If your answer to that riddle is Bill Russell, you are also correct. Russell was the only player common to the 1957 and 1965 Boston Celtic championship teams.
I could go on further still about how strategies, committment to the system, scouting and drafting players, and organizational stability are, in addition to players and coaches, important elements involved with extending a dynasty - but I don't need to. The fact that Tim Duncan is to San Antonio what Bill Russell was to Boston is good enough proof that Pascacrita's argument, while tempting on its face, ultimately falls flat.
Nearly an hour and a half has passed while I wrote this, and the sun will rise soon. And this dawn of June 14, 2007 will mark the dawn of the NBA's latest dynasty - the Gregg Popovich/Tim Duncan San Antonio Spurs. With Duncan playing at his peak at the age of thirty-one, with twenty-five year old Tony Parker continuing to expand his game, and with ultra-competitor Manu Ginobili just shy of his thirtieth birthday, four titles may become five. Or six. Possibly more.
It's just twenty minutes before first light here in Victoria, Texas - a big small town two hours to the Southeast of the AT&T Center in San Antonio. Since that building opened up, the AT&T has hosted some memorable NBA playoff clashes: a buzzer-beating Stephon Marbury shocker. A Tim Duncan immortal game (21, 20, 10 and 8). 0.4. A hyper-tense Game 7 versus Detroit. Nail-biting agony against an in-state rival. Of course, should the expected come to pass in Cleveland Ohio tonight, there won't be another NBA game played at the AT&T for four and one-half months.
I happen to have that building in mind because it seems, to the casual observer, to be one of many lines of demarcation separating the 2003-05-07 Spurs from the first banner bunch in San Antonio Spurs history, the Alamodome-dwelling 1999ers. A local radio host in San Antonio, Walter Pascacrita, makes the point that four titles in nine years isn't quite a dynasty - after all, the host points out, there is just one player common to the 1999 and 2007 rosters.
Now, the last point seems to have some legs to it, so I will address it last. I would first like to make mincemeat of the idea that the "four titles in nine years" standard doesn't equate to a dynasty. First of all, do we have an accepted metric on what a dynasty is or is not? A sports dynasty isn't a math equation - there's no ready made formula to define it. If we restrict the discussion on dynasties solely to basketball, then perhaps we would do well to rely on precedent rather than on math.
The NBA's first dynasty was brought to us by the Minneapolis Lakers, coached by John Kundla and led by George Mikan. Those Laker squads won five titles from 1949 to 1954, coming up short in 1951 against the Rochester Royals. (You know them now as the Sacramento Kings) Three years after the last of George Mikan's championships, a second NBA dynasty would begin - the Red Auerbach/Bill Russell Boston Celtics. This group would win nine titles from 1957 to 1966, losing in the 1958 NBA Finals to the St. Louis (now based in Atlanta) Hawks. When Auerbach stepped down following the 1966 season, Bill Russell assumed the role of player-coach and won back-to-back titles after the eight-peat (Jesus!) was interrupted by the 1967 Philadelphia 76ers.
Now we have a precedent for a dynasty - five titles in six seasons. Both the Lakers with Mikan and the Celtics with Russell met this standard. In fact, without the benefit of historical perspective, one could have argued in 1962 that the dynastic standard wasn't especially difficult to meet since two franchises had already acheived just that after only sixteen seasons of NBA basketball had been played.
Let us all be thankful that the idea of this particular dynastic standard didn't take hold after the 1962 season, because when Magic's Lakers won five titles in nine seasons, when Jordan's Chicago Bulls teams won their first five titles in seven seasons, or when Shaq's Lakers won three straight titles, each team's claim to a dynasty would have been turned back with a snarky, "Get back to me when you win five titles in six seasons." And according to the letter of historical precedent, that's a completely justifiable position to take.
Fortunately, NBA observers in the sixties weren't so obsessed with ranking everything and everybody. And just as fortunately, we have no commonly accepted standard with which to define a dynasty.
Now that we have seen that an artificially imposed standard fails to satisfactorily define a dynasty, we must then address the issue of the 1999 Spurs - are they the first leg of a four-rings dynasty, or the odd team out of the 2000's Spurs? The argument made by San Antonio radio host Walter Pascacrita, as I mentioned before, was that the 1999 team could not be part of the group because only one player appeared on the roster of both the 1999 and 2007 Spurs.
Well, let's look at that by way of using a none-too-obscure riddle.
This versatile big man, capable of playing forward or center and dominating the defensive paint with blocks and boards, led his team to multiple championships under one coach who at one time was the head coach and general manager. Nine seasons after his first title, this all-time great big man was the only player on that ninth-season championship team who had played on the first one.
If your answer to that riddle is Tim Duncan, you are correct.
If your answer to that riddle is Bill Russell, you are also correct. Russell was the only player common to the 1957 and 1965 Boston Celtic championship teams.
I could go on further still about how strategies, committment to the system, scouting and drafting players, and organizational stability are, in addition to players and coaches, important elements involved with extending a dynasty - but I don't need to. The fact that Tim Duncan is to San Antonio what Bill Russell was to Boston is good enough proof that Pascacrita's argument, while tempting on its face, ultimately falls flat.
Nearly an hour and a half has passed while I wrote this, and the sun will rise soon. And this dawn of June 14, 2007 will mark the dawn of the NBA's latest dynasty - the Gregg Popovich/Tim Duncan San Antonio Spurs. With Duncan playing at his peak at the age of thirty-one, with twenty-five year old Tony Parker continuing to expand his game, and with ultra-competitor Manu Ginobili just shy of his thirtieth birthday, four titles may become five. Or six. Possibly more.