duncan228
04-30-2008, 02:14 AM
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/columnists/mfinger/stories/MYSA043008.COL.BKNfinger.spurs.b308f270.html
Mike Finger: Spurs' method wins again
San Antonio Express-News
Steve Kerr wasn’t wrong. He was too little, too late, maybe, but not wrong.
He’ll catch some desert heat for this, because as the Phoenix Suns’ season ended Tuesday at the AT&T Center, Shaquille O’Neal spent more time bricking free throws than he did slowing Tim Duncan. Mike D’Antoni, Steve Nash and Amare Stoudemire will get plenty of blame, too, because it’s easier to point fingers than it is to accept the Suns were doomed to lose this series no matter what.
But the Spurs’ next opponent is different. Not only are the New Orleans Hornets younger and tougher than the Suns, they understand something Phoenix never really has. Before the Spurs-Suns series even was over, New Orleans forward David West explained the folly of the up-tempo, wide-open style the league now mourns the loss of.
“It’s funny, man,” West said. “For a while, everybody looked at Phoenix as the team you were supposed to model yourself after. But that didn’t make any sense. San Antonio was the team winning championships. People should’ve been copying them.”
Kerr saw the same landscape when he became the Suns’ general manager, so he did exactly what West was suggesting — he copied the champs. He needed a way to add defense and a post presence in a hurry, and he found a way to do both by trading for Shaq.
This looks like a disaster today, but that’s as much due to the luck of the draw as anything. If the Suns had drawn Utah or Houston or Dallas in the first round, their season wouldn’t be over now. And had they lost to the Spurs in the conference finals, with a Duncan 3-pointer turning that series? Some might say Kerr did what he had to do.
Instead, people will wonder what difference Shawn Marion would’ve made (answer: not that much), whether pushing the tempo would’ve changed the outcome (answer: almost certainly not), and whether the Suns should blow up their team and start over (answer: with those contracts, good luck).
But this wasn’t the first time the Spurs have ended the Suns’ season. It’s now happened four times in six years, and the reasons have been the same every time. The Spurs have won because Tony Parker is fast, and because Manu Ginobili is a magician, and because Tim Duncan is the greatest power forward in the history of the NBA.
The Spurs have won because Nash can’t carry a team on his will alone, and because Stoudemire either can’t stay on the floor or can’t keep his focus, and because Boris Diaw isn’t the Swiss Army knife Wonderboy commentators so often make him out to be (“He can do everything! Including passing the ball directly to the Spurs’ bench on the most important possession of the season!”).
But as West pointed out, that hasn’t stopped the copycats. Everyone from the Denver Nuggets to the Texas Longhorns have tried to play like Phoenix over the past few years, and the results have been remarkably similar — entertaining basketball, some nice runs, even some postseason success, but no championships.
In the big picture, perhaps the popularity of the Suns’ style caught on not only because it was fun but also because it was easier than the Spurs’ way. And when you intentionally sacrifice some of that entertainment and some of those points for something else, and then it fails? Then, as Kerr now realizes, the backlash can be doubly brutal.
That didn’t mean he was mistaken for trying. Had Duncan’s 3-pointer rimmed out, had Nash not fumbled the ball away in pivotal moments, had the Suns built some momentum early in the series and kept building upon it, Kerr would be hailed as a genius right now.
Somewhere in New Orleans, West watched the end of Tuesday’s game and nodded his head. Unlike most, he’d picked the right role model all along.
Mike Finger: Spurs' method wins again
San Antonio Express-News
Steve Kerr wasn’t wrong. He was too little, too late, maybe, but not wrong.
He’ll catch some desert heat for this, because as the Phoenix Suns’ season ended Tuesday at the AT&T Center, Shaquille O’Neal spent more time bricking free throws than he did slowing Tim Duncan. Mike D’Antoni, Steve Nash and Amare Stoudemire will get plenty of blame, too, because it’s easier to point fingers than it is to accept the Suns were doomed to lose this series no matter what.
But the Spurs’ next opponent is different. Not only are the New Orleans Hornets younger and tougher than the Suns, they understand something Phoenix never really has. Before the Spurs-Suns series even was over, New Orleans forward David West explained the folly of the up-tempo, wide-open style the league now mourns the loss of.
“It’s funny, man,” West said. “For a while, everybody looked at Phoenix as the team you were supposed to model yourself after. But that didn’t make any sense. San Antonio was the team winning championships. People should’ve been copying them.”
Kerr saw the same landscape when he became the Suns’ general manager, so he did exactly what West was suggesting — he copied the champs. He needed a way to add defense and a post presence in a hurry, and he found a way to do both by trading for Shaq.
This looks like a disaster today, but that’s as much due to the luck of the draw as anything. If the Suns had drawn Utah or Houston or Dallas in the first round, their season wouldn’t be over now. And had they lost to the Spurs in the conference finals, with a Duncan 3-pointer turning that series? Some might say Kerr did what he had to do.
Instead, people will wonder what difference Shawn Marion would’ve made (answer: not that much), whether pushing the tempo would’ve changed the outcome (answer: almost certainly not), and whether the Suns should blow up their team and start over (answer: with those contracts, good luck).
But this wasn’t the first time the Spurs have ended the Suns’ season. It’s now happened four times in six years, and the reasons have been the same every time. The Spurs have won because Tony Parker is fast, and because Manu Ginobili is a magician, and because Tim Duncan is the greatest power forward in the history of the NBA.
The Spurs have won because Nash can’t carry a team on his will alone, and because Stoudemire either can’t stay on the floor or can’t keep his focus, and because Boris Diaw isn’t the Swiss Army knife Wonderboy commentators so often make him out to be (“He can do everything! Including passing the ball directly to the Spurs’ bench on the most important possession of the season!”).
But as West pointed out, that hasn’t stopped the copycats. Everyone from the Denver Nuggets to the Texas Longhorns have tried to play like Phoenix over the past few years, and the results have been remarkably similar — entertaining basketball, some nice runs, even some postseason success, but no championships.
In the big picture, perhaps the popularity of the Suns’ style caught on not only because it was fun but also because it was easier than the Spurs’ way. And when you intentionally sacrifice some of that entertainment and some of those points for something else, and then it fails? Then, as Kerr now realizes, the backlash can be doubly brutal.
That didn’t mean he was mistaken for trying. Had Duncan’s 3-pointer rimmed out, had Nash not fumbled the ball away in pivotal moments, had the Suns built some momentum early in the series and kept building upon it, Kerr would be hailed as a genius right now.
Somewhere in New Orleans, West watched the end of Tuesday’s game and nodded his head. Unlike most, he’d picked the right role model all along.