That would be EPIC!!!
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Thanks for the great games and great memories Bruce!!! My best memory of you is in 2005, game 7 against the Pistons and you blocked Billups shot. That's when I knew it really was over, and the game belonged to us! You are a great defender, and were never scared to get take a big shot. You turned the soft Spurs into "dirty" Spurs. :lol Love you Bruce! Forever a Spur!
good luck Bruce, you will be missed, enjoy your retirement :toast
Love ya Bruce! :depressed
how very saddening.
Bruce Bowen is the symbol of what the spurs are for me! He was a big factor for young players being successful like tony and manu. I will miss him and I wish him a successful career in broadcasting cause i would love to hear him. HE IS A SPUR and will always be one! bring the shirt up in the rafters
All the best to Bruce!!! Thanks for everything!!! Still looking for a Bowen jersey and never got one...
good luck bruce..
Good luck, Bruce. You will remain one of my favorite players of all time.
Thanks for the memories and hard work, and good luck to you in the future Bruce!
48MoH’s Greatest Hits: The Bowen Collection
http://www.48minutesofhell.com/2009/...en-collection/
Like to see him get involved in sports analysis in some way, i'm sure a role player like him probably has a lot of insight into basketball intricacies and things no one else would think of.
dropping 7 3Gs to eliminate the Lakers @LA
blocking Chauncey's 3G in final minutes of 05 Game 7, GAMEOVER.
great news
I've always hated this guy
Bruce was the mastermind of the Spurs :hat
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1145/...bedeb28f_o.jpg
he should get his number retired no question
in his prime he was an an alltime elite nba defender
he will be missed
Put his number on the rafters and make him part of our broadcasting crew.
Damn I will miss him so much
Thank you for all the hard work and the great memories Bruce :tu
I hope that Spurs realize we need him after the 1st half of the season, and we sign him for the 2nd half. A dream, but i wish.
Ex-Spurs forward Bowen retires after 12 seasons
By Michelle Roberts
Bruce Bowen won’t be pestering the NBA’s best anymore.
The 38-year-old former San Antonio Spurs forward retired Thursday after 12 seasons and a reputation as one of the league’s most menacing defenders, hounding opponents with a tenacity that some players groused was more dirty than dogged.
He called it quits after being waived this summer by Milwaukee, where the Spurs dealt him in a veteran dump-off for swingman Richard Jefferson—a decision Bowen said he understood.
“You need to do things to better the business, and the Spurs definitely got better in the players they received, so I’m looking forward to continuously supporting the Spurs, but from more of a distance now,” he said in a news conference at his wife’s San Antonio salon.
Bowen said he had been weighing retirement for the last five years.
Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili get most of the glory for bringing three NBA championships to San Antonio this decade. But Bowen gladly did the dirty work, relishing his role as the pesky, lockdown defender who covered the other team’s best player.
Asked about the likely reaction to his retirement from stars like the Los Angeles Lakers’ Kobe Bryant and the Phoenix Suns’ Steve Nash, Bowen chuckled, “I’m sure a lot of people are happy.”
Bowen was named eight times to the NBA’s all-defensive team. He finished runner-up three times in defensive player of the year voting. And though he never averaged more than 8.2 points a season, Bowen didn’t shy from taking a clutch 3-pointer.
He started alongside the Big Three during the championship runs in 2003, 2005 and 2007. Bowen went on to start 500 straight games before kicking New Orleans’ Chris Paul in March 2008 and drawing a one-game suspension—justice in the eyes of Bowen’s critics.
Opposing fans vilified Bowen as a master of cheap shots and sneaky shoves. Amare Stoudemire once insisted Bowen purposely kicked him in the playoffs. Dirk Nowitzki said after a physical April playoff game that it was the Spurs who had a dirty player, not Dallas.
Nowitzki didn’t mention Bowen by name. He didn’t have to.
Bowen acknowledged Thursday only one play in which he purposely kicked another player: Ray Allen in a March 2006 game against the Seattle SuperSonics, a scuffle that earned him a $10,000 fine.
“That play, I remember and I regret because of me intentionally doing that,” Bowen said.
But he said that his reputation as a sometimes dirty player is unfair.
“People are entitled to their own opinions. I’ve been fighting that for quite some time,” said Bowen, who added he drew a lot of calls because of bad timing. “It just so happened that I was there after everyone stuck their hands in the cookie jar and then the lights came on and I had a cookie.”
Bowen was not the most obvious starter for a championship team early in his career. Drafted by Miami from Cal State Fullerton, he spent several seasons bouncing between clubs and earning little playing time.
But after his 2001 arrival in San Antonio, he found his place, eventually earning defensive player accolades and a regular starting job.
He said he hopes that will be his legacy.
“It’s not how you start but how you finish,” Bowen said. “I hope my legacy would be as someone that never was satisfied with just being where they were.”
VIA Bruce's Twitter:
Bowen12 THANKS SAN ANTONIO, FOR YOUR LOVE AND CONTINUED SUPPORT! LET'S MAKE SURE WE SHOW THE NEW SPURS THE SAME LOVE THAT YOU ALL SHOWED ME!
Thank you Bruce, you were part of the Big 4 that brought us three championships :toast. WeŽll miss you!