Ya know, all the folks on this board who have trashed Manu for playing last year, and are trashing Tony for playing this year for their national teams, seem to overlook that Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, Carmelo Anthony and
LeBron have spent the last few summers playing for Team USA and are still playing for the NBA conference finals and now, finals (for Bryant and Howard).
Is anyone noticing that these guys have not keeled over? That they have beat everybody else in the NBA this year ( the year after an Olympics?)?
That playing for your country does NOT mean that you can't help your team get to the finals?
Personally, I don't think that the Spurs deserve to have Manu playing for them. I know I'm going to killed for this. So be it.
I think that the Spurs coaching staff and a lot of the Spurs fans on this board owe Ginobili an apology. I know it won't happen. I know that I'll be called all sorts of obscene names and that my parentage will be called into question. I just wanted to say this.
Yes, but there is one difference. They were not hurt going into the Olympics. People's problem with Manu was not that he played in the Olympics, it is that he played knowingly injured.
Big difference, but it is over. We will see what his future holds and most Spurs fans still love him.
Not too many people trash Tony. It's Manu who gets trashed because he was injured in the 2008 playoffs and didn't perform well and then went ahead and played in the Olympics. It's real easy for certain fans to criticize a player when his injury costs their sports team a fair shot at a championship, especially 2 years in a row.
You're dead on that the biggest complaint is that Manu knew he was hurt and continued to play. But there is another difference - those other guys (Kobe, Melo, LeBron, Howard, etc.) haven't played summer ball year after year. The human body needs time to recuperate. Once or twice is one thing. But I wouldn't be any happier with any American player representing his country every single off-season. It's self-destructive. I may take it a little more personally when it involves my favorite team, but why not? What the do I care if Melo or LeBron have an off year?
Yeah, Manu went in knowing exactly what was going to happen and even though the coaching staff told him that he shouldn't he did. Manu was dead wrong and Spurs fans don't owe him an apology for helping pay his salary as they watched him sit on the bench.
I think Pop and many fans feared what would happen. He knew that there was a risk but he didn't know exactly what would happen. In fact, Manu wore a boot and felt like the impingement and swolen tendon would be healed and a normal size by the Olympics (see article en led "Ginobili expects injured ankle to be OK in time for Summer Olympics" http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/olybb/...=ESPNHeadlines ).
Patriotic and compe ive hope just got in the way of reality.
Yeah, but some people on here only find a way to on international players playing for their countries. When it's about American players playing for team USA, everybody is quiet.
But then again, that's probably normal. Americans only care about their own country. Thats what they have feelings for. Who gives a about some other country, about international players playing for their countries.
Playing for your country is a good thing, an honor. That should be respected. Wouldn't you do the same? Injuries can happen always, when playing in the NBA and for your NT.
yes, rightfully pointed out immediately. if kobe broke his finger in the olympics and/or did it again in '09 everyone would be saying kb24 was a fool.
i would have loved to have manu 100% for '09 but i have to accept that if the nba players from usa all said they were gonna take the summer off for their health and professional team's le considerations, we'd call them all cowards. anyone remember the seoul olympics? hey, we all love the admiral, but how pumped was america when he was a seasoned pro and the dream team was featuring all amazing professional athletes?
manu deserved and still deserves to represent his country for as long as he wants.
but i still wish he didn't!
actually, i remember when it happened i was reading that it may have been a blessing in disguise cause he was able to have surgery in the offseason and return after the first third of the season. it would have been much more disastrous if he had injured his ankle at the beginning of the season and then came back during the last third of the season.
i was REALLY worried when we lost our first four games and then barely beat minnesota in OT with a 55 point game from parker. and then parker got injured as well!
and then i got optimistic when we went on that run with mason and hill stepping up and showing guts, smarts, and talent-all through nearly beating denver with duncan, parker, ginobili, and finley sitting out! i thought to myself, mason and hill would never be getting these minutes if manu was the first option at 2.
but now looking back goddamn that injury really blew the season.(not that our lack of off season transactions didn't trap us as well) think about it, our rotation completely got whacked. game 17 pop decides on his starting lineup and pretty much the rotation for the season.
1-tp
2-mason/ginobili
3-finley
4-td
5-bonner
we had played finley as a 2 for a couple years. i thought he was gonna fall out of the rotation when we signed mason. i figured we'd start mason in place of finley at 2 and bring manu off the bench again. i thought udoka was gonna build off the playoff momentum and play heavier minutes.
having manu and tp was being without approx 40 points per game. pop's solution for offense was putting bonner in place of oberto, and finley in place of bowen. from that point on, game 17 vs detroit, we managed to score enough to stay compe ive, but our defense was inconsistent. bowen being the backup 3 put udoka COMPLETELY out of the rotation. i think that really played against our strengths. a frontcourt of td, finley and bonner meant we'd be bottom tier offensive boards for sure. and with bonner we'd get killed against teams with big 5 and 4s. and we de-emphasized the role of our defensive stopper bruce bowen.
having only signed mason, hill and the rookie experiments we were essentially the same team as 2007 and 2008(thomas). but we played like a totally different one, one that we're not that good at being. i'm not saying we'd be in the finals for sure, but we'd definitely had a better chance. think about how close the conference finals actually were. now imagine the season went without a parker injury, without the additional ginobili injuries, and without the mason meltdown in the playoffs. i already said i imagined the season was gonna include a bigger udoka-if the rototations included him and he developed in the system, imagine a 10-12ppg/6-7 rpg udoka plus a bonner breakthrough and an additional mason/hill backcourt. i think we could have kept up with the lakers backcourt. the defense that manu couldn't play might be done by a more rested mason/hill.
anyway, i'm really blabbing, but yah, manu's injury wasn't just to his ankle.
shouldda, wouldda, couldda. MAKE SOME TRANSACTIONS THIS SUMMER. manu's health has proved that we need more, we simply need more depth and development to be compe ive again!
Last edited by draft87; 06-05-2009 at 05:05 AM. Reason: incomplete
The Olympics are like Ginobili's wife. The spurs are his non-secretive mistress.
Why should I give a crap about those guys?
Their respective teams like the Lakers and Utah those are their problems.
That's not true. I care deeply for Macedonia, Transylvania and other made up countries.
2nd sentence. what are you saying?
Well that's only because all Europeans generalize and stereotype us.
[Explanation in advance of the flaming: It's called irony. It's sort of a joke - to point out the fact that you can't lump us all together. Lighten up.]
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