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Thanks 228.
They couldn't beat Spurs, so they joined them
Jeff McDonald
Dinner was over, dessert had been served, and now Tony Parker was ready to have a little fun with his new teammate.
Parker rummaged through his things and emerged with one of his most cherished possessions: a 2005 NBA championship ring, one of three won during his tenure with the Spurs.
Parker's dinner guest was not amused.
“I about cried when I saw that ring,” Antonio McDyess said.
The particular ring in question, of course, was the one Parker earned at the expense of McDyess' Detroit Pistons. Still ring-less entering his 14th season, and his first since signing a free-agent deal with the Spurs, McDyess has a plan for remedying that career deficiency.
“If you can't beat 'em, join 'em,” he said.
New swingman Richard Jefferson can echo that sentiment. He, too, joins the Spurs after having his best chance at an NBA le squashed by them.
Jefferson was on the 2003 New Jersey team the Spurs bested in six games to win that season's Finals.
Together in San Antonio, the two former Spurs foils are the foundation of an offseason makeover that has their new team primed to make a run at the NBA champion Lakers in the West.
“You know these opportunities don't come often,” said Jefferson, 29. “You know there is a lot of work to do, to get ready for the long haul.”
Jefferson, too, might have shed a tear or two upon joining the Spurs. He was on his way to a funeral when the news broke.
The great-grandmother of his soon-to-be ex-fiancée — another tabloid story entirely — had just died. Jefferson was in a car in North Carolina en route to the service when his agent called to tell him he had just been traded from Milwaukee.
“When you're at a funeral, and you found out you just got traded before the ceremony even begins, there's a lot of stuff going through your head,” Jefferson said.
Jefferson, a 6-foot-7 swingman, affords the Spurs a scoring option at small forward the likes of which they haven't had since Sean Elliott retired. A career 17.7 points-per-game scorer, Jefferson has averaged fewer than 18.5 just once in the past six seasons.
“He was the key to what we needed to do this summer,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “We needed to make a trade for someone who would instantaneously inject more talent and offense. He was the guy.”
It was Jefferson's arrival that announced to the NBA that the Spurs were serious about cashing in on the waning years of the Tim Duncan era. By comparison, McDyess' signing flew under the radar.
It shouldn't have. He is only the Spurs' best big-man complement to Duncan since David Robinson.
A 6-foot-9 center-forward, McDyess, 35, nearly averaged a double-double last season in Detroit — 9.6 points and 9.8 rebounds. In what turned out to be his last game with the Pistons, he had 26 points and 10 rebounds in a playoff loss to Cleveland.
“He is a tough defender, he rebounds, he's really consistent from mid-range,” Popovich said. “He's got a little bit of everything.”
Everything, it seems, but a championship ring.
Together, McDyess and Jefferson hope to accomplish with the Spurs what they could not against them.
Thanks 228.
Another good article, I really want a ring for Dyess
Damn-I'm so excited for this season to start.
Pau Gasol and Kevin Garnett did the same thing, and they got rings.If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
C'mon Tony, don't be cruel to your own guest..
eh it'll motivate dice more haha
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