Reply With Quote
The mistake the Kidd-attracting summer was not using the draft pick anyway. If Kidd was too much of a goon not to let them pick a good young talent and not take slightly less than max money, screw him.
Having Josh Howard is far better than not having Josh Howard. Don't like Josh Howard? Trade Josh Howard for a Josh Howard size basket of equivalent assets. Voila.
Meanwhile we're trying to trade Matt Bonner for a tub full of kitchen grease.
The mistake the Kidd-attracting summer was not using the draft pick anyway. If Kidd was too much of a goon not to let them pick a good young talent and not take slightly less than max money, screw him.
Look, RC & Pop should be given proper credit for finding Tony & Manu as well as plugging in affordable older players as compliments such as Mario Ellie, Kersey, Kevin Willis, Steve Kerr, Robery Horry, etc. That has delivered 4 les and we should have had a 5th in 2006.
That said, they should also be held accoutnable for the many bad decisions that they have made since the summer of 2003. Had we drafted Josh Howard we may well have won a le in 2006, and had we added Scola last summer we may have been playing in the 2008 Championship round. Plus we would not have traded for Thomas and still have that #1 pick in 2009. Having Howard and Scola may have made us competive for the rest of Tim's career.
This team is dangerously thin on talent with limited options to reload. We have effectively lost our 2007 #1 pick, traded our 2009 #1 pick (which could be a mid-level paick) and no assests to trade. Two of our big three are ageing and slowing down. We have no young blood to step up. If any of you think we are a player or two away from challenging for the le again, I think you are fooling yourself.
The Buford/Pop team remind me of the Cowboy's Schramm/Brandt team. Schramm and Brandt had a nice run, but then lost their magic and ran the Cowboys in the ground with bad decisions.
It is nice to have success, but you cannot rest on those laurels for the future.
In the meantime the Spurs have put together a supporting cast to win 3 les. Pop demands players who are ready to help win championships and frowns on handholding players and letting them learn on the job. Udrih was yet another great pick who Pop didn't want to babysit. So RC finds someone Pop loves in Jacque Vaughn. Now is it RC's failure because he brought in a very talented scoring point guard who needed some grooming or is it Pop's?
Maybe one of you armchair GMs can explain that.
Having Parker and Ginobili make the Spurs compe ive for the rest of Duncan's career.
Sheesh.
We just got beat by LA 4-1 with Parker, Manu & Tim. Had we also had, Howard and Scola.....might that have been enough to have beaten a good (not great) Laker team?
We are compe ive with Parker, Manu & Tim...but no longer have the overall talent to win a Championship. My point is having Scola and Howard, we would have had the talent to win the Championship.
Eh, the Spurs were a healthy Manu away from playing last night.
It's amazing how some of you keep giving RC a pass. Especially when the cupboard of supposed stockpiled talent, that should now be coming to fruition, is virtually bare. Other than Ian, and the jury is still out on him, this team has not added a significant player via the draft since drafting TP in '01. For a GM that's inexcusable. If this supposed Euro farm system would've yielded some fruit, the supporting cast (or lack thereof) wouldn't necessarily be in its current state.
My problem with RC has been his continued "sellout" strategy of drafting "All Euros, All the time." All along, I've questioned why a more balanced drafting strategy was not utilized. Europe has not been able to single-handedly, corner the market on talented, mature ball players that fit the Spurs style and culture.
All I'm saying is that RC is supposed to be smarter than all of us. He does this for a living. Sure he's allowed to make a mistake here and there. However, you do not buy car insurance when you have an accident. His job as GM, is to prepare and setup this team so that it can remain in championship contention during the era of the Big Three.
The situation is, by no means, disastrous and can certainly be rectified - provided the right moves are made this summer. If Ian turns into a rotation player next season, if they acquire the much-needed swingman either via FA and/or draft, and can identify a backup PG, and maybe a reserve big, they should be fine.
well he might not be the player he is today if pop had him instead of the great overrated aj
but howard never has wanted ball in 4
He drafts Beno and Pop balks at playing him because he needs grooming.
He drafts Scola and Holt balks at paying the Lux Tax to bring him in.
But it's all RC's fault.
Giving Rasho and Malik Rose 90 million dollars was a joke. Kudos for RC for covering up his mistakes by trading 2 first round picks to get rid of Malik's contract and kudos for him adding the Red Rocket to our injured reserved list. RC really hasn't done much lately, whether it be through free agency or the draft. What I don't understand is how we resign bonner so fast for 9 million last year and Obertom], when 3 years before that we are reluctant on giving Stephen Jackson a couple million more. It's pretty sad when our hopes are in the hands of a D-league player.
Well said. On the money, etc...
If we had Scola and Howard this year or, not liking Howard whatever young players we could get for him, we'd be working on championship in a row number 4. Dallas minus Howard doesn't beat us in 2006. Scola and a better bench allows Ginobili to stay fresher for the playoffs. Even limiting it to Game 1, there is no collapse from a 20 point lead and the series is completely different.
The price of being chintzy is you often have to pay for it in the end. There are smart ways to be frugal and truly stupid ways to be frugal. They almost lost Parker because they were trying to squeeze the extra nickels.
It wasn't Holt.
R.C chose an injured reserve player ( Matt Bonner) over the FIBA MVP in Scola.
That one was on Pop and R.C not Holt.
RC is expected to work miracles with low draft picks and little in the way of cap flexibility most offseasons, with an ownership group scared to death of the Lux Tax and a very finicky coach to find players for. He has worked miracles before with many of those low round draft picks. Not to mention that he has to try to attract free agents to play fourth fiddle in one of the NBA's smallest media markets.
Summer 2007:
Bonner $3 million per year (Spurs)
Scola $3 million per year (Rockets)
Now what were you saying about the luxury tax? I guess you are right....we could not have had signed Bonner and Scola. The Spurs made the right decision by signing bench riding Bonner and giving Scola to a Divisional rival.
Uh, it was on Holt. That deal only went down because ownership didn't want the Lux Tax liability.
.....Fixed
That's exactly what has been going on here the last 4-5 years. Championship-level arrogance. And yes, this is exactly what happened to the Cowboys in the mid-80's. They went 10 years without adding a significant player to their core. As a result, they got old FAST.
The deal went down because they chose to give Bonner a 9 million dollar contract instead of Scola. Therefore they didn't want to pay the lux after the signing of The Great Red Rocket.
Therefore R.C and Pop chose Bonner over Scola which was yet another bonehead move.
Both. They need to work together. If they can't then one of them must go.
They didn't want to pay the Lux Tax for Jackie Butler. And of course, this fixation on the Lux Tax was not created by RC.
I guess given those constraints, it's expected that a mediocre GM would come back down to earth. Nevertheless, excuses about how hard it is to be a GM aren't going to reload this roster, and as things stand, this season was the last shot for the team as constructed, with no feasible strategy to rebuild around an aging Big 3 until 2010.
you're talking about the spurs, not the Clippers...right? a team with four rings, right?
I thought so.
Quit whining about how hard it is for RC. We are the spurs. We cannot make good moves because we work for cheap owners and are in a small market and have a finicky coach.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
