Daily Dime - Spurs win over Boston a tidbit?

[MarHill]

All true Marhill, but as we all know, sex sells. Spurs go about their business but they ain't sexy.

Spurs want a story, Duncan should have clotheslined KG. Or Tony Parker should have released his new rap album. Guaranteed story right there.

Or Pop should have sat out the Big 3 again to defy NBA scheduling on Sundays.

Instead, the Spurs just went out and beat a team they were supposed to beat.

The two best teams come from the West right now, and it scares the media. No story.



I said this before the game as well.

Allanon,

You're right!

I'm just voicing the frustrations of a lot of people here in San Antonio.

I have a healthy respect for the Lakers and the Celtics and they have been the signature franchises in the NBA all these years and deserved the pub they get.

However, this team here in South Texas has found a way to be excellent (yes..it help tremendously that they drafted TD!) for the last ten years.

And if the American Culture is about winning...this team has done that multiple times. Isn't it a fluke anymore and they should be covered as such!

The NFL gets it and the Patriots got the pub they deserved and it seems the NBA has missed that.

You make some good points...though!!

[Harry Callahan]

This would have happened if he would have been drafted by Boston...and you would have never heard "Tim Duncan" and "boring" in the same sentence.

True,
Larry Bird was the most boring guy in the world and an A-Hole to boot.

Tim would have been mentioned in the same sentence with Bill Russell for the last twelve years and deservedly so.

Instead, ABC/espn is marking time until Duncan hangs 'em up. It's sad.

[Harry Callahan]

Unfortunately, you are right!

But..the funny part about all of this is that Tony and Manu are very entertaining players.

Even, if I wasn't a Spurs fan...I would enjoy watching them play basketball.

Correct,

I think you could have called the late 90s Spurs team somewhat boring because they just pounded the ball inside to Duncan and Robinson and would have lengthy scoring droughts.

The new version of the Spurs the last 6 or 7 years have a lot more explosiveness and open court play.

Duncan being the centerpiece makes the uninformed think they don't play exciting BBall.

[ambchang]

Although this year is looking to be an exception due to the youth injection, the Spurs of the last 10 years play a boring (but effective) brand of basketball. Very defensive, slow-paced games with lots of fouls and flopping and O/U's of 175 points. For a casual fan that's hard to watch--whether you've been trained to dislike it or not. The 80's were the an hesis of this and the defensive, bogged-down trend started with Daly's Pistons and Riley's Knicks.

I compared the Spurs and the Lakers for the 07-08, 06-07, 04-05, and 02-03 seasons. The reason I chose the Lakers is because they are supposedly the sexy team and the whole basketball world revolves around the lakers, and the reason I chose those years is because those were the 3 most recent Spurs championship years + last year.

While it is true that the Spurs scored less than the Lakers in all 4 seasons, they foul less in all 4 seasons, shot fewer FTs in 3 out of the 4, made more FGs in 1, had a better FG% in 3 out of the 4 seasons (last year being the exception), and has a lower FT to FG ratio half the time.

In other words, the Spurs is slower paced than the Lakers, but the foul less, and make shots at a higher rate. I can't do the flopping part, as there are no official statistics, but with the likes of Fisher, Sasha and Gasol, I would be shocked if the Lakers are not one of the teams that is at the top of the flop list every year.

[Extra Stout]

If the exact roster of the Pittsburgh Steelers instead made up the Seattle Seahawks, and it was that franchise that had won two Super Bowls in the past four years, would it have anywhere near the following that the Steelers do? I doubt it.

The NFL is more team-oriented, sure, but it too has hierarchies of teams, a lot more than it used to. Teams like Pittsburgh and Green Bay get grandfathered in because they developed national followings before the generations that decided only the big cities matter came to dominate the culture. Subsequent generations just jump on the existing bandwagon. The Carolina Panthers could win four consecutive Super Bowls and still nobody would care about them.

[TampaDude]

Talk about flying under the radar...ESPN didn't even want to mention the Spurs by name yesterday. After the Lakers-Cavs game, SportsCenter talked about Kobe vs. LeBron and then how the Celtics lost to "a Western Conference team"...

[mytespurs]

I thought it was funny that with about 2:48 left in the 4th, Tirico said "2 minutes 48 seconds until Kobe vs. LeBron!" completely ignoring the highly compe ive and entertaining game in front of him.

It's a joke, but who cares.

Yes it is because my impression was that the Spurs-celtics was the more entertaining and exciting of the two games.

I live in LA so naturally the coverage is laker saturated; so I get the paper and look up highlights/scores column from the day's action....I see no mention of the Spurs/Celtics game.....I couldn't believe they didn't cover that game (conspiracy theory alert!) until I realized it was at the top of the column-game of the day.

[duncan228]

I live in LA so naturally the coverage is laker saturated; so I get the paper and look up highlights/scores column from the day's action....I see no mention of the Spurs/Celtics game.....I couldn't believe they didn't cover that game (conspiracy theory alert!) until I realized it was at the top of the column-game of the day.

Same here, the OC Register. Game of the day and a great pic too.

[Spurminator]

Interestingly enough, one of the few times where the media focuses on teams more than individuals is when rosters are selected for the All Star Game. "The Cavs should have more than one All Star," "The Pistons should have four All Stars because they're a true 'team,'" etc.

It's the one time of the year where great individuals should be highlighted. Instead, we hear about how Mo Williams should be an All Star because he's on the best team in the East. It's an opportunity to legitimately hype individual greatness and increase the number of "stars" the NBA can market for ratings, jersey sales, etc, but it's become another example of the tendency towards making the NBA a 30 team league with only three or four teams anyone knows anything about.

[KaiRMD1]

I don't care anymore if the Spurs get no highlights, as long as we win and nobody notices then that's all I can ask for. You know how dangerous that makes the Spurs?

[AFBlue]

Saw that this morning and was dumbfounded. Yes, I know there were two buzzer-beaters and the Lebron/Kobe showdown, but c'mon! It was a very entertaining game with lead changes and big shots...

I mean I have gotten used to the lack of coverage over the years, but I have to say I was definitely surprised by their omission.

[Cry Havoc]

All true Marhill, but as we all know, sex sells. Spurs go about their business but they ain't sexy.

Spurs want a story, Duncan should have clotheslined KG. Or Tony Parker should have released his new rap album. Guaranteed story right there.

Or Pop should have sat out the Big 3 again to defy NBA scheduling on Sundays.

Instead, the Spurs just went out and beat a team they were supposed to beat.

The two best teams come from the West right now, and it scares the media. No story.



I said this before the game as well.

This just isn't about Spurs fans feeling disenfranchised by the lack of coverage they get. I'm genuinely concerned about the NBA, because if they continue down this road, they are either going to have to fix Finals games, or face the prospect of losing money every single time you have a Finals without the Celtics, Lakers, or Bulls (or Knicks, but pffft). This could lead to a lot of "questionable" decisions by the NBA brass to make sure 1 or 2 of the three power markets are always in play.

The NBA could be vastly improving it's position on football if it just marketed itself right. A lot of us not only love the Spurs, but we love basketball in general and want to see the sport thrive, instead of turn even more towards the individual and what that one person can accomplish regardless of the teamplay involved. The more coverage "LeBron vs. Kobe" over "team vs. team (or defending champ vs. former champ!) gets, the farther away from a pure, compe ive game of basketball we are.

It's pathetic.

[igorotme]

This whole weekend has been ridiculously lame. The NBA media coverage from EVERYBODY is so saturated with Laker sucking I don't see how fans don't become tired of it and root against the Lakers.

You would think eventually they'd have to talk about something else, but it is Lakers 24/7.

That lame circus in PHX gets more run.

..they are selfish media! anyway we love the spurs basketball here in asia!
Spurs endures...

[Obstructed_View]

My favorite thing is the interview with George Karl. Here are the three topics they printed him commenting on:

On the Lakers' trade of Vladimir Radmanovic to Charlotte for Adam Morrison and Shannon Brown:

On the Lakers after Andrew Bynum's injury and the Radmanovic trade:

On competing with the Lakers, who eliminated Denver in a first-round sweep last April:

[wijayas]

Sure. My point is that outlets like ESPN have chosen to anoint players like those two, almost to the exception of others. I wonder sometimes where the league would be if ESPN had chosen to give the same sort of devoted, loving, "your my boy" coverage to Tim Duncan 10 years ago -- I suspect, frankly, that people would be tuning in to watch the Spurs because Tim Duncan would be a mega-star.

Again, my point isn't to dispute what you've said in general. It's to dispute this notion that "it's what the people want" in the sense that I think it's what the people have been made to want.

If this is the NFL, the Spurs are a must-watch glory team and Duncan is a mega-star. In the NBA, guys who have substantially fewer actual accomplishments than a guy like Duncan are mega-stars, teams that haven't done as much as Duncan's Spurs are must-watch glory teams. That's no coincidence -- it's directed coverage.

Very well said.

The NBA a.k.a. Stern's office annoints the "King" where "We Are All Witness" for marketing purposes. Therefore, the NBA must try very hard to make sure the "King" gets his ring(s) prompting Phil to play mind games with LeBron on his getting all the calls when he plays in the Q.

The NBA decides to promote Kobe and LeBron rivalry more so than Lakers vs. Celtics. The NBA will be very disappointed when the Spurs came out from the West because it shows their "directed coverage" is flawed. And then they complain of the low Ratings! (It is akin to a student who never studies and blame the report card when he gets an F. That's our NBA!)

[ducks]

Exactly. And in that time, they kept cutting to Lebron/Kobe walking out of tunnels, lacing up shoes, etc.

avery johnson told people it would be the role players that decided the game
guess what
it was

[wisnub]

SPurs need new marketing strategy...Im ing tired to see things went this way every single time. Its time to change at ude and highlights things with dunks...anyway, its either spurs marketing sucks or spurs really dont care about highlights. I know Pop didnt care,but how about the fans?

[DieMrBond]

For a clue on how much influence this damn Kobe vs LeBron game had - in Australia (Perth), we get no news on the NBA in the regular news, never. Well, almost never.

Exceptions:
Andrew Bogut was drafted.
Kobe made it to the finals.
Boston won the finals.
Kobe played LeBron in a double header.

Guess who they get their footage from?

[wisnub]

For a clue on how much influence this damn Kobe vs LeBron game had - in Australia (Perth), we get no news on the NBA in the regular news, never. Well, almost never.

Exceptions:
Andrew Bogut was drafted.
Kobe made it to the finals.
Boston won the finals.
Kobe played LeBron in a double header.

Guess who they get their footage from?

i went to Perth to study in Murdoch Uni and used to be a Lakers fan. I know what u talking about. Is Perth Wildcats still exist? I still remember going to one of the games against Sidney, theyre looking good

[G-Nob]

The point is to fly under the radar, homes. After 10 years, it has to be spelled out for you?