time to rebuild as quickly as possible. hopefully by the time the spurs are done, they can squeeze out one final championship for duncan's final year. jefferson's contract will be expiring next year so it will be a huge asset. get some experience for hill and blair, bring splitter over, lowball ginobili to a $5-6 million contract, keep parker healthy, use jefferson's expiring or mcdyess's partially guaranteed contract to get a star level player, bring in a younger coach, and win again in 2 years.
tanking next season is a good idea as well. might be too obvious though.
not much to tank for guys, at least as far as still contending in the future with Duncan.
The work stoppage coming in 2011 is going to be brutal and could cost an entire season. Even if the resulting deal is similar with regards to being able to sign new players, how good do you expect Duncan to look 24 months from now?
Unless something big and ridiculous happens before the deadline . . . the era is over. It's just time for the long goodbye.
A good point. Because even a lockout will not stop the aging process of these players. In fact, it will only compound matters.
There lies the first blow in the death of the Spurs
Very interesting Tim,..
However, in regards to the owner abandoning the price tag isn't the problem. The core of this spurs team is in fact still NBA championship capable. The facts of the matter is he needs to look at Popovich and Buford as those out of date and or touch.
Noway should they'd missed the look on how vital a post big to play off / with Duncan is while spending all that money. To include having lost all perspective on how much help a role playing shooter would bolster this team.
They had Drew Gooden in the fold and Popovich ran him to Dallas. Now Duncan plays the post all but alone and the rest of the team shows the effects. Then they { Pop and Buford } went out and acquired players that would require an entirely different manner of attack than the core is suited for,..mistakes that cost that much requires somebody getting fired.
I mean there's no question that Tim Duncan is the rock, anchor, pillar, heart, soul and best player on this team. Yet in assembling this roster they did nothing to show they understood that.
Believe it or not it was quiet easily fixable before picking up the options on a couple players and not acquiring available free agent talent to turn this thing around. Now in this economy nobody's going to jump at picking up the contracts of Jefferson, McDyess, Finley, Mason nor any groundswell to take Bonner, Hairston, Bogans nor Mahinmi either,..big problem.
It's clear that teams acquire and keep players that their coach can mesh with. But in the manner of how stringent that coach can be it limits the teams chances of success. With free agency, the money crunch and getting the best out of an aging core the coach has to think outside of his temperamental comfort zone box,..Pop can't do it and the needed players have looked the other way.
Thus as I see it from whats been shown, Is the high stakes NBA game has passed Popovich and Buford by via philosophical differences. Of which their reliance upon Duncan and Pop's inability to attract / keep free agents is costing too much. As GM had those players and price tags been mention on my watch they'd have gotten nixed because they
spurs shouldn't do anything drastic before the trade deadline like take back a long contract of a decent player. the last thing they want to do is panic and pull a pistons. that team will be stuck in mediocrity for some time. i doubt small fixes will turn this team into a championship team because the problem lies within the big 3. they just aren't big anymore. now that the spurs know they can't win, they should be patient and hopefully speed up the rebuilding process by waiting for the right opportunity to come along. rather than destroying the franchise through a panic move (suns), they should be patient like the rockets.
It's 100% true, and people that had a clue could see it at the time.
There lies the first blow in the death of the Spurs
You're a team that doesn't spend outrageous amounts of money, you're not a big time market, and there aren't other teams willing to collude with you and gift you all-star players.
You can't afford to pass up youthful legit NBA rotation players and possible starters on relatively cheap contracts just out of spite or foolishness.
You . . . just . . . can't. And not have it haunt you.
There was a legit PF right there in their laps. They had his rights. They had a key piece to their own future in their hands. And they blew it.
It isn't the last blow that shatters a dynasty, but all the blows that came before it.
It isn't the last blow that shatters a dynasty, but all the blows that came before it.
ouch.....that hurts
Should have this quote framed up at Pop's office
Would RJ, Manu, Splitter rights, and a 1st rd. pick be enough
to get Iggy/ Dalembert?
They then trade their expirings for a Salmons/Thomas or
Sessions/ Gomes type trade?
The good news for Spurs there's alot of teams looking to
make moves.
Add in the fact that Lamar Odom usually struggles against him.
There lies the first blow
That's a brutally honest truth.
I'll make the coffee and get the tissue boxes and we can all snuggle and cry about it on the couch together.
Haha, don't say that man.... it's bad enough already.
It's true, unfortunately.
Lamar's my favorite player but one of the main reasons why the Rockets took the Lakers 7 games last year was due to Odom losing the Scola matchup.
To me, Spurs need to fix 3 things:
- The mental aspect. A lot of Spurs trouble are related to a lack of mental strength. Spurs were a strong and resilient team in the past and they need to go back at that state of mind. It's easy to say than this team need a psychological turning point. It could be a player only meeting, Holt talking to them or a crazy game but something has to happen.
- Pop needs to coach better. For the moment, he has refused to make choices when choices had to been made or he has made poor ones. He needs to figure it out how to use the team.
- A trade need to be done. It doesn't really need to be a big one if it's a smart one but Spurs don't have the roster to compete with other true contender.
If these 3 things are done, Spurs will be for real. If one isn't, Spurs aren't a contender.
What a drama queen
And don't think you're getting rid of me just because the Spurs suck
Now to the subject at hand. I agree with pretty much everything and props for spelling out what most of us were thinking more and more as this season progressed.
The baffling thing in all of this to me is Pop. I have always had the highest respect for his methods and above all his intellect. Has he gone senile or has he realized the real situation way before us and this is his last - desperate - attempt at shaking things up? I know I'm grasping at straws, but how has CIA Pop - one of the smartest coaches of all times - gone to AARP Pop so quickly?
Oh, and +1
Ouch!...
It isn't the last blow that shatters a dynasty, but all the blows that came before it.
Sadly... I'm officially signing off on trading Ginobili and/or Parker.
This has probably been true for several years now. There are reasons we thought this was more of Parkers team last year. A team with Duncan at this level is still capable of good things - including a championship team.
-You can't fault Tim Duncan's effort. But the reality is that he's no longer in a tier by himself. He used to easily be the best bigman in the game. Now he's in the same tier as players like Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol and Dirk Nowitzki. It is painful to admit it ... but it's sadly the truth. Wear and tear has allowed the pack to catch up to him.
Yup. This is probably the area the Spurs have felt the biggest decline and this is what they will find the biggest to overcome. The big 3 is no more. Its the big two.-Manu Ginobili's normal gait has never returned since his surgery following the Olympics. His run is more like a fast waddle. He's lost at least one step, is a streak shooter, struggles to defend in one-on-one situations and just isn't as dangerous as he was prior to March of 2008. He's gone from a damn good NBA player to a damn good bench player.
I think this is true as well, but I have hope that he actually will have something come playoff time. I think the compe ive level rises in the playoff in most players and I think that would be good for Tony. On the flip side one has to wonder why he hasn't been able to muster that strength yet this season, of course.-Tony Parker ruined himself by overworking with the French national team. Not only is he beat up physically, he doesn't have it mentally. Evidence of that is seen when he explodes for one half and then disappears for another half -- as he's done way too often this season. He used to have great focus and would stay in attack mode for weeks at a time. Now we're lucky if we see him in attack mode for an entire quarter. He plays like he's physically, mentally and emotionally drained.
I don't get this dude. I know more running will help him offensively, but I just don't understand how George Hill is now better than Richard Jefferson.-It's not gonna happen. Richard Jefferson won't fit on this team. It's not so much his skillset is incompatible, it's more to do with his fragile psyche. You really don't know how a player will fit on a championship level team until he's thrown into the fire. He's been thrown into the fire -- and has melted. He's an inconsistent offensive threat who does absolutely nothing positive when his shot isn't going in. And as the pressure mounts on him to perform, he's just going to become more and more inconsistent. I can't imagine a happy ending with Jefferson in San Antonio.
I'm not too sure this is true. He's played much better as of late and I'm not ready to sell him so short based on tonight. Its also hard to get a read on him when Pop goes to midget ball instead of actually sticking with him when he has a bad night. If Pop treated his bigs the way he treats Finley we might see them play out of of their funks.-When the Spurs signed Antonio McDyess, they hoped old age wouldn't catch up to him right away. Unfortunately, it did. He's already a s of what he was last season. He's getting better but he just isn't the defensive presence he used to be. He's no longer a championship quality player as a starter.
Pop set him up to fail tonight by making him the biggest guy on the court. Just hung him out to dry.-God bless DeJuan Blair but when size is your weakness and the team you have to go through has length as their main strength ... that's a bad combination.
I know we're blaming everything up to Global Warming on Pop but I wonder if this isn't his fault too. That being said, with the growth George Hill has made this year I've got nothing but love for him.-George Hill has come up big lately but the bottom line is he's a 6-foot-2 tweener who loses his confidence at the drop of a hat. When he loses his confidence, he turns into an indecisive dribbling machine. There's hope he can remedy that flaw before the end of the season but that type of growth is measured in years, not games. And while he's solid in most other aspects, he's not good enough in any one category to overcome passive play.
Jury still out on this. Played well in the first half then got no minutes. Pretty hard to get in a rhythm while on the bench.-Matt Bonner isn't going to regain his pre-injury level of play this season. He's a rhythm and confidence player who is playing with neither rhythm nor confidence. He might as well go start running the hills in New Hampshire now to get ready for next season.
Yup.-He had his moments but Roger Mason, Jr.'s run as a Spur is over. Pop doesn't like him anymore. He can't play well without quality minutes. The question is just whether or not the Spurs trade him now or let him walk after the season.
Yup-Michael Finley's NBA career should have been over at least two seasons ago. I'll give him credit ... the guy tries hard and is at times the team's most physical player, but he's over the hill, all the way onto the other side and walking in quicksand.
Thats being generous. You know, if I told you in the summer after all the signings that Bogans would be playing this much you would probably know there was a problem. Playing this guy makes no ing sense. Its Jacque Vaugn all over again.-No matter how hard Pop hopes and wishes, Keith Bogans will never be more than a homeless version of an old Bruce Bowen.
I honestly think Pop is done as a coach. its amazing Sloan has lasted as long as he has but coaches never last even as long as Pop and remain effective without some sort of a change in scenery. Since I'm all but certain Pop will never coach another team, I would prefer him moving soley to a front office position and actually bringing in a coach.-Speaking of Pop, he has historically been a very good coach but he nowhere near Phil Jackson's level. If Phil Jackson is Michael Jordan, Pop is Craig Ehlo. Pop is great at coaching players with that innately have a huge amount of self confidence ... but when it comes to coaching players who aren't brimming with self assurance, he's just not very good. Jefferson is simply the latest example of an otherwise quality player who can't handle the pressure of Pop's coaching style and complex system. On top of that, Pop not selecting a rotation has the Spurs stuck in neutral. They can't gain any momentum because no one knows who is playing on a nightly basis. To date, this has by far been Pop's worst coaching job of his career; in fact, he's done more to hurt than help this team.
Paging Jeff Van Gundy.
Maybe, but maybe not. The one good thing about RJ is that even if it fails this year you can almost certainly flip him next year for someone good. We'll see what TP and Tim have in the tank then.-I feel for you, Peter Holt. You gave the Spurs and Spurs fans what they wanted when you opened your wallet to spend millions in an effort to get one last championship during the Tim Duncan Era. Your gesture should have be rewarded. It hasn't. If you order the abandonment of this ship and a return to payroll normalcy, it'd be a sad day ... but I'd understand.
Scola was just traded at a time when Spurs were humped with quality players and a rookie wasn't expected to have the playing time despite his superb performances in FIBA games, while the Rockets at that time were struggling with an exigent need for a decent PF. Spurs just underrated this Argentinian international basketballer and Scola was only considered an equivalent piece of trash as Jakie Butler in that trade, which however turned out to be a horrible mistake soon later.
There lies the first blow in the death of the Spurs
BTW... Dennis Lindsey??? Has this guy had one single good move since he's been GM?
I mean Spurs executed the scola trade on Scola's behalf more than on the purport of ridding a garbage contract, and Scola himself wasn't keen to put on the silver/black suit considering the Spurs rotation which was already too crowded at the position he plays. Pop should have viewed more videos of Scola games or at the very least enquired Manu about his argentinian teammates before making the final decision of trading him, but he didn't.
In the past years at this time of the season everyone was talking about SPAM.
Well, it's been a great ride.
Even in the midst of greatness there's been some extremely bitter moments, turning points if you will. That's life I reckon. I guess as a fan you're constantly vacillating between being grateful and wanting more.
As for the future, I hope the NBA is more like the NFL. Parity, screw these dynasties.
What a drama queen
It seemed as if the boat just tipped over after this game. This franchise may never be the same ever again.
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