The thinking was Ratliff was brought in to play against the Lakers and the other bigger teams in the playoff (which meant every other contender, since the Spurs were the smallest of the bunch). Right about now, people assumed he'd start playing more, be worked into shape, familiarize himself with the system, gain chemistry with the second unit, etc.
How the can someone accomplish what they were "supposed to do" when they weren't given an opportunity to do it? Almost every time he played, he was effective, relative to what he's capable of/expected of.
Duncan is not an idiot? I'm starting to wonder. I know it's not his personality, but he should have taken this situation into his hands a while ago, you know, like every other player either of or even close to his stature in the league has done/would have done, given the situation. Instead, he continues to put on a brave face, carry far too big of a load and watch the clock tick on his remaining effectiveness, all the while nothing is done to help him out, even though the team had the assets and should have had the motivation to do something.
If you enjoy watching this team play basketball, then you flat out don't know nothing about the game. There is nothing to enjoy. This is a miserable team to watch if I ever saw one. I don't need to see a cadre of highlight reel plays nightly, I can enjoy well executed plays and timely defensive rotations; I've seen very little of either this season. Slip a little? It's official: you don't know nothing about the game.
Good for you. Continue to be a blind idiot, with no idea about what's going on. This organization let an opportunity pass today that they shouldn't have and because of it they're one step closer to effectively ending Duncan's window because of their increasing incompetence.
why does a trade not happening = pop/RC didnt try or didnt want one or didnt care?
thats not the case. Every single thing ive read says the spurs were incredibly active all week. making phone calls, talking to other FO's, floating players names that were available. No one bit. If you want to criticize the FO then at least wait til they do something worthy of criticism. No other teams wanting our bad contracts or expiring players is not a failure of our FO.
i didn't understand why Charlotte do this???
Nobody in the organization actually said that Ratliff was going to be saved for the Lakers, but as time wore on it seemed like the only logical explanation for signing such an old, injury prone shot blocker and not giving him any burn at all the first half of the season. At this point, I really don't understand what the they thought they were doing with him other than playing with Holt's monopoly money. If I'd paid for the guy to sit on the bench costing me luxury tax money only to be dropped, I'd be calling a ing meeting this afternoon to find out why.
Well, Spurs fans will have lots of reasons to watch him and Tyrus Thomas together for the rest of the season.
Enjoying watching the games, and not noticing the bad play again are two different things. I spend most games screaming at my TV. I hate Jefferson to the point that if I saw him crossing the street id think twice about stopping before I ran him over.
The difference is, I'm not blaming the FO for the players bad play. If you think Pop is responsible for the chemistry then thats fine. but from where I'm sitting the Spurs FO went out anf got a guy we all liked and it did not work. They were willing to spend a LOT of money to acquire RJ and Dice who should have made us much much better.
Its been painful watching the spurs lack of defense this season. But the fact is we still have a better record then most teams in the league. We are 1 1/2 games back from the divison lead. And with the players we have, there is nowhere to go but UP.
I choose to continue looking at things positively. Whereas you continue to grumble about how Pop is a moron and the spurs suck and have let us all down. woe is me.
fire pop now
I don't care if they tried. I want to see results- a trade. Its their job to get the job done and it did not happen.
This front office never seems to be able to get it done with regards to trades except getting Jefferson last summer who has been a poor fit with Pops style of coaching.
The coaching has been deplorable. They knew Jefferson wasn't a strong spot-up shooter, yet that's his primary function in the offense. The Spurs have stopped posting Jefferson, rarely ever feature him in wing isos, rarely ever utilize him as a finisher in transition and are basically not allowing for him to do what he excels at. He's a terrible rebounder, at best an average defender and a mediocre spot up shooter, yet this is what they want him to do.
Who cares about record? Anyone who knows anything about the game and the league knows this is not a championship caliber team and no division championship is going to prove other (just look at last season).
For sure, based on individual talent, the Spurs have enough. But this isn't a video game. The pieces don't fit, they're too deficient in too many areas and they can no longer rely on out-smarting/executing/defending teams to win, so how exactly do they plan to do so? Their talent is ample, but not enough to overwhelm any good opponent, much less an elite one. Worst of all, their coach went from the best in the league to insane in a two year span.
It is not their job to make a trade happen. It is their job to put the team in the best position to win a championship whether that is now or in the future. If a quality trade was to be had then i'm certain they would have done it. By all accounts they were active on the market. No other team however was willing to give up young talent for our expiring contracts without including either a long term contract with it or demanding a first round draft pick from us. Doing either of these things would hinder our future without really helping the present.
not even a damn draft pick?
Second round pick was what I read.
Houston gets Martin, Dallas gets Butler/Haywood, and Spurs get second round pick. Awesome trade deadline!
More importantly Houston robbed NY of two first round draft picks haha...
Houston gets Martin, Dallas gets Butler/Haywood, and Spurs get second round pick. Awesome trade deadline!
I've been thinking about how I feel about this team and you just did a perfect job of putting into words. Excellent post.
It's funny...all the Spurs brass could talk about this past summer was working hard to try to win one more ring for Duncan before he retires. Now they have a team that has zero potential to do that and they did very little to try to improve the situation.
They need to make up their minds. Either stay committed and continue to go all in or scrap it and start over. Sitting in the middle is pointless
Its their job to make trades. Trades are a great way of improving the team and the spurs fo have a lousy history with regards of upgrading the team with trades.
most teams do
you can not fault them with the rj trade though
Wow. How quickly we forget.
Sorry not very good with computers (don't know how to post a link) but insidehoops.com is saying Spurs traded Theo for a second round pick in 2016.
Can this day get any worse.....
Relax. No one wanted what we had to offer. Heck the Grizzlies wouldn't even take Mason for a second round draft pick. Generally speaking you have to give up quality to get quality. We didn't have enough expiring contracts to offer real relief and we didn't want to give up Blair or Hill or a 1st rounder or some combination of Duncan, Parker, or Ginoboli in any trade scenario that was available.
Some decent players will get bought out, maybe we sign one of them. We now have the roster spots.
This team as cons uted will either put it together and make the playoffs or miss the playoffs and go to the lottery. If we do go to the lottery, we get a chance to get some young talent, add Tiago, free some cap space. Resign Ginoboli for a reasonable price, selectively contract with a free agent, and we'll be a better team.
Heck, next year Jefferson's contract will have real value. We may be able to use it to get a significant player like the Rockets got with McGrady.
Be fair to Holt. He forked over a lot of cash to give the Spurs the potential to be great this year. Kind of hard to dump on the Spurs when he is way more invested than anyone else here and he is sticking with them.
OMG WATCHOUT!!! A lot of ST folks hate when some one speaks with the voice of reason.
Trades frequently do not improve the team, only make it worse for the future. Its the FO's job to improve the team. Clearly it decided that the available trade scenario's did not improve the team enough for this year, or for the future. If you disagree with the FO and think that they should have taken on long term contracts or traded away draft picks then that is fine, albeit foolish.
The Spurs seem to have their heads in the sand. Very curious behavior. Completely disappointing.
Trading Theo gives a glimmer of hope for change but with Pop's latest lineup, it's clear that "a dramatic shakeup" is reshuffling the same bad deck. Frustrating. It's like we're slowly circling the drain.
We had $13 million in expiring contracts before the Ratliff trade and without including the $10 million expiring from Manu. That's more than plenty.
Spurs missed out on a valuable opportunity to enhance and speed up the rebuilding process by not getting any future assets for their expirings.
This team has Celtics of the early 90's written all over it.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
