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Que in Chumpdumper any moment with his ing about alternate realities.......
Last night, while reading the Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons, he raised a question about the Spurs drafting Elliott instead of Glen Rice in the 1989 draft.
While I do not agree with most of the book with his obvious bias towards the Celtics, constant bashing of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and ignoring teammate strength in evaluating individual player's standing in history, it does make me think about what would happen in alternative scenarios.
Simmons argued that if the Spurs got Rice over Elliott, the Spurs would have been better (opened the floor better with his shooting, and taking the scoring load off Robinson), and Robinson would have been seen as a better basketball player in history.
The numbers are right there, with Rice being a dominant scorer with both the Heat and the Hornets. The problem is that he is a ball dominant player, who was destined to be the alpha dog on a crappy team. His team won more than 50 games twice with him scoring 20+ points, losing in the 1st round once and the 2nd round the other time.
However, he was a deadly 3-pt shooter, something Robinson lacked throughout his whole prime, and would add definite value to the system the Spurs played in the early/mid 90s. There is a good chance that the Spurs could have won in 95 with Rice nailing jumpers instead of Elliott bricking crucial FTs.
On the other hand, Elliott was far and away the better defender, and the Spurs might not have won the le in 99 without his contributions. He fits well into the system, and never tried to do too much. He was the better ball handler and passer, and has a better slashing game.
I am obviously biased as Elliott is one of my favourite players of all time, but what do you think?
Que in Chumpdumper any moment with his ing about alternate realities.......
Good Arguement, but I dont think Rice Would have Put over The Hump. The Supporting Cast For Mr Robinson was terrible Back then. I think Sean Elliott had A way better All Around Game then Rice. Rice was Definately the Better Shooter, but elliott Was better Everywhere Else.
Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Lu ck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_ scored 20 ppg in the 95/96 season and Rice had 21.4 with similar shooting % so at least in that year it doesn't look like it would have put the spurs over the top.
every time - ill take better everywhere else, then just a great outside threat.
i read the book. the "guy" is pretty smart and makes good arguments - he doesn't just leave you in one place wondering how you got there. in hindsight, one would obviously pick rice. the arguments: the spurs never won anything until duncan came through. and that '99 team just steam-rolled everyone to the le. you can't tell me it was elliott defense making that big of a difference. however, no one knows how well robinson would have combined with rice in '95. he might have put us over the hump.
there's an old romanian proverb: after the war, many brave warriors appear (verbatim). i think it's easy to say that rice would have fitted better in spurs system, after seeing that elliott did not bring a le before duncan. (which is what simmons did)
cheers @ambchang for reading the book of bb
I haven't seen much of Rice's commercial work, but it seems like he could have given Sean a run for his money as a TC pitchman as Glenn "Refried Beans &" Rice.
I was never a fan of Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Lu ck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_. Can't get that double-dribble shot in the Finals out of my head. iirc, even caused a bit of a ruckus here in Detroit, although that was WAY before my time...
Let me be clear, I was not and am not a fan of D-Rob either. But had they drafted Rice, maybe that would have changed...
Glen Rice was a stud. My enduring memory of him was that gaudy All-Star game performance where he broke every 3-point record in the book.
Spurs would have had more success earlier, but Sean Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Lu ck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_'s kidney thing paved the way for the Spurs getting into the draft lottery and getting Timmay. Even with Sean Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Lu ck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_, it took a guy with Mario Ellie's heart to get that team's mentality right. Were I a SA fan, I would not lament the 90's because of the success in the 00's. But if we are talking the Prime D-Rob era, Rice should have been the guy. I think he would have had Ellie's fire and that 3 point shot that D-Rob never had.
It cracks me up every time it happens
The biggest problem with Elliott his entire career was getting him to step up and be aggressive. Glen Rice would have provided more fire than Sean did, and could possibly have made a difference to a team that lost to a lower seed in the playoffs nearly every year. It's all speculation with some hindsight. As a Spurs fan, I'm in no way unhappy with having Sean on the team. He contributed to that first championship in a number of ways and helped give the Spurs momentum going forward.
I'm just testing something:
Sean Eliot
Now I feel very stupid. I really thought that misspelling Sean's name would produce the "Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_L u ck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_. " to appear
In 95 though Elliott was a better defender and shot 40% from three! Thats an outside threat there if there is any. I think Elliott averaged near 20 a game that year too and made the all star team, so I doubt it puts us over the top in 95 with Rice instead of Sean.
Can't fault Glen on that arrest. He did what a lot of men would've done had they gone over to their estranged wife's house to confront them on their infidelity and found some dude hiding in her closet. Can't speak for everyone, but I would've beat that ass too.
It's the 't'. If you spell it with one it does it. When you tested it you had one 't' but only one 'l'. Try two 'l's' and one 't'.
It's the 't'. If you spell it with one it does it. When you tested it you had one 't' but only one 'l'. Try two 'l's' and one 't'.
Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Lu ck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_
What if having rice would have impacted our chances of getting duncan for some reason like if rice would of had some mvp season in 98? while drob was hurt
Ditto, and then some.
It's revisionist history to be sure (as RC would tell you they wouldn't have been able to acquire Finley and others had they signed Scola).
I'm far from sure that Rice+Robinson would have delivered a le, but I agree the teams would be better/more successful.
Kareen was a ninny.
Iniatially the Spurs brought in Terry mings (22.2 ppg) to do just that. And with Rod Strickland at PG (14.6 ppg) along with Willie Anderson (15.7 ppg) at SG there was enough fire power to get the job done. That team with Sean scored 106.3 ppg while giving up 102.8 ppg. If Rice had been on that team then maybe they score a little more but also give up a little more.
My observation about that season was Strickland's no look pass to Sean in Game 7 against Portland late in the 4th Q. If he looks and then makes the correct pass (or for that matter no pass at all) to Sean breaking baseline towards the rim we win that game and are in the Finals. I tend to believe (since I'm a fan of the Spurs I always will believe in the best possible outcome) that with the Spurs getting to the Finals that year the confidence gained would have made them a much better team with a brighter future than what history actually records. But in sports you never know how that would have played out.
Sean fit much better into Pop's system than Rice would have. With the twin towers and Sean Pop was able to play the defensive scheme - twin towers + perimeter stopper - that lead to 4 rings. Sean is and would have been my choice over Rice.
Agreed - it's all speculation and we really don't know what would really have happened if Rice had been taken over Sean. Maybe things might have turned out very differently. Kinda like the SciFi "Grandfather Paradox". If you igo back in time and inadvertantly kill you grandfather before he either helps conceive your Mom/Dad do you exist? Maybe with the drafting of Rice things change and Drob nevers (or has it earlier) has that injury leading to TD's lottery pick. We'll never know but I'm happy to have had Sean on this team. I doubt if Rice could have contributed to the team in the manner in which Sean much less to the community and the Spurs organization like Sean has.
He fires the three. OHHH ELLIOTT!
I'm not a Rice fan at all, and don't think he would have worked well in San Antonio. We all saw how awful he was when he didn't have every play ran for him in LA. Rice was worthless as a supporting player and his defense was awful. He always seemed to get benched at crucial parts of games so LA could play Rick Fox and have someone who gave a crap on the defensive end. Plus, Rice was a drama queen. I remember the constant talk about how he was going to Miami during the ing Finals. How chicken is that? I'll never forget the LA reporter (I can't remember which one) who went and interviewed Rice in the locker room after they beat Indy, and asked his son (who he was holding on his shoulder) where he wanted daddy to play next year (Rice was a FA). The kid blurted out Miami!
The Spurs' big screwups in the 90s weren't not drafting Rice. They were
1) Letting Strickland walk for absolutely nothing. Him breaking his hand in the barfight and throwing that horrible no-look pass in game 7 in Portland pissed everyone off, but it was inexcusable to lose a player that talented and replace him with ing Vinny Del Negro. Blame the curse of cheap-ass McCombs for Robinson not having any team success until Duncan.
2) Not trading for Barkley because the owner was too cheap to pay him.
3) Trading Frank Brickowski for loser Paul Pressey. Brick was an awesome big off the bench who the team badly missed.
At least Red never followed through on the cost-cutting Robinson for Ewing deal though.
Why is this even a question? Glen Rice was so much better than Sean Elliott it's ridiculous.
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