Why do many assume that Pop will over-play Bonner?

[underdawg]

Dice started and played more minutes than bonner all playoffs. No way Bonner should get more minutes than Blair this year. That's for sure.

Spurs defense has gotten considerably worse all around. Not having the perimeter defense we used to have also hurts. Plus, Blairs defense is nothing to rave about and him getting minutes over Bonner won't improve are defense in the paint... Our rebounding sure. Fact is Duncan declining in defense and our lack of perimeter defense are the main reasons are defense has suffered.

do you think part of why our perimeter defense has suffered is because we're trying to help in the paint too much?

Blair lacks height (and that often hurts us,) but he does provide decent post up defense and like you said rebounding is a huge plus for him over Bonner.

McDyess might have started, but if you look at his time in Detroit - he had more minutes per game. Maybe he needed the rest, but there were many times that he sat and bonner gave up points.

[DesignatedT]

do you think part of why our perimeter defense has suffered is because we're trying to help in the paint too much?

Blair lacks height (and that often hurts us,) but he does provide decent post up defense and like you said rebounding is a huge plus for him over Bonner.

McDyess might have started, but if you look at his time in Detroit - he had more minutes per game. Maybe he needed the rest, but there were many times that he sat and bonner gave up points.

I think the main reason perimeter defense has hurt is just age. Manu is not the defense he used to be.. Obviously Bowen is one of the greatest of all time. Hill is vastly overrated on defense around here but he is a decent defender but then undersized. I think Splitter can help this problem by having another shot blocker other than Duncan but Manu and TD slowing way down and Bowen not being here anymore simply brought our defense down to average.

I'm fine with Blairs defense. If Boston can win with Big Baby than we can do it with Blair.

[will_spurs]

I trust Pop to do what's best more than some dumb forum poster.

Good for you, but unfortunately Pop already proved that he's not always doing "what's best", like lpaying Bonner AT ALL during the playoffs. You could have a 7-foot cardboard outline and it would be the same (well, the cardboard would have to be decorated with diamonds to cost $4 million per year).

If Bonner is indeed a 5th big he would be playing fewer than 10 minutes per game this season... and something tells me the Spurs are not paying anybody that kind of money for 10mpg. So you can fully expect to see Bonner at least 20mpg during the regular season, at the expense of Splitter (who will be collecting fouls, and we know that after 2 fouls a player's career is basically over, at least that's what Pop seems to be thinking) and Blair (because he's too good to get minutes). And then when comes playoff time you will still see Bonner there because the kids (Splitter, Blair) are "not ready".

The only thing that would be a nice surprise would be to see the Spurs going big, putting e.g. Duncan AND Bonner AND Blair on the court at the same time. But I don't think that's going to happen.

[diego]

all i know is that we went through all season thinking dyess was being saved for the playoffs, and he played a whopping 3.5 extra minutes. bonner played about the same as in the RS- too much.

[DesignatedT]

all i know is that we went through all season thinking dyess was being saved for the playoffs, and he played a whopping 3.5 extra minutes. bonner played about the same as in the RS- too much.

Yeah Dyess should have played more. Phoenix forced us to go small though. The Dallas series wasn't badly distributed. Duncan with 37/gm, Dice with 26/gm, Bonner with 16/gm, Blair with 9/gm. I would have liked to see Blair get more PT but fully except that this upcoming season. Plus those numbers are kind of hard to look at without thinking about game 5 of the series. Duncan and Dice hardly played.

[The Truth #6]

Bonner's minutes were probably down because he was injured for a while. If they want to save Dice from the first half of the season when he's committed to saving himself/not trying as hard, then Bonner has a great chance to play more. Hopefully Blair and Splitter earn more minutes and are rewarded. Then again, Bonner is great in meaningless games so Pop has to be wise in when to play Bonner. Some games it's a great idea to play Bonner. Against better teams, not so much.

[Obstructed_View]

Unless I'm mistaken, Bonner was ahead of Blair in the rotation. If Bonner hadn't gotten hurt he'd have probably logged more minutes than Blair.

I don't assume Pop will overuse him, but I fear he will. Why, you ask? Theo Ratliff, Ian Mahinmi, Michael Finley, Keith Bogans.

[SCdac]

We won like 10 games (1/5 of our wins) with Matt Bonner on the injured list last season, and a few games where Bonner played less than 6 minutes. When we beat the Suns back in february, Bonner played a grand total of 7 seconds (while Blair put up 14/7 in 19 minutes). I really don't see what the Spurs staff sees in him, as anything more than a Ryan Anderson kind of player (scrub, with useful range). In the months leading up to the playoffs he was shooting around 37% from three point land in roughly 20 mpg, and that didn't improve under the pressure of playoff basketball... Not worth it IMO... He's going to be stealing minutes from either Blair, Splitter, or McDyess, no doubt in my mind. Anybody who's watched Pop in the last 2 years knows he's bound to be over played, relative to his skill and impact on the game.

[LongtimeSpursFan]

Bonner can only get the same minutes as last year:

a) if we see a major injury (screwed anyways)
b) if he plays more than dyess and/or blair - 2 guys who got more PT than bonner during their first year with the team
c) if splitter plays 0 mpg next year

if you have been led to believe that pop will give him similar minutes, which of those items do you believe is going to happen?

barring the injury factor, i think if bonner gets too much PT this year, it will be in the form of 8-12 mpg. i'll be mildly shocked if he gets 17 mpg on a healthy roster.

These type of posts make too much sense for most posters on this board. If Bonner even gets on the court this forum will be overwhelmed by individuals claiming how we lost the game due to the Red Rocket.

If Pop trusts Bonner than I trust Bonner.

[ElNono]

Bonner can only get the same minutes as last year:

a) if we see a major injury (screwed anyways)
b) if he plays more than dyess and/or blair - 2 guys who got more PT than bonner during their first year with the team
c) if splitter plays 0 mpg next year

if you have been led to believe that pop will give him similar minutes, which of those items do you believe is going to happen?

barring the injury factor, i think if bonner gets too much PT this year, it will be in the form of 8-12 mpg. i'll be mildly shocked if he gets 17 mpg on a healthy roster.

Let's dispel some of the inaccuracies first...

a) Bonner indeed played as many mpg as Blair during the regular season, even though he was injured for a stretch there, and was certainly handed more minutes than Blair during the playoffs.

b) We played almost 10 mpg without Bonner, Dice or Blair, both on the regular season and the playoffs (small ball)

c) Splitter can take those 10 minutes from small ball and Bonner can certainly play the same amount of minutes as last season.

I actually expect Duncan and Dice minutes to be reduced a bit more this season, seeing we need those legs fresher for the postseason. That should open up a bit more time for Splitter.

I also do think Pop is not going to go away from small ball entirely, so I do expect Bonner and Blair minutes to take a small hit to accommodate for that.
I just don't see his minutes halved from 20 to 8-10... but we'll see.

[baseline bum]

If Pop trusts Bonner than I trust Bonner.

Worked great with Finley and Udoka.

[DesignatedT]

Worked great with Finley and Udoka.

Finley played a solid 3 seasons for us and helped win a ring in 07. He was one of the best players on the court for us in the 06 playoffs and while he started to slow down in 08 he was not even close to being the reason we lost that year. The hate for him is beyond re ed. Udoka just sucked ass and everyone knew this.

[ElNono]

When you think about it, the hate is not for the players, but the fact that they were out there taking somebody else's minutes. In Finley's case, the silliness over his two year extension was well do ented at the time, when he was coming out of a pretty weak season ('08), and he indeed ended up taking minutes from rookie Hill in the playoffs the year after.

[ElNono]

Worked great with Finley and Udoka.

Don't forget the Centerpiece and Mason the backup PG...

That said, perceived mistakes and all, there's no other coach I would rather have coaching this team...

[DesignatedT]

When you think about it, the hate is not for the players, but the fact that they were out there taking somebody else's minutes. In Finley's case, the silliness over his two year extension was well do ented at the time, when he was coming out of a pretty weak season ('08), and he indeed ended up taking minutes from rookie Hill in the playoffs the year after.

Totally agree although I don't feel that he was that bad of a player then. Of course I would have liked some of his minutes distributed elsewhere but he was always a solid player here. He even shot a career high in 3 pt % shooting 131-319 that season. People tend to spread blame on guys like Finley when hes actually performing well enough for us. Every year we haven't won the championship it was because our big 3 weren't good enough (or healthy). Hating on Finley is straight re ed to me. just my opinion and you definitely don't compare Bonner to Finley. Finley was the opposite of Bonner when it came to playoffs and big shots.

[ElNono]

Totally agree although I don't feel that he was that bad of a player then. Of course I would have liked some of his minutes distributed elsewhere but he was always a solid player here. He even shot a career high in 3 pt % shooting 131-319 that season. People tend to spread blame on guys like Finley when hes actually performing well enough for us. Every year we haven't won the championship it was because our big 3 weren't good enough (or healthy). Hating on Finley is straight re ed to me. just my opinion.

The problem is that you normally end up with the last image. In that 2008 series against the Lakers, their young second unit with Farmar, Sasha, Radmanovic and Turiaf were running circles around ours composed of guys like Finley, Horry, Barry and Oberto. To top it all off, Kobe was in-check until Udoka let him catch fire, and that's all she wrote. If you look at that Spurs roster, the only other guys that actually got any burn in the playoffs that season were Bonner, Vaughn, and Damon Stoudamire. We were already getting too long in the tooth to be handing out two season contracts to people quite over the hill.

[DesignatedT]

The problem is that you normally end up with the last image. In that 2008 series against the Lakers, their young second unit with Farmar, Sasha, Radmanovic and Turiaf were running circles around ours composed of guys like Finley, Horry, Barry and Oberto. To top it all off, Kobe was in-check until Udoka let him catch fire, and that's all she wrote. If you look at that Spurs roster, the only other guys that actually got any burn in the playoffs that season were Bonner, Vaughn, and Damon Stoudamire. We were already getting too long in the tooth to be handing out two season contracts to people quite over the hill.

Well we did let guys like Horry and Barry walk after that season and while I understand your point I don't understand how bringing back Finley was such a bad move when he was so familiar and the best 3 pt shooter we had. If the Spurs and Holt were willing to go over the cap back in 08 and 09 like they are now than bringing Finley back wouldn't have been a big deal. He still would have been a great player to have coming off the bench and all that. Obviously he ended up starting that year and playing more minutes than I would have liked but when your committed to staying under the cap they're not many other options at that point.

[ElNono]

Well we did let guys like Horry and Barry walk after that season and while I understand your point I don't understand how bringing back Finley was such a bad move when he was so familiar and the best 3 pt shooter we had. If the Spurs and Holt were willing to go over the cap back in 08 and 09 like they are now than bringing Finley back wouldn't have been a big deal. He still would have been a great player to have coming off the bench and all that. Obviously he ended up starting that year and playing more minutes than I would have liked but when your committed to staying under the cap they're not many other options at that point.

I think the sour part of that deal was not having the second season as a team option. Especially after he has shown some decline, and the Spurs picking up Hill in the draft that year. Obviously, the Spurs didn't know then how Hill was going to pan out, but it would have made more sense to have a way out. Ultimately it cost the Spurs in development time for Hill and the fact that they just had to let Finley walk away without getting anything in return.

[DPG21920]

He got paid. He got paid (so it seems) more than a 5th big should. That means they value him and plan to use him.

[DesignatedT]

He got paid. He got paid (so it seems) more than a 5th big should. That means they value him and plan to use him.

Correct me if im wrong but Bonner has been making close to 3.0-3.5 mil/yr since we traded for him in 2006 correct? Well from 06-08 Bonner was rarely used in the regular season and barely saw the time of day in the playoffs.... making him our 5th big still making that kind of money.

[The Truth #6]

Defending Bonner by saying he won't play much? We went through this line of thought with Finley for several years. Of course Bonner will play. They just severely overpaid him. He shouldn't even be on the team.

Finley apologist is now Bonner apologist. That's convenient.

[DesignatedT]

Defending Bonner by saying he won't play much? We went through this line of thought with Finley for several years. Of course Bonner will play. They just severely overpaid him. He shouldn't even be on the team.

Finley apologist is now Bonner apologist. That's convenient.

As I have stated over and over and over again. I wish Bonner would have left.

Finley was a great player for us. He doesn't deserve to be in the same sentence as Bonner.

[objective]

.

However, last year Bonner played only the 4th most MPG of big men. Dyess and Blair both got more in their first year in the system, and now the team has added splitter.

Minutes played in the playoffs :

Bonner : 173

Blair : 91

Sorry, Blair didn't get more last year.

[will_spurs]

Unless I'm mistaken, Bonner was ahead of Blair in the rotation.

He was not, the OP claims he was because Blair averaged 18.2mpg during the regular season and Bonner only 17.9mpg.

[Obstructed_View]

He was not, the OP claims he was because Blair averaged 18.2mpg during the regular season and Bonner only 17.9mpg.

Actually, I believe the OP claimed the opposite for the reasons you state. If nothing else I'm pretty confident stating that Bonner was ahead of Blair in the rotation far too often for most of us.