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I'm not on it, just your sorry takes. Surprised you haven't suggested we trade Jefferson for LeBron yet.
I'm not on it, just your sorry takes. Surprised you haven't suggested we trade Jefferson for LeBron yet.
That was my point, but should have worded it as , Spurs should be 2 players deep at every position, specifically the SF spot.I'd like the Spurs to have a true starter at the SF spot.
Of course, not having a true back up at the SF didn't help either, Pop was either forced to play RJ extended minutes at SF or go small with either Hill/Neal as a 3rd guard on the court.
I kind of wished Pop would have started Green during the 2nd half of game 6 instead of Hill. And props to Green for coming in cold late in the game and swishing a 3 pointer.
Rebuild? SA has only one avenue to rebuild with a star and that's the draft. No star player will sign as a FA in SA. My plan would be trade Bonner for whatever late 2nd round pick you can find. He's worthless in the playoffs and that's what matters. Let Dice retire and let Anderson, Neal, Green, and whatever swing man/big man you can get near the end of the 1st in the draft play huge minutes next year along with Splitter. Scour the earth to find another guard/sf and/or big to groom and bring them over. Put all the young guys in the rotation and lose about 50 games next season. Pray for a lottery hit.
Rinse and Repeat until the either your draft picks and young guys develop into greatness or you finally hit the next superstar. As far as I can tell that's the only way as in the NBA no superstar means no le, period.
To win a championship you either have to have an all-time great playing at or near his peak or a perfectly assembled team that's sum is greater than it's whole - skillsets and personalities that thrive in compliment.
The Spurs will have to be a team of the latter. Neither Tim nor Manu are capable of sustaining their dominance for the duration of a playoff. Tony has never been and never will be the franchise-level player to lead a team to a le as a No. 1. Great player, just a bit too one-dimensional and not dominant enough at that dimension.
As I said prior to this year, the Spurs' best bet lies in their growth potential. It's why I believed both Blair and Anderson needed to start - the former because he had the most upside and because Splitter wasn't healthy. The Spurs need more balance, more depth in speed, strength and athleticism and the only way to find it on this roster -- now and then -- is in their youth.
But besides the obvious, as the Chuckster likes to say, every team needs a jerk. The Spurs need some more fire ... some more jerk in their roster. The team's not only been way too dependent on Ginobili's game but energy in recent years. They need some infectious personalities/games injected into the roster. They need more players making the opponent uncomfortable or irritated during the course of a game and season.
And it wouldn't hurt to build, construct and plan for the postseason by playing or acquiring players with the potential to make you championship-caliber - Matt Bonner need-not-apply.
You have to take what you can get. No team in the western conference is going to do business with the compe ion unless it benefits both sides. Thus, the Spurs will have to gamble or fall victim. Youth and athleticism doesn't grow on trees and free agents aren't exactly jumping at the bit to play for the Spurs. Taking a chance on Oden is a realistic possibility. Even if he's a complete flop, he isn't going to cost an arm and a leg. If it does work out, you have a formidable defensive 1-2-punch. Even if Oden brings nothing to the table offensively, he helps to solidify the defense with rebounds and blocked shots. I for one, am sick of the nonstop layup drills. The Spurs roster has very little mobility thanks to the back breaking contract to RJ. Chandler was coined a risk for Dallas and it worked for the better. Oden is a risk worth taking.
Instead of trading for Oden, what about just playing Splitter more and see what happens first? Nah, that's crazy. Maybe we can get Oden AND Yao? The two crumbling towers. Yeah, that would be awesome.
Here we go again. Same team as this year, same team as last year, same team next year.The season has ended more abruptly then I would expected. However, given the struggles since the All-Star break, this outcome is not totally surprising.
Just read from NBA.com that Popovich said injuries to Duncan and Ginobili disturbed the team's rhythm heading into the playoffs, and that the team would not undergo drastic changes this offseason.
http://www.nba.com/2011/news/04/30/s...s=iref:nbahpt2
I agree the team should not panic and keeping the Big-3 intact is not a bad move regarding the last run for Duncan to contend for a. Some youngsters should be kept and developed. After Duncan and Ginobili's retirement, I would expect the superstars won't prefer to play in SA even with the salary cap relief. Therefore the young core will become the cornerstone of this team. In future I would be more than satisfied if they play as a coherent group, like the Rockets this season.
I believe the Spurs front office is afraid to shake up the roster because they are not capable of making the right moves.
Oden is due $8.8 million next year, so um, yeah, he is going to cost an arm and a leg, would be the fourth highest paid Spur.
And he can't solidify the defense if he's sitting on the end of the bench injured
I know this is a crazy notion, but howabout we give our first round Euroleague star big man a shot before we go plunking down $9 million years for a guy with arthritic knees coming off microfracture...
I don't think it's that. It's that Pop has his system and thinks he has the right guys for it, as laughable as that is.
Oden is a restricted free agent and I don't believe Portland has made it clear they are willing to match a qualifying offer from other teams. One team's junk is another's treasure.Oden is due $8.8 million next year, so um, yeah, he is going to cost an arm and a leg, would be the fourth highest paid Spur.
And he can't solidify the defense if he's sitting on the end of the bench injured
I know this is a crazy notion, but howabout we give our first round Euroleague star big man a shot before we go plunking down $9 million years for a guy with arthritic knees coming off microfracture...
Euroleague star? Most starters in college were flat out stars in high school. When they play alongside bigger and more physical players at the collegiate level, their s om fades away for most. I think Tiago has showed exactly what he's capable of at the NBA level albeit, in small doses.
Splitter isn't exactly a picture of health either. Splitter will get his chance when Duncan retires. The Spurs should be worried about the here and now and that ain't Splitter.
So who can we get that is better then Splitter?
Well next year willmost likely be a transition year. I wouldnt mind paying Oden for 2 years a 8 millions a year if that means he can be had when Manu Retires.
If Oden does well, we might be compe ive for 2 more years.
If Oden does great, we might have the next cornerstone.
If he gets injuried or sucks, we just have 20 millions out of our books for the season Manu retires.
TD literally had to go up against 2 quality bigs and throw in Arthur as a back-up. Only the lakers trump their frontiline. Until Splitter became part of the rotation , you could say TD was pretty much having to do it all himself. Dice shouldn't have even been counted on as a starter. He was best with limited mins as a reserve. That's falls on POP.
Spurs fans here discount the role Drob had in his last season but most in the know realise when healthy, he took a lot of pressure off TD by defending against opposition's best big. Fans get lost with that concept beacuse TD's dominance in 03 loses some of it's lusture and DROb was in decline. It's all about acceptance for me. Some struggle with it as i did back then with DROB.
TD is in decline but is still of a player. His presense alone is enough reason to bring him back. What he needs is help and POP moving away from the strecth 4 philiosophy.
Unless that highly vaunted front line of the Thunder starts playing far far better and proves that game one against the Grizz was a fluke, I'm perfectly happy going into next season with Duncan and Splitter as the starting front line.
Obviously most of these things would depend mainly on the new CBA, however, there are a few things the Spurs need to do beforehand, for example, trading Dyess's contract.
1. Keep Duncan, Parker, Manu
2. Re-structure Tim's contract, instead of 1 year and 22 mil make it 2 years @ 11 or 3 years @ whatever ( maybe some unguaranteed for the last year )
3. Try to find a scenario to dump RJ's and Bonner's contracts - obviously a tough job, but Bruno and some others have provided a few relatively realistic deals. Possibly use picks, Hill, Neal, Blair
4. Deal Dyess's contract around the draft before it becomes guaranteed. His contract, combined with the 29th pick and or Hill/Blair/Neal could fetch a nice deal, at least on paper, depending on how active teams would be before the lockout ( IMO they will be very active, esp shedding salary )
5. Try to go after Batum or a similar long perimeter defender. Blair + Hill/Neal + picks for Batum + Williams. Might be a bit one sided but I'm sure a deal for Batum can be done with Crash and Matthews being on the Blazers roster
6. Take a risk on some of the high profile FAs, Oden ( Blazers prob match ), Yao, Prince, Battier
Some folks are looking to the unproven Anderson as a replacement for RJ. In this league it would be another attempt to shove a square peg into a round hole or a 6'5" center into an NBA starting position aka the Blair Witch Project.
Someone in the FO or coaching staff needs to be -slapped until they recognize that only very rare players with unbelieveable talent can be successful at a position for which they are not physically equipped. Anderson might some day be a good shooting guard, but let's not believe he is going to succeed against premier SFs with substantial height advantage.
We've been looking for a SF with reach and hops ever since Sean retired. Instead we bring in a wave of 6'5" guys like we want to corner the world market on short SFs and then sell high. There is no market for those guys, fools.
We've also looked for the center to replace DROB--and that becomes more crucial in TD's last year or two. Splitter is gonna be the guy. Should have developed him more this year and left him in the playoff games when he was playing pretty damn good. If you notice his play, in every game where he got more minutes, he adjusted to the pace of the game and his opposite player as he went along (as he should have.) but Pop kept pulling him when we really had no one who could play better.
I see what you're saying, WB, but Anderson's a good defender, he's got shockingly good instincts to block shots, and many folks are probably perfectly happy with him being a 2/smallball 3 so long as Hill gets moved. As far as unproven, I agree, though it would have been nice to have seen him developed over the season (allowed to play after he came back), particularly since anything over 6'3" with a pulse had a chance to improve on RJ the last few games.
OV:
I just didn't see a potential SF superstar in the few minutes of the year when Anderson was out there. Although he made his name in college as a shooter, I agree that he showed flashes of being able to defend.
That being said, we've passed on a load of 6'8 or 6'9" guys who were athletic and might be developed as a SF.
Speaking of passing on guys, I'm living part time in Dallas now and got to see a lot of Dallas games. Frankly, we should have kept Ian. He played some good athletic minutes for them without being totally out-classed or foul prone. He got a lot of praise from the Mavericks staff for his play in baqckup of Chandler on both ends of the court.
Instead We wound up with a bunch of small ball tweeners on the bench and see where that got us.
He could have helped IMO. On that I've kinda changed my opinion, most of which was based on my faith in the evaluation of the coaching staff that he wouldn't be worth the relative modest contract he wanted--and got from Dallas.
as I stated in the other thread:
1. Trade Blair, RJ, Bonner + Dice for Jamison and Varejao
2. Bring in De Colo and Bourousis
3. Bring Duncan off the bench
4. Start Splitter + Andy + Jamison
5. Kick ass
Yeah, I'm tired of seeing our under-sized guys (playing out of position) getting posted up by the opposition. Where does Pop get off thinking that Manu or Neal can play SF? I don't even agree with looking for a long 6'9" SF - that's just an excuse for Pop to play small ball with him at PF. Look at the body type of the elite SFs - Lebron, PP, Melo. That's why LA traded Ariza for Artest. Even Battier was posting up RJ.
Why can't they get players and play them in their proper position and how many SGs can this team have? Manu, Hill, Neal, Anderson, Green - none of them can play PG (except Manu for short stretches) and some of them are undersized (Hill, Neal) even for SG.
They should have kept Ian (who costs peanuts for a big man) - even if only for injury purposes. He would have looked much better against Randolph/Gasol than Bonner, Blair and Dice.
Dice will be gone for next year. Who's going to play crunch time with TD - Bonner? Pop wasted a whole year of Splitter - just so much fail going after the #1 seed - much good that did them.
Last edited by rmt; 05-02-2011 at 02:25 PM.
Completely agreed on all points. Anderson has not looked like a star, but I think he has a chance to be pretty good. JA is also a pick and roll guy. I've said this a jillion times, but Parker, Manu, Anderson, Duncan and Splitter is a ing pick and roll machine that should be able to generate offense at an astounding rate, and at playoff pace no less.
Passing on guys like Arthur and Mbah a Moute to get Hill still makes my blood boil. Hard to justify the whole "Pop had no choice but to go small" when like that happens.
I live in Dallas too and Mahinmi is a real NBA center. He's smart, he's big and he's a good defender and teammate. Would love to have had him against the Grizz, even if it was for six good fouls. He's never going to be Andrew Bynum, but he's a of a lot better than the trio of forwards the Spurs ran out there at center.
I still don't see how some of you think a Team is going to want to take on RJ's contract without one of the Big 3 in that deal. Sadly teams just wont willingly give Spurs anything for their trash.
we HAVE TRIED THIS FOR THE LAST 4 YEARS...This will NOT WORK!!!
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