RJ Amnesty Decision By Midnight

[GSH]

Pop if full of . IF RJ had a uva year, then he wouldn't have been chasing Caron Butler and every other available SF on the market.

It's called damage control. Sort of like when Corzine says he doesn't know where the $1.2 Billion went. That makes everybody feel better.

[Buddy Holly]

Probably won't happen; the Spurs will try like to salary dump his worthless ass, with guys like Splitter, Anderson, and first round picks as likely sweeteners.

Salary dump him with Splitter, Anderson as sweeteners? lol

No way they give up either just to salary dump Jefferson. They'll just amnesty him.

[SenorSpur]

100%

This is the most likely way it's going to go down, based entirely on past history and not just hope:

1. RJ soaks up a ton of minutes in the regular season, has some good early statistical games where people love his empty points and ignore the rest of the ways he doesn't help the team win.

2. Due to that, Kawhi and Old Man James Anderson sit on the bench, in and out of the rotation. Their development is delayed. Pop declares that playing youth after a short camp in a truncated season 'wouldn't be fair to the team'.

3. RJ starts to settle into RJ-mode as his poor defense, soft play, and no-hustle sprays itself all over the rest of the team.

4. RJ isn't in during many closing minutes, as Pop goes with Parker-sub A (Neal this year, Hill the last two)-& Manu at the smalls.

5. The playoffs approaching, Pop declares, "These playoffs aren't for them (the youth).'

6. The playoffs start, RJ starts the playoffs with one or two decent empty stat games. Then his overall garbage play is so poor that Pop can no longer ignore reality.

7. Pop turns to guys like Leonard and Anderson after the Spurs get down in the series.

8. Leonard and Anderson play well, but not as well as they could have had they been playing heavy minutes all year.

9. Being so far in the hole, and without Leonard and Anderson being as good as they should have been, the Spurs crumble and are humiliated and eliminated.

10. When asked about who starts the 11-12 season, he responds, "Maybe it's Richard Jefferson!"

we all can hope that it doesn't work out that way, but past behavior for the Spurs is the best indicator of future behavior

Sounds accurate to me, too.

[GSH]

Sounds accurate to me, too.

I'm not so sure that RJ gets worse as the season progresses. I think that the top-tier teams improve steadily, and the same RJ that looked adequate early looks like crap against the better teams late in the season.

Also, if you're going to give long minutes to the rookie and young players, to get them ready for next season - isn't that sort of the definition of giving up on this season? If you're gonna do that, just blow the damn thing up. At least one of the Big 3. Throw the young guys into the fire, and get a good draft pick. And if the young guys surprise, and step up big? Well that's good, too.

I'm not disagreeing with you. I just think that this sort of half life is the worst of both worlds.

[quentin_compson]

Gregg Popovich didn’t quite come out and say the Spurs would not use amnesty on Jefferson this season, but it sure sounded like the team is planning on opening the season with him in the fold.
“Each year, he’s understood the system more and done a better job,” Popovich said of Jefferson. “I think he wants to come back and have an even better year than he did last year. I think he was fifth in the league in shooting his 3s, and he got better defensively. I think he’ll move forward from there.
“It’s kind of interesting, everybody’s always asking about amnesty, and I’m always wondering, ‘Why Richard?’ As if we didn’t advance in the playoffs because of Richard.”
Jefferson’s scoring average dipped from 12.3 points to 11 last season, but he was much more efficient in his second year with the Spurs than his first.

Read more: http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap...#ixzz1gmdRhE00

Weak attempt by Pop.

[Texas_Ranger]

We didn't advance in the playoffs beacause of our pathectic center line and we still didn't do about it. Only that Dice is gone who was our 2nd best defender under the rim. LOL at Blair and Bonner, I coul score on those two... So if you look at the big picture RJ is not the biggest problem, his contract sucks balls, but Butler,Howar or Carter wouldn be any better here.

[dbestpro]

RJ is like a pulled muscle. It hurts, but it has the potential to get better. It's just taking a long, long, time to get better.
The Bonner and Blair combination is like a chronic disease that will always be a pain in the side of the Spurs. It must be surgically removed for the Spurs to have a chance. With Novak capable of duplicating Bonner's game, it is obvious which should by player should be removed.

[Giuseppe]

“Coach Popovich is kind of a quirky guy,” Jack said. “He might do things just because it's Tuesday.”

lmao!!!

[benefactor]

RJ is like a pulled muscle. It hurts, but it has the potential to get better. It's just taking a long, long, time to get better.

[will_spurs]

I'm not so sure that RJ gets worse as the season progresses. I think that the top-tier teams improve steadily, and the same RJ that looked adequate early looks like crap against the better teams late in the season.

RJ got "worse" because Pop's system evolved last year. The first 1/3rd of the season (if not half) was run & gun type of offense with a lot of baskets in transition, alley-oops and so on. After that Pop moved more and more towards 3-pt spot-out shooting and it went all downhill from there. RJ can be a really good player in rather fast-paced offenses, but the more the game slows down, the less likely he is to make an impact.

Also, if you're going to give long minutes to the rookie and young players, to get them ready for next season - isn't that sort of the definition of giving up on this season?

Giving rookies and young players minutes doesn't equate with giving up on the season--at all. Regular season record is mostly meaningless (Exhibit A: last season). There's no point in letting vets win reg season and crash in the playoffs. I'd rather see the Spurs with a worse reg season record because of playing young guys, but have everybody ready to contribute by playoffs time (esp. since Bonner and RJ's disappearing acts in the playoffs are now a given).