This year's playoff darlings? It looks like it can't be Andrew Bynum, Indestructible Weapon. And let's face it, East side uplifters Indiana and Philly aren't long for the postseason even if they make it past their Goliath-sized opponents this round. Surprise, it's the Spurs. The team once synonymous with boredom and at the same time, a clear-headed, highly-adaptive basketball machine whose mascot is quite aptly a coyote. We've known for years that the Spurs can score. Somehow, though, it's different this time. Maybe, in typical Spurs fashion, they are filling a void. In this case, it's a void of buzz. But San Antonio has arrived as a team to talk about. If nothing else, they're recognized as one to admire, not just nebulously fear. You would expect at least that much for a squad that finished with the NBA's best record. But this isn't about numbers. It's about relevance. People are talking about the Spurs. That never happens.
Over the last few years, advanced stats, the clunky demonization of "hero ball", and principled worship of Rockets GM Daryl Morey have become tenets of faith among the NBA's young, dynamic chattering class. The conversion of the Spurs from annual irritant or grudgingly respected landscape into the paragon of basketball excellence is the sound of these values going mainstream. The Spurs are enjoyed; they are an object of fascination.
Thank the Internet. It has allowed what might have stayed a subculture of egg-heads to mix with common fan discourse, even find prominent (and fairly-compensated) platforms for their ideas. Baseball's stats revolution tore down idols. In basketball's case, it's allowed us to frame debates as more than emotive pissing contests. It's brought clarity and a way to appreciate the Spurs.
That doesn't mean, though, that we have to like them. The Spurs may no longer be recondite, parasitic, or endlessly frustrating. They've changed, so have we, and it's the kind of perfect storm that lends itself to fresh perspectives. Great, the Spurs are a modern marvel and generators of quality like no other team in the sport. They score and defend like cunning madmen; they are exciting to watch, and they won't leave you smashing your head against your laptop at key junctures in the game. However, while I applaud the cir stances that have lead to the Spurs' coming-out party (in a larger, cultural sense), it still doesn't mean I have to like them. We owe them their due as legitimately impressive makers of basketball. We owe them honesty. But there's nothing normative beyond that. It's like we're so caught up in our own ability to see the Spurs for what they are that we've forgotten our right to reject them anyway. The Spurs of basketball perfection has joined the mainstream. That doesn't mean, though, we have to accept it blindly.
After sweeping the Jazz and the Clippers, the Spurs are expected to meet the Thunder in the conference finals. The Thunder have very little discernible system. Russell Westbrook has almost totally relinquished playmaking duties, preferring to slash and burn opponents at every opportunity. James Harden has picked up the slack and yet still, scoring champ Kevin Durant supposedly doesn't get the ball enough. Kendrick Perkins was brought in to give them defensive toughness; he's hobbled, and even when healthy, is mostly good only for bodying up opposing seven-footers in the post. It's Serge Ibaka's shot-blocking that fills out that part of a team's requirements. Thabo Sefalosha is the perimeter stopper. Rebounding is accomplished piecemeal; Westbrook, the point guard, is the most irrepressible. They are rudimentary and at times frighteningly loose.
Yet for all the blow-by-blow complaints one could level against them over the course of a game, the Thunder are not fools coasting on talent. No really, this is a highly competent team. The expected showdown between OKC and San Antonio won't really be a study in contrasts, but one between a team whose sense of structure is often submerged versus one whose creative possibilities are only this spring beginning to be appreciated.
The kicker: The Thunder, for all their chaos-sowing and trans-positional weirdness, are in many ways based on the Spurs template. Symbolically, their brilliant young GM Sam Presti came up in the Spurs organization. His career took off when he urged the team to target Tony Parker and was proved very, very right. Durant and Duncan are very different players, but both are superstars brought to town via the draft, big dudes with many dimensions to their game, and quiet leaders who dominate games without making a show of it. Westbrook is like Parker if the already feisty Frenchman mainlined an entire candy factory. Harden, whose pro role was unclear when Presti nabbed him in the draft, has emerged as nothing less than Manu Ginobili's lone heir. Manu is a truly idiosyncratic player but the Thunder have locked Harde into that same role: part-scorer, part-facilitator, and equally discreet and aggressive. Oh, and he comes off the bench when his talent level would seem to demand otherwise. Thabo is Bruce Bowen's Revenge. Perkins is the largely functional centers that San Antonio for years carried next to Duncan.
There's probably more there, but the point isn't to illustrate a perfect correlation. More that, as we come to see the Spurs as a little fun, maybe let's acknowledge that younger, more dynamic teams aren't necessarily as disorganized or foolish as we sometimes like to believe.
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when will this stop? why are all content providers ripping spurstalk????
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