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I stopped reading at "Ginobili has arguably lost more championships than he won."
When old players play for league minimums to get a ring (Ray Allen), or superstars are willing to take deep pay cuts to play together (LeBron, Bosh and Wade of today, Garnett/Allen/Pierce of previous years), or when teams with deep pockets pull off shady deals like AK-47 signing for $3 million, Pau Gasol trade for scraps giving Kobe two championships he doesn't deserve, San Antonio has never been a destination.
In this off season alone, the Spurs are missing out on AK-47, World Peace going to Brooklyn/New York, Howard sweep stake and Boston selling for scraps, and the GDP core is another year older. While I still believe Spurs are by far the best team when it comes to developing scrubs into great role players and good players into stars, you can only do so much when SA can never attract tier 1 free agents or get bargain bin prices on stars.
Parker has ALWAYS been shut down by bigger defenders in 04 vs Lakers, 12 vs Thunder and most recently 13 vs Lebron, Ginobili has arguably lost more championships than he won, but when you look at their draft picks, both have wildly outperformed the expectations. As good as they have been, it makes you wonder what if Duncan/Pop had higher draft pick talents to play with.
With the new salary cap, getting role players at bargain prices is too important, having a Russian owner helps too. Cuban was able to eventually field a rich enough team to win a le, but even he immediately shipped away Tyson Chandler to avoid luxury tax. The Russian owner, I doubt he will run 200 million a year for long, but someone of his power will eventually buy his way into a championship before he gets back to economic reality. It is a toy for him and he has too much pride and eventually he will be able to get enough talents for a ring.
On the other hand you have Kevin Durant, he had a trio that could have won multiple les, but now his situation looks very similar to what happened to KG after Starbury left the team. Harden left and his trade replacement Kevin Martin is gone too so the Thunder lost a third of their trio for nothing. Westbrook suffered an injury with career altering potential and his team is doing everything it can to stay under the cap. A lot of people blamed KG for not being able to bring home a trophy in Minnesota, the same people also blamed Lebron for not being able to do it in Cleveland, but the truth is the small market teams they had never gave them enough talents to work with, and they were carrying so much load by 4th quarter they were exhausted. Durant would be better served with a big market team unless he gets a owner like Cuban.
Duncan was the only exception of this rule and I don't see another successful small market player ever. People truly underestimate his greatness, winning four les for a city like San Antonio is way harder than winning six les for a big market teams like the Lakers. If you look at the list of players who are higher than him on the all-time list, all of them played for big market teams and had way better teammates than Duncan! He has no other player around him who can draw a double team and his stats really don't even come close to tell his impact to team's overall strength.
Unfortunately, he will also be the last great small market team and all other top rookies would be foolish to not follow Lebron's thought process. Leave as soon as the rookie contract is over and make a super team!
Last edited by hitmantb; 07-14-2013 at 10:42 PM.
I stopped reading at "Ginobili has arguably lost more championships than he won."
Shut up
OKC's wounds (like Memphis') were self-inflicted and had nothing to do with small market status.
Harden didn't walk so he could go to a bigger market. He walked because OKC wouldn't pay him.
I'm sympathetic to small markets who can't attract talent, not those who won't pay it.
Kevin Durant?
He did though! He is the gift and the curse! I mean he only hit that three to give us a three point lead in 06, the he took away! HOW DARE him have a good game but do one foul! Then this year if he misses the three at GS we are done as well! I mean we would ave been down 0-2, but some forget that got us there too! Damn HIM! He has not done crap for the three runs we won! THAT GINOBILI!
2003 - Ginobili was a scrub and mostly rode god mode Duncan's coat tail
(I honestly felt it was the only time a player soloed his team to a le because the gap between him and #2 was that big. Hakeem in 95 had still-prime Drexler, Wade in 2006 had almost-prime Shaq, Dirk in 2011 had Jason Terry, and those were the only other times I can think of a solo performance)
2004 - Ginobili was on the side of Derek Fisher and did not get in his face at all, this was very similar to Parker's defense on Allen in game 6, Parker did not jump at all, he just stood under Allen and watched his shot
2005 - In my honest opinion Robert Horry's miracle game 5 won this for the Spurs, although I will give you Ginobili's strong series
2006 - The Dirk foul, enough said
2007 - Parker/Duncan here, Ginobili shot 0.401 and averaged 16 a game with 3 assists, you can't say he was instrumental
2013 - Game 6, 2 for 5 shooting, 8 turnovers, enough said, and key turnovers in game 7
Look I really think the guy overachieved for a second round pick, but compare him and Parker to the second/third best players on any other team that has won 3 or more championships, they simply don't stack up to Kobe Bryant, Scottie Pippen, Kareem/Worthy, McHale/Pariah's of the world.
It is truly a miracle Duncan won three championships with these two guys, the world will never fully understand Duncan's ability to do more with less. Unfortunately, I think it is the last time a big three can be made up of a 28th and 57th pick and win three championships.
Last edited by hitmantb; 07-14-2013 at 11:43 PM.
I dunno, call me back when Kawhi gets a Finals MVP or something
WOW!! What an incredible dung pile this post is.
This post doesn't deserve much time so all I will say is this:
You are assuming that without Manu the Spurs would have even made deep enough runs to get to the Finals in '03, '05, and '07?
Brilliant logic!!!
So you know for a fact what the future holds?? You have a magic crystal bowl or are you just a natural born genius?
So, pretentious smart ass, can you tell me how many turnovers will Green have in 2018? And also, who will be the Gatemala Justice Minister in 2026?
Thank you and your sister too
1/10, unfortunately i didn't read past the le.
Ginoobili/Parker from '04 to '08 were never great second option type players. That's one of the reasons the Spurs have never repeated like all the other great dynasties. Talent-wise, they're third option level guys(except for '05 Manu - that's the closest Duncan's ever come to having a legit sidekick since '99 DRob). Unfortunately, Manu was never able to sustain that play for very long. Came close in 2011 but his body broke down before the playoffs.
The previous comment was not about being able to repeat, that is a different matter. The only team that has repeated under the current CBA in the last decade has been the Lakers, and they are consistently playing the game with about 20 million dollars more than the Spurs during that time. I would say that has something to do with it. To get as many wins, and be as consistent as the Spurs have been over that times is nothing short of amazing.
Holt has a net worth of around 80 million, comparatively, Laker ownership was about 600 million before Dr. Buss passed away.
I expect that the new CBA will make it somewhat more difficult to repeat, especially for median level net worth ownership in smaller markets. Large market, high net worth ownership will be less affected due to the ability to eat some luxury tax along the way, as well as the ability to draw free agents due to more lucrative endorsements.
My original point was simply that it is bogus for the thread starter to make such ridiculous comments about Manu losing the Spurs more championships than winning them. You can't place only the games you choose in a vacuum to make a valid argument, you have to take the bigger picture into consideration.
The sound of truth bombs are often deafening.
Manu has lost two already won 'ships. One in '06 and another this year. However he has allowed the Spurs to advance in some series. All-time great don't play like Many played in G6 of the '13 finals. But part of the blame goes to Pop. After the 4th TO, he should have start yelling.
Making a lot of assumptions about 06 tbh. This year I agree though.
So you're saying paying an extra $20M for more championships would have bankrupted Holt?
2006 was the Spurs year. Homecourt throughout the playoffs. Tim playing like a badass throughout the playoffs. Too bad Pop and Manu had to that one up too.
Durant will succeed but not in OKC imho. I'm fathoming that he'll move elsewhere once his current term expires. OKC had a chance to build a dynasty with a brand new i7 quad core, but they blew it away in a more pathetic way the Mavs let TC walk in 11. Durant must have had enough of this and he will be gone the soonest he can imho.
Manu and Pop didn't make Tim go 1-7 against Diop in overtime of Game 7, after scoring 39 points in regulation. He was playing with planar fasciitis for most of the season.
There are many reasons why we couldn't overcome Dallas in 2006, certain Spursfan simply have short memory.
No superstar is going to dominate 48 minutes straight. In those moments when Duncan's struggling, the 2nd option is supposed to show up and carry the load. Kobe did this for Shaq numerous times during the threepeat. Wade does this for Lebron. Duncan's unfortunate in that he never really had a true second option besides DRob('98-00) and the one year when Manu played way over his head(2005). Parker has always under-performed in the playoffs during Tim's prime and Ginobili was never able to reach that 2005 level again. They never really had the ability to take over a game(besides '05 Manu) - both were essentially third option-tier players.
That makes no sense. If we're calling plays for Tim then he is taking the shots (which he should, he was having a terrific game), then Manu or Tony are not. If Tim was having a ty game, THEN you would expect the 2nd/3rd option to step up.
There's nothing to 'regret' about that overtime or that series. Neither Tim nor Pop or Manu 'costs' us anything. We went with what brought us there, and it didn't work out. There's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't work out for 29/30 teams every season.
You stupid
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