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At this point, in free agency, who are you hoping for?
2000: LOST 1-3 to the PHX Suns (Not a Superteam, but had a solid lineup and caught a break when Timmy didn’t play in the series)
2004: LOST 2-4 to the LA Lakers (Superteam with Malone, Payton, Kobe, Shaq, and Phil coaching; We lost to them 1-3 in the regular season too, so I don’t buy that 0.4 was the difference in that series.)
2006: LOST 3-4 to the Mavs (Not a Superteam, but a solid lineup with a solid coach AJ who knew our strengths and weaknesses. Refs a huge factor)
2008: LOST 1-4 to the LA Lakers (Superteam with Kobe, Gasol, Bynum, Odom, and Coach Phil)
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And judging by the offseason so far, it seems as the spurs are doomed to not repeat as NBA champions.
Don’t get me wrong. Bringing back Diaw and Mills was a good move. I like the signings of Anderson and our new assistant coaches. But where is there actual improvement in the lineup? Timmy and Manu are a year older. Teams will be more prepared and more on guard with what Leonard, Green, and Splitter will throw at them. And we won’t have Patty Mills until next year, which could cost us in regular season victories and ultimately HCA ( a huge factor in our wins over OKC and Dallas).
Is the FO really that comfortable staying put with the current lineup we have? Keeping our lineup in tact has never given us the opportunity to repeat as champions in our history. Super teams were either formed and clearly outmatched us, or we didn’t have enough skilled personnel to overcome tough breaks and still win a series. In those cases, I always felt like we were missing 1 or 2 key guys to turn the series around.
We still have the MLE left, and I think we should at least try to improve personnel wise rather than relying on internal improvement from our own players. There is still some quality left in the talent pool:
http://www.cbssports.com/nba/eye-on-...ng-free-agents
At this point, in free agency, who are you hoping for?
No reason to spend the MLE with so much money flooding the free agency market that teams are overpaying for mediocre players. The better bet is to wait for the buyouts.
That is a damn good question man.
Too late for Marion and Allen (but they would have been perfect here in a limited role). I think okafur is really solid. Blatch or bayless for ayers and joseph
we were fuked in 2004 and 2006. in 2004, fisher had enough time in .4 seconds to catch the ball, turn around AND THEN fade away. that is impossible for any human to accomplish. they went up 3-2 and the rest is history. david stern screwed us in 2006. he developed this divison bull in which the leader of each division are 1,2, and 3 in the conference rankings going into the playoofs. Here u had the spurs and mavs the 2 best teams in the league(pistons played in the ty east. even though they had the best record in the league, they were not better than either team) playing each other in the 2nd round due to seeding. Everyone knew the winner of that series would be in the finals. So dallas should have been a 2nd place team and maybe they don't get past the lakers so easily and the clippers as well. It was one of the worst things david stern had done with seeding during his tenure as commissioner. By those seeding rules, a team with a losing record could have been a #2 or #3 seed as long as they won their division. Worst fukin seeding ever.
Back in those days it was your best 5 against my best 5. Play some D and 1 on 1 on offense. load of iso. Pop has done revolutionized the game. 1 or 2 players having a bad game doesn't necessarily mean a loss these days. The ball movement is damn near unstoppable.
They beat us 3-1 in the regular season and their margin of victory in the post season was higher than ours. Yeah 0.4 was a tough pill to swallow, but the lakers were the better team that year. The same goes for the Mavericks.
3 bad breaks. Duncan injury in 2000, game 5 swing game in 2004, game 7 overtime in 2006.
Come to think of it, there was a bad break in 2008. Brent Barry got hacked on a potential game-winner in game 4, but no call.
Call me sentimental, but, I am going to follow this season nonetheless
Portland owned us in 2000 and the lakers were just hitting their stride. I don't think we would have fared well.
Okafor would be a good signing and Blatch is a skilled offensive big man. But I don't see the Spurs clearing out room to sign either.
Both are better than ayers, so why not at least try? The 0-4 history tells me we need all hands on deck to get that elusive repeat
the 2004 and 2008 Lakers weren't Superteams, not even close, tbh..
The 2003 Spurs were one of the weakest le teams of the modern era..it was prime Duncan + role players, and the only decent compe ion they faced was a Lakers team on their 4th run to the Finals(tired legs)..the 2004 team lost Robinson and Jackson, 2 of the more important members of the 2003 team, too..
The 2007 Spurs avoided the Mavs and beat Phoenix in a controversial series that could have gone either way..that Spurs team was the beginning of the end for surrounding the aging Big 3 with old role players on their last legs(Bowen, Horry, Finley)..
The only great chance for a repeat was the 2006 Spurs, and they lost in arguably the best/most compe ive series of the 2000s..
This upcoming Spurs team didn't lose anybody from the 2014 Spurs, which was statistically one of the 3 greatest teams of the 1990-2014 era..their rival(OKC) didn't make any improvements, either..
The only way '00 could not be considered a "great chance for a repeat", would be because of Duncan's injury. '04 was a great chance, too.
Mills will not cost us wins early in the season - we will beat poor and mediocre teams and lose to contenders as usual.
2004 was not our year whatever happened - Pistons were the best team that year.
Cleveland will not win in their first year together, although they'll be scary in their 2nd if they can find a rim protecting C. OKC and the Bulls are our chief rivals, and I still think we're better than both.
BRING ON THE SEASON!
We should have won against the 2004 Lakers team. That was not a super team, the Spurs just cratered like a bunch of pansies who looked as if they were not champions only a year previous. Top to bottom choke job, IMO. The west was abnormally weak that year, and the Lakers only real compe ion was us. But they were exposed like the non-super team they were when the Pistons pistol whipped their asses in the finals.
In fact, we arguably choked against the 2008 Lakers team too. Pop removed Bruce Bowen from game 1 because he had 4 fouls, and Kobe went god mode against us seconds later. Game over. Brent Barry also got fouled by Derek Fisher with no call.
The mojo was gone after game 1.
However, the 2008 Celtics team would have destroyed us had we made the Finals.
exactly! Our FO did nothing that year that would have made us compe ive against that Celtic team.
The Lakers won that series by playing a gimmick defense where they left Turkoglu open the whole time and that got couldn't hit an open shot. If that Spurs team had even Danny Ferry or Steve Smith taking those shots instead of Turkoglu they win that series in 5 or 6. TeX Winter himself said he couldn't believe they survived that series.
The difference this year is the Spurs aren't relying on old fogeys to carry the rest of the load. Young assets like Leonard, Splitter, Green, and Mills are developing, and any progress on their part is an improvement as good as any. The teams in 2006 and 2008 featured squads more than half of which were over 30 (check basketball reference for an extensive list) and Pop rode the Big Three hard. No young'uns of note, just a stagnating Beno Udrih and a raw Ian Mahinmi. The team took gambles on the likes of Marcus Williams and Melvin Sanders, none of which panned out.
Fixed a glaring error for you...
OP is an obvious
I see no issues in bringing back the team that just won the championship. Especially when there are no roster spots really available. I guess they could waive Ayres/Daye and not resign Baynes, but it will be tough for someone to crack the rotation. Those guys don't get much P/T anyways.
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