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This verges on the interesting, as if the author was getting to a grander point but failed.
"Nights off" is what Spurs announcer Sean Elliott likes to call them. Put that way, it sounds so benign, so humane. San Antonio, an aging team bracing itself for a deep playoff run, is doing what any rational enterprise would do: Conserve resources in an effort to realize a long-term goal. The Spurs, in their infinite wisdom, continue to innovate. The sport marches on as we all look on in awe. Gregg Popovich has struck again.
Except these "nights off"—shrewd as they may be for the Spurs' self-interest—put the organization in an awkward position. When the Spurs don't show up, it tampers with the basic law of sports: That both teams will play hard and produce a meaningful outcome. The outcome will be entered into the record, which will in turn paint a complete picture of the regular season. That picture will be used to determine which teams will make the playoffs and who they will play against. Oh, and as collateral damage, it s over ticket-buyers and cable subscribers who want to get the best product for their money.
The question is, should any of this bother Gregg Popovich? On the surface, he's certainly not violating any rule or neglecting his responsibilities as head coach of the Spurs. He's trying to win. The Spurs will win enough to make the playoffs and maybe even push late for a top seed. If Pop were to rest players too much, the Spurs would be compromised and the entire strategy would backfire. Compare what he's doing to tanking, that other great scourge upon the NBA's compe ive landscape: Under the current system, a bad team is (in theory) rewarded for losing games with a higher draft position. The Spurs must constantly balance the need to rest with the need to win a certain amount.
What Popovich is doing is almost certainly helping his team. What suffers, though, is every other team. There's a case to be made that Popovich is trolling other contenders, or the NBA, or the networks that end up broadcasting meaningless Spurs games. Some have even suggested that he's trolling no one in particular, that he just can't help himself. One could argue that the Spurs are playing possum, hiding themselves in plain sight until it's time to crank it up for the playoffs. None of this quite gets at the problem, though, which is that the Spurs destabilize the entire NBA. They become a randomizing force, letting their personal schedule dictate the way the season plays out.
Imagine a perfect NBA where every player gives it his all for 82 games. Good teams deserve to win, even against other good teams. Bad teams deserve to lose, which is why the draft exists to help balance things out. The Spurs will rest against good teams, they'll rest against bad team, they'll rest if it's a big game or a game of zero consequence. If the Spurs-at-rest lose to another good team, they inflate that team's record, which can have implications for the playoffs; if they lose to a team on the cusp of the playoffs, it comes at the expense of other teams fighting for a chance to make the postseason. If they lose to a bad team, they distract them from their long journey toward the bottom of the standings.
If it seems like I'm overstating the consequences here, think about how many playoff matchups are decided by a game or two, or how often lottery odds come down to a few final games. It's like the Spurs are perpetuating the opposite of tanking—they're making teams better than they're supposed to be, which in turn handicaps all those around them. Ironically, none of this really affects the Spurs. They are almost guaranteed to make the playoffs and have a funny way of being completely immune to match-ups. The fate of other teams are far more contingent. The Spurs don't have the same problems as these mere mortals and thus need not conduct themselves accordingly.
This is the dark side of Popovich and the Spurs. What's best for them isn't always best for the league; the same intelligence that earns him acclaim can also cause structural problems for the league as a whole. That's not to say that Popovich is two-faced or conflicted. Quite the opposite: He knows what he needs to do for his team and, Hobbes-like, could care less what happens to anyone else. That's a strange reversal of the common perception of the Spurs as the Good Guys, upholders of the Right Way gospel who stood for something more honorable, more reputable than the rest of the league. We even saw some of this during these past Finals, when San Antonio's style was praised for its effortless (and devastatingly effective) team play.
The truth is, the Spurs have never really been the league's moral compass. The Right Way to do basketball was never about saving the world—it was about saving themselves. We were never right to view them as some kind of hardwood mega-church; all along, the Spurs have in fact worked more like a cutting-edge corporation, trying to find ways to do basketball better than anyone else without ever running afoul of the rules. In this case, there's nothing being broken. What we're realizing, though, is that the Spurs aren't above a little bending.
http://www.gq.com/blogs/the-feed/201...il-genius.html
This verges on the interesting, as if the author was getting to a grander point but failed.
Shorten the meaningless regular season or reduce playoff teams. It's that simple. I hope pop rests as many guys for as many games as possible
Awesome article. One pet peeve tho. How you gonna write for GQ and still say could care less?
Failed miserably indeed, as it seems to suggest the Spurs always lose shorthanded games and skew the standings, but their record when resting players has been quite good actually. It also fails to even mention the notion that an increased role for, say Beli or Patty, in a certain game could be more impactful than playing a 37 year old injury prone and tired Manu.
He also misspelled Sean Elliott's name but I corrected it.
Edit - I believe you're thinking "couldn't care less"..
Last edited by Spur|n|Austin; 11-13-2014 at 04:07 PM.
"Couldn't care less" is the correct usage.
"Could care less" implies you do care, at least a little.
that was a turrible article
total bull .
82 games is too many
B2Bs are an abomination cheating the game, the players, the fans.
29 teams is too many, not enough playing/coaching talent. EC can't even get 8 worthy teams to the playoffs, usually only 4 have a .500 season.
none of the above is caused by Pop, whose job is to win Championships, not bust his players for 82 games.
Shoals and his/her article suck.
Was waiting for Sean luckthefakers
This article loses a lot of credibility based on the Spurs finishing with the top record in the league last year. You could easily make the point that based on that, Pop's strategy produces a better basketball product than any other team, and that the others are "cheating" the league by overworking their players, risking injury, and not giving potential contributors an opportunity to grow.
Even if the author is correct in the (big) assumption that the Spurs would win more if they didn't rest players, all that would equate to is an even bigger advantage in the standings. Not sure what the argument really is, except maybe that it's more "fair" for the Spurs to dominate every team in the league to an equal degree, rather than simply dominating them?
Butthurt editorial from a GQ hack
The Spurs are destroying the NBAgreat scourge upon the NBA's compe ive landscape
I don't understand how the Spurs resting players is any different than a baseball manager rotating pitchers. You have a known, finite resource (pitch count/minutes played) per day. You ration the use of that resource to maximize your overall success in a season. No one hates on a baseball manager who starts his fourth pitcher in the rotation over his ace on two days rest. Does it give the team the absolute best chance of winning that day? Of course not. Does it give them a much better chance of winning when the ace starts again?
Ultimately people will have to accept that spurs basketball is about the entirety of resource management. We are betting that the depth of our team will outplay the depth of any other team. And I mean depth of roster as well as depth of individual physical reserves. No one is 100% come playoffs but of we are healthier amd fresher it's not our fault you didn't manage your resources as efficiently.
I get all my insightful, thought provoking and meaningful sports takes from a fashion magazine.
I like Tony Parker's idea the best. Shorten the pre-season and start the season at least two weeks earlier so that there is less back to backs.
Well, actually the ace on two days rest would probably be worse than the fourth starter. But I get your point and agree.
Not only that...
Who the is your editor, GQ? Fire him!The Spurs will rest against good teams, they'll rest against bad team, they'll rest if it's a big game or a game of zero consequence.
The author also misses the point that Pop uses rest days to give younger players minutes they normally would not receive. He thrusts them into pressure situations and expects them to perform at the same level as his aging starters... Doing so accelerates their development such that they can be counted on whenever their number is called.
Well that was a waste of time!
Great article, a little verbose, but still interesting once you get through it.
Well said, but I think you were too kind. It didn't quite verge on getting to a grander point. It kind of teased that it was going to do so, but in the words of T.S. Eliot, it "ended not with a bang but with a whimper".
Last edited by EVAY; 11-13-2014 at 10:17 PM.
Yeah that article was all over the place without getting to the point. Pop isn't trolling anybody. He's got more important things to do then to be trolling teams. To me Pop uses the regular season to experiment with new things. Always trying to add new things to the Spurs repertoire. They can play slow and they can play fast. Spurs basketball is always evolving. Teams are already trying to copy the share the ball philosophy. The Spurs are already looking for new ways to do things.
It was epic the way the Spurs dismantled teams in the playoffs especially the Heat. When teams shrink down their rotation and play the Stars heavy minutes the Spurs did the exact opposite. They used the full depth of their roster to wear out the opposing teams for doing that. Parker running off screens all over the court just to wear out his defender if nothing else was pure genius. Having Spurs players playing a shorter amount of minutes, but with maximum effort eventually would take a toll on opposing teams playing tighter rotations. I remember thinking in the finals "wear those ers out!" especially Lebron. It looked like as the series went on the more of a toll they took. The ball movement on the offense was the obvious added element last year, but everything else I spoke of was the more subtle things that were going on. That's how I saw it anyways.
The author needs to stick with reviewing mens skivvies or whatever.
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