Do you think we see the "Beautiful Game" more this season?

[TD 21]

No. It took a perfect storm, the likes of which is virtually impossible to replicate, to produce that. Not only a team chock full of high - genius level IQ players, who played with total selflessness, but it took them being at the exact moments of their respective careers, that they were.

They weren't playing that way if Duncan was in his prime or Leonard was where he is now. Like Ginobili said (paraphrasing), it's not that they were altruistic; they had to play that way to have a chance to contend because they didn't have that kind of player.

It really lasted from '12-'14, but since most now associate it almost exclusively with the '14 Finals, if you're just talking about that, it also probably took them losing the way they did in '13 (and, for the big three, all the bad breaks since the '07 championship), to produce that.

Also, since then, the entire league basically dissected everything they were doing and to at least some extent implemented it.


Simmons is a wing. Sure, he's naturally a shooting guard, but he should be able to mostly (obviously, he can't defend James, Anthony, etc.; by default, Anderson has to be the secondary defender for them now) get by defending small forwards. He might defend shooting guards more though, with Ginobili or Green defending the small forward. It just depends on the match-up.

[cutewizard]

That is the truth, the team needs him to step up and that is more honest to admit. They might have even needed him to do more last season than he did, but Pop didn't expect to have to rely on him to that degree when he was for team's purposes a young newbie. And Pop has a lot of blame to take if Kyle wasn't ready to do more, bc Pop spent a lot of minutes on Kevin Martin to end the season, instead of pushing Kyle more, maybe even playing him in the stretch 4 role more (and it might have been the case if the team progressed past OKC and got to meet the Dubs that they needed him). But Pop had Diaw too, and didn't expect to need Kyle to that degree.

As a way of giving perspective here, the team won the last game of the season where Kyle had an efficient double double and was matched up with Dirk Nowitzki all game. Think about that. This was Kyle's line for that game:

SAN ANTONIO SPURS (67-15)
FIELD GOALSREBOUNDS
	POS	MIN	FGM-A	3PM-A	FTM-A	+/-	OFF	DEF	TOT	AST	PF	ST	TO	BS	BA	PTS
K. Anderson	F	30:27	6-10	1-1	2-3	+17	1	9	10	4	2	5	0	0	0	15

He made clutch baskets in that game and the team won.

This was Kyle's line in game 6 of the OKC series: 2/4 shooting 2/2 FT, 1 board, 1 TO, 6 pts -7. played 14:38 minutes. That was probably the most he had played in a playoff game that wasn't in garbage time. Bear in mind that was a close out game on the road where the team was getting s acked and trying to make a come back. To me there was a lot of symbolism in him staying on the court until the very end with Tim.

Should Pop have gone away from Diaw/West earlier in the series and used Kyle as a 4 more? Who knows? He did that in game 6 when the game was out of hand and made a short come back ironically. But if we are honest, Pop had not gotten Kyle ready for that. He hadn't really expected to have to need Kyle to that degree. I think that is why he didn't do that earlier in the series, and only went to that in a "oh what the heck? Let's throw the kitchen sink in" way. If he had expected everyone else to fail to the degree that they did, he would have prioritized Kyle's development over getting a late addition like K.Martin in, and playing Diaw and West together and he didn't do that. If Kyle wasn't ready to step in sooner it was due to him starting off the season without a role, having to earn it the hard way, while playing only a small role, filling up spots as others got rested or injured.

We have to see what Pop has in mind for him bc Pop really needs to get the most out of his youngest players at this point. He doesn't have the luxury of not developing guys.

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Kudos man!

You make basketball theory more comprehensive as you explain it.

More power to yah!

[cutewizard]

Pau Gasol can usher in a different form of the Beautiful Game, imo............

[gambit1990]

Pau Gasol can usher in a different form of the Beautiful Game, imo............

cosigned. having him means we "need" parker starting even less.

[sasaint]

Pau Gasol can usher in a different form of the Beautiful Game, imo............

Spurs will not be resurrecting the beautiful game as long as LMA, the non-center iso-machine, is on the team. He is skilled in what he does, but he lacks court vision and has a pretty low BBIQ.

[cutewizard]