I can understand and appreciate the point of view of papers wanting to restrict the complete posting of their articles all over the web. But they have to realize they'll never really be able to fully police it either. It's just part of the reality of the internet.
I'm sure there was a much better way for them handling this though. No need to use lawyers to strong arm the most viewed fan based Spurs site out there. Instead of fostering a positive relationship here, which they could have used to benefit their own viewership, they've gone out and turned off potential customers with their poorly thought out tactics. Brilliant.
One of our local papers (Detnews.com) recently made a very smart move IMO. When you copy and past an article from their site, it automatically imbeds a "from the Detroit News" followed by the link to their story. Now they don't have to worry about posters not supplying a link to their site. They're taking the far smarter approach IMO, accepting the fact that people will borrow their stories and repost them. But at least this way they are getting full attribution.