a longer PO run would have had many advantage, even without a le at the end.
1) Keep the Spurs as a TOP team for most of people. Last year WCF made us for most of people a TOP 5 team. Now, we're probably a TOP 10 team for most people, and that won't help to stay attractive for some FA.
2) Let some guys take some experience of PO games (hill, mason, bonner....). that would have been HUGE.
still some fans were saying that a first round exit would be the best thing for a Spurs team that had no chance to win it all. which was wrong IMO.