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Spurs.com has the video up.
Coach Pop Talks about Summer Activity
http://www.nba.com/spurs/features/090825_pop.html
That's what I'm hoping.
The minutes would be there if Pop still envisioned Fin as the third wing or backup to RJ, however.
Yeah, he sat him out against Denver but only because he didn't want to force Finley to extend himself beyond his means with the Big 3 sitting; not just the standard night off for a vet on the second of a back-to-back.
Spurs.com has the video up.
Coach Pop Talks about Summer Activity
http://www.nba.com/spurs/features/090825_pop.html
During the regular season, Pop will likely limit Manu's and to a lesser extend RJ's minutes. I guess Spurs will play with a 4 man rotation at SG/SF with Manu, RJ, Mason and Finley all playing consistent minutes.Giving Finley the second night of a back-to-back off would seem to mean he'd be playing significant enough minutes to warrant such caution.
Finley needs to be playing Steve Smith to RJ's Jackson of '03, so hopefully this is nothing more than the type of mindset he held prior to Jack's emergence that year..
One can only hope.
For the playoff, Manu and RJ will play more. One of Finley or Mason, will play significantly less minutes than in the regular season. It's up to Mason to outplay Finley.
http://www.nba.com/spurs/features/090825_pop.html
I think Pop is starting to enjoy talking to the media. Shocker.
I'm impressed with Timmy's workout. Weight lifting and swimming. No reason why Manu can't lift weights too.
Although Timmy should still be shooting jump shots, you shouldn't take him completely out of rhythm.
Great great Interview!
The national view.
Popovich: Spurs’ Big Three will be healthy
By Paul J. Weber
Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili left being busy this summer to the rest of the San Antonio Spurs.
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said Tuesday that his two aging stars have taken it easier than usual this offseason to get healthy, while the Spurs front office was unusually active and swinging deals for major additions like Richard Jefferson and Antonio McDyess.
Duncan, hobbled by knee problems down the stretch and in the playoffs, has pushed back the normal start of his normal preseason regimen by a month. The 33-year-old will begin workouts next week that the All-Star typically gets going in early August.
Ginobili, meanwhile, has limited his summer activity to a treadmill and some walks after appearing in just 44 games last season because of bad ankles.
“He is healthy,” Popovich said. “He’ll come back out of shape but healthy.”
Popovich spoke to reporters Tuesday for the first time since the Spurs ended their busiest—and costliest—offseason in recent history. The typically frugal Spurs will be hit with the NBA’s luxury tax after picking up Jefferson’s remaining $29.2 million owed over the next two years in a trade with cost-cutting Milwaukee.
San Antonio also used their midlevel exception, about $5.85 million, to sign McDyess and give Duncan a hand in the frontcourt. The Spurs also signed veteran big man Theo Ratliff and drafted Pitt All-America forward DeJuan Blair.
Popovich said spending money was a necessity.
“The face of the league has changed significantly over the last two years,” Popovich said. “We’ve hung in there as long as we can, and this year we’re going to have to spend money like some other people.”
San Antonio approached the summer looking to spend and not squander the remaining years of the Duncan era. Between Duncan’s ailing legs and a weak supporting cast, the Spurs limped into their earliest summer since 2000 after a first-round playoff loss to Dallas.
Duncan sat out several back-to-backs down the stretch because of a nagging right quad injury that Popovich said has healed.
“He’s got more flexibility in that leg than he ever has,” Popovich said. “Significantly more. He’s cranking his knees during the day and at night when he goes to bed. It’s paid off.”
Tony Parker also gave the Spurs a scare this month when he hurt his right ankle playing for the French national team, but Popovich said the injury was minor.
Love everything he had to say. Especially the health of the big 3.
No doubt that Jefferson will play a big role this season. I think we can rest easy knowing he'll get the bulk of minutes at sf.
I don't know what else Hairston has to do to make the team. I think it's between Williams, Gist, and McClinton fighting for the final spot.
Sounds like Finley has the backup sf position which is fine with me. We're talking about 10-15 minutes at most. Come February it might be a different story but I think they have Finley penciled in as the backup.
Q: If the spurs invite their 2nd round draft picks to training cap (e.g., Gist) and then cut him (before the regular season starts), do the spurs still retain his rights?
Great interview, I bet the reporters love to catch Pop in a good mood.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/s..._new_toys.html
Popovich ready to play with new toys
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich spent much of his summer vacationing in Maine, as far away from the record San Antonio heat as he could get without leaving the lower 48 states.
He also enjoyed a working barnstorm through Europe, hitting France, Italy, Germany and Spain on a reconnaissance mission. He even spent a few days in Las Vegas, watching the Spurs' young summer league squad.
All along, Popovich wished his offseason were shorter, that it hadn't begun in April after a first-round playoff loss against Dallas. Now, he's wishing it were over completely.
After the most eventful summer of his San Antonio tenure, Popovich is ready to get back to work.
“You can only relax so much,” Popovich said during an informal fat-chewing session with reporters Tuesday at the Spurs' Northwest-side headquarters. “You can only chase players so much. My stomach is starting to churn. I'm getting anxious.”
In a sense, Popovich is like a kid at Christmas brunch. His new toys have been unwrapped. He is eager to start playing with them.
Training camp doesn't begin for another month, but the wheels have already begun to turn in Popovich's head — the neat tricks he can try with his new athletic swingman, Richard Jefferson; the new offensive elements veteran forward Antonio McDyess can bring; the raw rebounding potential inside rookie forward DeJuan Blair, waiting to be unleashed.
When the Spurs open the season Oct. 28 against New Orleans, they could boast as many as eight new faces.
“We're calling it ‘change the music,' Popovich said. “We'll come to camp with a few different faces, a different chemistry, a little bit different team personality. We'll see how that comes together.”
In a relatively quiet NBA offseason, the Spurs made arguably the most noise. If they hoped to remain among the NBA's elite, to keep the L.A. Lakers and others from running too far away from the Western Conference pack, it was noise that was necessary.
Popovich and general manager R.C. Buford told team owner Peter Holt as much, in a meeting not long after the Dallas disaster.
In order to keep the Spurs compe ive in the waning years of the Tim Duncan era, they told Holt the team needed to get younger and more athletic. And to accomplish that, Holt was going to have to open up the checkbook like never before.
“He decided we were going to have to spend money like we usually don't,” Popovich said.
The pricetag for the Spurs' offseason makeover — which brought in Jefferson by trade, McDyess and veteran center Theo Ratliff via free agency and Blair, an All-American from Pittsburgh, via second-round draft pick — pushed the Spurs deeper into luxury tax territory than they'd ever been.
“The face of the league has changed significantly over the last two years,” Popovich said. “We hung in there as long as we could. Now, we're going to have to spend money like some other people.”
Holt has certainly done his part, signing off on the mega-expensive renovation project (“He took a little bit out of all of our paychecks,” Popovich quipped). It will be up to Popovich to help make sure the spending spree pays off.
After an offseason of rebuilding, the Spurs are thinking NBA le once again. Popovich won't label his reinvigorated team the team to beat in the West, not with Kobe Bryant and the defending champion Lakers still on the prowl.
Still, as Popovich told NBA.com earlier this summer, with tongue planted in cheek: “If we don't win it, I should probably be fired.”
The work toward that end begins in earnest when training camp begins Sept. 29. Until then, Popovich has about a month of offseason left to let the butterflies fester.
Wow, you mean he wasn't serious?Still, as Popovich told NBA.com earlier this summer, with tongue planted in cheek: “If we don't win it, I should probably be fired.”
What's next, you gonna try and tell me that his interest in having a trade commission, one that he'd head or be involved in, was nothing more than a tongue-in-cheek quip after being asked about the Pau trade?
great interview. If Duncan and McDyess are both going to sit in back to backs, then I see why they have Haislip. Haislip and Hairston could see big minutes in these games.
Could someone *translate what "cranking his knees" is?
When "he goes to bed."
*If this is some reference to what Finley and Pop do before bedtime i don't wish to know.
As it relates to Tim Duncs injury healing, yes. Thank you.
"The face of the league has changed significantly over the last two years," Popovich said. "We've hung in there as long as we can, and this year we're going to have to spend money like some other people."
What he meant to say was "LA has been kicking our ass and this year we want them to push a tad harder before we bend over again."
Wish someone had asked Pop about Marcus H.
The fact he wasn't brought up, even by Pop, is a good hint to where he stands.
He's back to SA now.* Manu Ginobili, who missed much of last season and all of the playoffs with nagging ankle and leg injuries, is recovering as expected at home in Argentina and should be good to go by the start of camp.
Manu Ginobili: My Argentine vacations for this year are about to be officially over. Flying to the states in about an hour. I'll post something from home tomorrow. (via Facebook, 12hrs ago)
If you sign them and cut them then you've lost all rights. Also, in order to keep their rights the Spurs have to make tender offers to Gist and McClinton by September 6th. Gist and McClinton don't have to accept those offers though, so that doesn't mean that if we don't hear about either of them signing a contract on that day that the Spurs lost their rights to them. Unfortunately I'm not sure whether you can bring them to training camp if they're not under contract. I want to say that you can't.
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