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I think that makes me feel good to be a Spurs fan
http://thehasbeenssports.com/2010/07...gency-winners/
Awesome write-up by these guys on the top 5 winners in free-agency. Spurs are there at number 3. I like it. I think we've had an awesome off-season up to this point and 3 sounds about right. But I think Milwaukee & Chicago could switch places...
Thoughts?
I think that makes me feel good to be a Spurs fan
Okay.... I'll say it before this thread is flooded - How are the Lakers not on that list? Perhaps it was written before Barnes signed? Personally, I find it difficult to take any of those teams off of the top 5 - so maybe the Lakers were 6th.
Most Spurs fans see things through silver and black rimmed glasses and therfore will completely disagree with this. But if you look at it, we got the best SF signed that was available to us, the bonner extension didn't hurt us in terms of paying the tax or signing someone else and if he can get past choking like a dog come april he could be huge for us, drafted a flat out shooter to fill out the SG minutes (no more mason/bogans) and signed the BEST european big man for spare change. I'm not sure what else fans could have expected with the way the offseason played out.
Signing Splitter and re-signing Bonner and RJ puts the Spurs at #3?! Technically, I am not so sure that signing Splitter would even count in evaluation of NBA free agency.
Ummm, they resigned Fish, added Steve Blake and a vastly over rated, unliked-everywhere-he-goes Matt Barnes? How does that trump what the other teams did?
I disagree. The Spurs are maybe #5. The resigning of Bonner isn't that good because of how much they gave him. The fourth year on Jefferson's contract being fully gauranteed makes his contract hard to swallow. Splitter's contract is a miracle. Drafting Anderson looks good so far, but what have we seen from him besides his college games and highlights on youtube, which don't mean anything. Mahinmi's highlights on youtube looked good and look how that turned out. We'll have to wait and see how Anderson pans out. Too bad we didn't get to see anything out of him in Summer League.
They still need a backup SF IMO. They signed Neal. He had a good Summer League, but what else. Like Anderson he has to prove it on the court in the regular season if he even gets that chance.
So in other words...the two-time defending champions subbed out Farmar for a much more consistent player in Blake and added size and defense to their already stacked lineup by bringing in Barnes and Ratliff. They also grabbed Ebanks and Caracter, two guys with impressive summer league debuts with their two second round picks. And they still may bring back Shannon Brown to limit the amount of turnover on their roster.
Obviously it doesn't trump a mass exodus of top-tier talent to Miami, but I'd say their off-season has been wildly successful given what they had to work with and what they needed to bring in.
As for the Spurs, Splitter makes the summer. Bringing back RJ and Bonner to a contending squad while adding a key missing piece (frontline length and athleticism) to last year's run is a big deal.
I've learned after the Jefferson trade to never engage in premature rankings. The only way we'll know if the Spurs are higher or lower than this ranking is by how the season plays out and how those players impact the Spurs as they make a run to the 'ship.
I agree.
I agree with the article. I don't know if I would put them at the 3rd spot, but overall, the Spurs front office has done well.
I think Splitter will live up to the expectations of reasonable Spurs fans and give a solid contribution off the bench.
If we evaluate the Spurs scoring (which was the biggest problem last season), the starters scored enough, but the bench was almost non existent except for TP, DB and Manu. With the addition of Splitter, the Spurs have a big man that will allow the second team unit to have players playing at their normal positions.
We all know that it takes a minimum of two seasons before players fully grasp Pop's system, so I expect RJ to be much more consistent.
Anderson is a "ready to play now" type player that can fill it up, while the Spurs still have Gee (who imho is just about NBA ready) under contract and waiting in the wings.
Temple showed last year what he was capable of, and the signing of Neal (allbeit a longer contract than I would have thought) gives the Spurs even more offensive punch.
As far as defense goes, the horrid shooting last year really didn't allow the Spurs to showcase any lockdown "D" that Spurs fans are used to because the opponents didn't have to take the ball out of the basket an inbound often. We all know the Spurs "D" is best when they are allowed to set up off of made shots.
The Spurs have the flexibility to play multiple styles, which is something they have not had since '05.
I still think the Spurs have one more move left as well.
We know what the first unit can do. A second unit with Splitter, Blair/Bonner, Anderson, Hill and Neal/Gee is a huge potential improvement over last seasons 2nd unit.
I would like RC to take a chance on Tmac to finalize things, but who knows.
The ability for the first and second units to "gell" is more important than talent alone.
I'll call my shot now...Miami will not win a championship this coming year. Bosh is a good player, but is soft, and I question the ability of Wade and Lebron to defer to one another when needed for the betterment of the team, and their bench will be less than average.
The Spurs will be in the thick of the Western Conference race, but their is no way to tell how well they will do now. Success depends on the development of some young talent, and some good fortune concerning injuries to older talent.
In many ways, this team reminds me of the '03 team and all of the question marks surrounding Manu, TP, and Jack. That ended up turning out well, we can only hope for the same here.
Regardless, the front office began a youth movement while keeping the core in tact for another run. Kudos to RC.
I'm right there with the article when it talks about Splitter and Anderson. I'm puzzled how signing Bonner was for "reasonable money" and how paying RJ so much more money is considered such a great deal now that he's not historically overpaid, just hugely overpaid. That said, there's really no reason not to go into this upcoming season with the same kind of optimism we had last year. All the pices are there.
unless we can sign a decent backup SF then i dont see how we are #3.
The Bonner deal sucked, the RJ deal sucked even worse, and Anderson is a draft pick, not an FA. Splitter is the only positive thing to come out of free agency this year, and he wasn't even a "typical" FA (since he wasn't free to negotiate with other teams).
Of course, last year's forum conventional wisdom had the Spurs in the 2010 NBA Finals, or at least the WCF.
This summer hasn't been as bad as Spurs fans believe. Splitter alone makes it a win. The Spurs needed a starting 5 badly. Now the bigman rotation looks like a serious contending frontcourt for the first time in a few years.
For the next couple of seasons, unless another franchise was going to gift the Spurs a starting caliber small forward, Jefferson is more than adequate. Plus the Spurs were able to mitigate their lux tax hit by getting him to opt out of $15 mil for one season and lock him up through the rest of the Spurs' le window.
Anderson was a nice pickup in the draft. I suppose after Blair the Spurs discovered that going domestic isn't that bad of an idea.
As for Bonner, I attribute the over the top reaction in this forum to the vacuum of Spurs news.
I may be wrong but didnt the Spurs have the highest scoring bench last season?
I said with the same kind of optimism, not with the same sorts of extreme delusions. Most everyone thought the Spurs had the talent to compete if everything fell into place properly. Again, there's no reason not to feel the same way this season.
I don't know where to find that stat but I sort of doubt it. It was certainly higher than other teams that don't have a starter or two coming off the bench.
We were swept in the second round. We didn't even have the chance to play with the Lakers. And we are just number 3 on the list.
I'm not happy at all.
Yes, the Spurs did have the highest scoring bench in the NBA last year (39.2 ppg). The Spurs' bench also ranked first in Rebounding, Assists, and Steals last season.
http://www.hoopsstats.com/basketball.../7/diffeff/1-1
While as a fan I hope that both Anderson and Splitter potential translate into NBA production, there's no guarantee that it will, especially in their rookie season.
So when people talk about overrated players in other teams, they need to remember that at least those guys have proven they can play in the league, something we can't yet say about some of our super-signings.
OK, I ran the math on this one. RJ's 2010-2011 cost was going to be $22.8M, 15.2M in salary and another $7.6M in tax. What they added to that was essentially 3 years at $5.2M per year, AND it was reallocated to NOT pay the tax so that we could bring over Splitter THIS YEAR. How is this bad again? We only had a handful of real players plus some non-guaranteed hopefuls under contract. We had to fill out a roster with that HUGE contract hanging over our heads. How was that going to work?
It's a fairly meaningless stat anyways. Every team tighten up their rotation for the playoffs, so you're going to get most of your production from the starters and a couple of first-rate subs.Yes, the Spurs did have the highest scoring bench in the NBA last year (39.2 ppg). The Spurs' bench also ranked first in Rebounding, Assists, and Steals last season.
http://www.hoopsstats.com/basketball.../7/diffeff/1-1
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