Per my accompanying article on Hoopsworld (posted here on yawn) there has not been the seismic shift in power this year yet to any team to challenge the Spurs.
Meanwhile the Spurs got bigger with the signature coming of Manu's friend, remain deep at multiple positions, and daily both Tim and Manu get healthier as this year there is no major international compe ion. Plus mark it down they will pick up at least one more savy addition either from their overseas talent pool or from a free agent pick up.
There are very strong teams out there = Suns, Pacers, Pistons, Heat and Dallas and potentially still the Sonics or Houston but . . .
Bring it on!
By the end of the playoffs, I felt the Spurs showed a lot of room to grow. Even despite some big problems getting past Detroit, the most obvious reason for hope other than Manu's top to bottom brilliance was the Phoenix series. This is a team that has not fully found its might on offense. Sure, the Pistons dulled the attack, but I feel there's still a lot of upside there. Barry will have a better year, I feel, and Udrih and Brown still have room to grow, along with a better tutored Mohammed.
I'd agree that this team is much closer to being a washout than a juggernaut. There's no denying the fact that the Spurs are the champions, and for that I'm both happy and proud. But, if you think they rolled to a le, or somehow showed that they were substantially better than everyone else in the NBA, you weren't watching very closely. If Horry's Game 5 three rims out, the Spurs are, very likely, the runners-up and we're wondering how much further the Spurs have to go to win a le. Couple that with how perilously close the Spurs were to coming home with Seattle to play Game 7 and the fact that Phoenix had to play two home games in the WCF without Joe Johnson, and you can start to see that this wasn't anything like a 15-2 run. A bad break here or there, and this bandwagon is half-empty.
Looking forward, we haven't even seen what will happen this off-season. Some things have begun to happen, but there could be big moves to come, particularly once the coaching carousel comes to a stop.
Still, there is reason for optimism. Mostly, that comes, I think, from the fact that Tim and Manu get full summers off and should be healthy when 2005-06 starts. We'll see what Oberto brings, but the Spurs still have some issues that need to be resolved before I'm willing to consider them overwhelming favorites to repeat.
There is a lot of truth in what you are saying From Way Downtown about this past year's le run . If Horry's 3 goes out, we might have lost the series. In the 2003 run, against the Lakers if Horry's 3 goes in, we are down 3-2 going into their building. In 2004, if the .4 seconds starts on timethen, we probably beat the Lakers and face these same Pistons who are without the confidence of being the world champs. Tim is healthier. Suppose that in each case, something different happened. There may have been a different response. For example, I think it hurt Detroit to win by so much in game 4. So, you can't just remove our game 5 win in Detroit. You also have to think that we would probably have won game 6, with our backs against the wall and their backs would not have been against the wall. It is like a series of dominos, each one knocking the next one over. You can't remove one and think everything else would fall into place the same way. What this points out is several things: (1) the weakness of this type of thinking (what if) (2) the 2004 possibilites without the Fisher shot and (3) the fact that bottom line the Spurs found a way to get it done.
I also think that the 2-3-2 format hurt us. Tim was injured. Detroit's defense was going to make this a tough and ugly series. The other series went pretty well. Remember we had that 15 point lead on Seattle prior to Ray Allen going out in game 2. We saw from the playoffs what most of us already knew: we struggle against really physical teams and when Parker's jumpshot is off, it is much tougher for everybody else.
Okay, we may not be the overwhelming favorite, but we are the clear favorite . There is a reason for that. The teams that have as good an offense as we have, don't have as good a defense as we have. It is also true that the teams that have as good a defense as we have (e.g. detroit, possibly Chicago) do not have as good an offense as we have.
We have the best player in the world in Tim Duncan. We have one of the elite players in the game in Manu Ginobili. We have strong three point shooting. We have great post play from Timmy. We have the most complete team in the NBA at this time. Bruce, Manu and Tony have all won two championships with us. Tim has won three. Robert has six rings and has won with us.
Bottom line: when all is said and done, Shaq wasn't in this draft, neither was KG, ... Nobody else's team improved so much that they would remove the clear favorite status of the Spurs.
The champions, no matter how much they go through, are always an easy answer to be the best team in the league.
As a Piston fan I will say this. That Joe Johnson injury excuse is pure crap sorry. It is not like Duncan was 100% either so I do not want to hear that.Not to mention they still had Nash,Amare,Jim Jackson,Q,etc etc so if your going to say Johnson would of made a different thats BS. Hey luck is part of winning weather you like it or not. Pistons had their share of it as did the Spurs along with the other past teams like the Bulls and Lakers. One thing you spurs fans have to realize is you have this team coming back next year. They are young and will only get better. It hurt losing that game 7 but I respect the out of the spurs.Your going to face adversity in the playoffs it happens all the time. Stop saying the what if on games that you won.You came up with the clutch plays to close out teams including my Pistons. I hope we get back to the finals next year but I will say this is a Spurs team not like any other cuz they have these group of guys for years to come.
Well said, Piston Fan and you by the way have a team to reckon with for several year to come as well.
after o5-06 most of the pistons starters are free agents, and i have read rumblings of Ben Wallace possibly leaving detroit.
No they aren't. Ben Wallace might be a free agent but that's it. Tayshaun is signing a contract extension this summer and the rest of the starters still have several years left on their contracts.
ben wallace and chancey billups those players are the team lose one of those they aren;lt doing anything
well the voice of reason, Charles Barkley (kinding) agrees with you...as do I
but then again I always believe
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