With Tim Duncan, they might have won by 10, you know?

[ducks]

"With Damp, we might have blown 'em out," Jerry Stackhouse said. "With Tim Duncan, they might have won by 10, you know? There's still a lot for the fans to think about going into the playoffs."

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...e.23c6155.html

[LEONARD]

Exactly...the game meant nothing going in...was played hard by both teams...and in the end, STILL means NOTHING...

[monosylab1k]

very true. they might have still lost by 5 too. sucks that we can't know.

[Bandwagon Bill]

Damp isn't that big of a difference. Diop played as well if not better than Damp would have.

[Findog]

Mavs lost a game to the Spurs a couple years ago in San Antonio when Duncan sat out with an injury. We beat them in the playoffs with him throwing down 32 and 13 on us. Spurs could've used him in the fourth quarter yesterday, but we'll see who the better team is for sure a month from now.

[DubMcDub]

Damp isn't that big of a difference. Diop played as well if not better than Damp would have.

This is the worst part of the Spurs' whining about all this.

None of you know how the game would have played out. You have educated guesses based on Duncan's skill and general impact on the game, but really you don't know. Maybe Duncan would have committed a clutch travel in the closing seconds like he did in OT of Game 7 last year, or in the Nov 24th game @ SA this season.

I'm not saying that would have happened, but my postulations are just as valid as yours. Value judgments of "well Duncan being there for the 4th would have made more of a difference than Damp being there the whole game" are absolutely worthless and irrelevant.

What any of you think WOULD HAVE happened means nothing. You don't know. None of us do. All that matters is what happened.

[Testing]

at the logic. Damp's impact would have been so great that the Mavs would have blown out the Spurs. But Tim's impact would have resulted in simply a 10 point win?

[Mr. Body]

Wow, I didn't realize Dampier was that great.

[DubMcDub]

at the logic. Damp's impact would have been so great that the Mavs would have blown out the Spurs. But Tim's impact would have resulted in simply a 10 point win?

That's not what he's saying. He's saying that nobody really knows what would have happened in either situation because those aren't the situations that came to fruition.

Don't be so blind. There's not some mathematical equation of which players are on the court that will tell you who wins or how many points or scored. If there was, you wouldnt have countless situations where a team's best player gets injured and that team goes out fired up and wins their game by 20 (see the Miami Heat after Wade's injury as an example).

[DarrinS]

Eric Dampier is the best center to ever play the game.


Maybe Stack was trying to be funny.

[Bandwagon Bill]

This is the worst part of the Spurs' whining about all this.

None of you know how the game would have played out. You have educated guesses based on Duncan's skill and general impact on the game, but really you don't know. Maybe Duncan would have committed a clutch travel in the closing seconds like he did in OT of Game 7 last year, or in the Nov 24th game @ SA this season.

I'm not saying that would have happened, but my postulations are just as valid as yours. Value judgments of "well Duncan being there for the 4th would have made more of a difference than Damp being there the whole game" are absolutely worthless and irrelevant.

What any of you think WOULD HAVE happened means nothing. You don't know. None of us do. All that matters is what happened.

Obviously you only read the first 7 words of my statement that you quoted. I was praising the impact of Diop as he made a much bigger impact than what I had expected, especially on defense. You'd be hard pressed to say Damp would have done any better. He would have provided depth, but IMO Diop has a bigger impact due to his defensive work.

[DubMcDub]

Obviously you only read the first 7 words of my statement that you quoted. I was praising the impact of Diop as he made a much bigger impact than what I had expected, especially on defense. You'd be hard pressed to say Damp would have done any better. He would have provided depth, but IMO Diop has a bigger impact due to his defensive work.

I read the whole thing and understood it completely. I didn't take your remarks as disparaging toward Damp. My point isn't even that he would have "played better". My point is that you have no idea how his presence could have affected the game either way.

Literally every Spurs fan to post in this thread has misunderstood Stackhouse's point. Let me put it to you this way...he could have just as easily said, "With Damp we might have lost by 25" and "With Duncan the Spurs might have lost by 15". His point wasn't that either thing would have definitively affected the game a certain way. His point was much more general--that the presence of guys who werent on the court could have affected the game in an infinite different number of ways and we'll never know what "would have been".

[Three_Rings]

Mavs lost a game to the Spurs a couple years ago in San Antonio when Duncan sat out with an injury. We beat them in the playoffs with him throwing down 32 and 13 on us. Spurs could've used him in the fourth quarter yesterday, but we'll see who the better team is for sure a month from now.

.

[mardigan]

I read the whole thing and understood it completely. I didn't take your remarks as disparaging toward Damp. My point isn't even that he would have "played better". My point is that you have no idea how his presence could have affected the game either way.

Literally every Spurs fan to post in this thread has misunderstood Stackhouse's point. Let me put it to you this way...he could have just as easily said, "With Damp we might have lost by 25" and "With Duncan the Spurs might have lost by 15". His point wasn't that either thing would have definitively affected the game a certain way. His point was much more general--that the presence of guys who werent on the court could have affected the game in an infinite different number of ways and we'll never know what "would have been".

Well I guess we will never know so this all seems kind of pointless dun'it?
P.S., Damp sucks donkey balls

[Bandwagon Bill]

I read the whole thing and understood it completely. I didn't take your remarks as disparaging toward Damp. My point isn't even that he would have "played better". My point is that you have no idea how his presence could have affected the game either way.

Literally every Spurs fan to post in this thread has misunderstood Stackhouse's point. Let me put it to you this way...he could have just as easily said, "With Damp we might have lost by 25" and "With Duncan the Spurs might have lost by 15". His point wasn't that either thing would have definitively affected the game a certain way. His point was much more general--that the presence of guys who werent on the court could have affected the game in an infinite different number of ways and we'll never know what "would have been".

But are you asserting that the presence of Damp would be even close to as impactful as the presence of Duncan?

[SRJ]

His point wasn't that either thing would have definitively affected the game a certain way. His point was much more general--that the presence of guys who werent on the court could have affected the game in an infinite different number of ways and we'll never know what "would have been".

That's fair, but what is the most likely outcome if Duncan stays in? Dampier plays?

[LilMissSPURfect]

[Spurminator]

If this game was in May I might have given a about any of this.

[DubMcDub]

But are you asserting that the presence of Damp would be even close to as impactful as the presence of Duncan?

I'm not asserting that Damp is 1/2 the basketball player Duncan is. But in this particular game on this particular day his presence could have affected the game just as much (or more, or less). And I don't necessarily mean in terms of points, or rebounds, or any tangible statistic.

You just never know. That's all I'm saying. There's a massively random element to sports that most people here seem to be forgetting. The outcome of a game is about a lot more than the sum of the talent on each side of the floor. If that weren't true, then you would never have an upset.

[Spurminator]

You never know ever. That's why they play the games and don't concoct mathematical equations based on player values to decide who wins.

[DubMcDub]

You never know ever. That's why they play the games and don't concoct mathematical equations based on player values to decide who wins.

EXACTLY. Thank you.

[Bandwagon Bill]

You never know for sure, but you can look at the years of evidence that point to the fact that losing TD is a much bigger blow than losing Damp. That's all I'm saying. You have to be logical and can't just throw out this blanket "you never know" statement everywhere. Just imagine where our society would be if we analyzed everything with "you never know"

[cheguevara]

Avery had to put in his best players at the end of the 4th. and we didn't even have Duncan, and Manu wasn't even playin his best. And Barry must have been drunk or high on something by the decisions he was doing late in the game. but this game was giftwrapped to Cuban by that piece of ref

[DubMcDub]

You never know for sure, but you can look at the years of evidence that point to the fact that losing TD is a much bigger blow than losing Damp. That's all I'm saying. You have to be logical and can't just throw out this blanket "you never know" statement everywhere. Just imagine where our society would be if we analyzed everything with "you never know"

The blanket "you never know" is in response to certain Spurs fans using "we WOULD HAVE [absolutely] won" as the crux of their argument.

There was a post just yesterday saying that even though the Spurs lost, they won, because they "would have" with Duncan and they "proved" that. How can you prove something when it doesn't even happen?

I'm not advocating throwing out blanket "well, you never know" statements about everything in life. Just in sports (which in terms of anything important in life are meaningless) and when the outcome is already behind us. And ESPECIALLY when people have the audacity to claim they know what would have happened without a doubt and are using that as their only point of evidence in an argument.

Not to mention, there's a certain hypocrisy about this whole thing. Certain Spurs fans sure have no problem chalking up a moral victory yesterday based on what they think "would have happened" if Duncan doesnt get T'ed up twice on some questionable calls. But I'm willing to wager that if I declared a similar Moral Victory Mavericks Championship 2006 because of some of the questionable calls in the Finals last year in favor of a certain SG, that I'd be crucified.

Just food for thought.

[peskypesky]

There's no doubt in my mind that Dampier is as valuable to the Mavs as Duncan is to the Spurs. I agree with Stackhouse and all the Mavs fans. They are totally comparable players. Yeah. Uh-huh.