Don't know if this was posted yet, I didn't go thru all pages, but I found this interesting.
Forty years from now, your grandkid says: "Tell me about the Spurs."
What do you say?
Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
The Spurs were way ahead of the curve when they drafted Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili.
Anthony: They were perhaps the best defensive team ever. They didn't have the charisma or the persona of some of the other dynasties, and they played in San Antonio, which is not as compelling or as significant a sports market. And of all the great dynasties, this team never won back-to-back les (the one glaring quality absent from its résumé). However, there's nothing else to argue. They had the best power forward ever! And one of the best coaches and front offices the game has ever had.
Abbott: There was a lot more than basketball to the NBA. There were marketing deals. There was hype. There were agents, shoe contracts, police records, media, money, strippers and a million other things. But the San Antonio Spurs? As much as is possible in that era's NBA, they were an organization that was about basketball. And you know what? They were pretty good at it.
Broussard: The Spurs were a very good team led by the greatest power forward of all time and a Hall of Fame point guard in Tony Parker. They didn't capture the imagination of the public because they were a fairly dull team, both in terms of playing style and personality. But they were the most professional team in sports. Their players were old-school in that they respected the coach's authority and didn't mind being yelled at, and the coach was old-school in that he was no-nonsense and didn't care about having his name up in lights. The Tim Duncan Spurs were a dynasty, but not as good as the Jordan Bulls, Magic Lakers or Bird Celtics. But Duncan retired with five rings. Wow!
Bucher: The best example of teamwork and ego-less NBA basketball in their era. Proof that mainstream America couldn't care less about those qualities -- otherwise, the Spurs would draw the highest TV ratings, not the lowest.
Hollinger: They were the first basketball team to really operate like a corporation, and as a result they were the best-managed sports organization of their era. Now, four decades later, everybody operates like this and we take it for granted, but the Spurs were truly ahead of their time -- everyone else ended up copying them, even in other sports. Amazingly, at the time almost nobody remarked about how incredible the Spurs were in this regard. I was a witness.
Sheridan: Pretty much every other year they were in the Finals, and in those in-between years they were the team everyone feared most in the playoffs. They were a model franchise in so many ways, and they were the first to successfully make the move toward importing international players. They weren't a dynasty, but they were a known commodity that every other team feared, year in and year out.
Stein: I will say that Duncan was the most dominant player of his generation more than I will call this a dynasty. I will say that I was lucky to live in Texas for a good chunk of Duncan's career so I could cover it closely. I will say that Popovich and Duncan were the pre-eminent coach/player combo for the first 15 years of my career covering the NBA. And I will say what Brent Barry said the other day to the New York Times, except I will have to explain that the Spurs never got their due from the people in spite of these truths: "No character issues, professionalism, preparation -- everything people always say they want, it's all happening right here."
ChumpDumper: The Spurs used the luxury tax revenues secured by their owner from Mark Cuban, Paul Allen and Cablevision to bribe the refs and league officials every couple of years to buy a championship, leaving a trail of bloody noses and ruptured testicles in their wake.
I don't know if basketball will ing be around in 40 years. Jesus.
40 years from now...with flopping's trend, when the ref does the jump ball to start the games both teams just fall to the floor, a la Ring Around the Rosy.
ShoogarBear: "Good lord, Bavetta is still reffing?"
timvp: "It was all Manu."
Amare: "It's not fair, I was trying to check in. I mean I was trying to place peace maker. "
The Spurs were one of the last great basketball teams back when the premiere league was in the United States, before David Stern spearheaded the Chinese Basketball Association, where all the best players in the world play today.
Outsourced!
"kids, that is Robert Horry, he is going for his 33rd NBA championship ring"
Duncan and Bowen went on to the court.
Rodman played on the Spurs?
wtf grandpa.
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