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whottt,
calm down, it's only basketball.
First...a dash of context:
And my personal favorite...
Note the throwing of under the bus:
The note the usage of the laying out of the bus crushed corpse for AJ to step on...thus elevating:
Now for the reality as it was actually occurring...when buttholes clenched, as they usually did back then, and a true leader was needed
Because my friends...you can have all the leaders, with all the mouth, talking all the , yelling at everyone about what they should be doing...
But sooner or later...some mother er is going to have to step up and knock down that ing shot.
And with that in mind I give you:
Walking the talk
Fiery Elie has shown San Antonio the way
Click here for more on this story
Posted: Friday June 18, 1999 02:22 PM
Tough guy: Mario Elie has given the Spurs a newfound edge with his experience and demeanor. AP
By John Donovan, CNN/SI
SAN ANTONIO -- Mario Elie has a touch of gray in his stubble, a few hard years on his broad face.
He isn't so much talking at these NBA Finals as he's simply holding court. He's a teacher in this classroom, a historian, a basketball expert. He is the voice of reason in a hyped-up, over-exposed, made-for-TV extravaganza.
Elie is one man here who knows what is involved in winning an NBA championship. He did it twice as a member of the Houston Rockets earlier this decade, and he's spent much of the year clueing in his Spurs teammates on how it's done.
Now, with the Spurs on the verge of something great, Elie wants to make sure his guys don't forget his lessons.
"I'm always telling them, 'We're in the Finals now,'" says Elie, slumped comfortably in a courtside chair at the Alamodome after a practice. "We can't let up now."
The Spurs are a collection of young talent and old talent, and Elie knows exactly where he fits in that mix. He is 35 years old. He's played in Europe and in the CBA and bounced around the NBA, first in Golden State, then a stop in Portland, followed by his five-year stint in Houston and now his stay in San Antonio.
He's been there and done that. All of it.
And that's why Elie was brought into San Antonio in the first place. He was signed to provide leadership, show the youngsters about hard work -- and to help the Spurs get to the NBA Finals.
If game jerseys had sleeves, you'd know where to find Elie's heart. It's there for all to see.
Late in Game 1, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich pulled Elie in favor of Jaren Jackson. Elie steamed about it, though his displeasure was salved when Jackson nailed three 3-pointers in the fourth quarter to seal the Spurs' win.
"Mario's never happy," said point guard Avery Johnson. "Only time he is happy is maybe if you bring him some food at night, his favorite -- fried shrimp or something.
"But other than that, he's never happy. He's not happy to start the game, to come out of the game. That's something that we've had to deal with. And we like it that way."
Johnson and Elie both live in Sugarland Texas, and they spend time together in the off-season. After Elie became a free-agent this off-season, Johnson suggested to the Spurs that they go after his friend.
They did -- and the Spurs got off to a 6-8 start.
That's when Elie stepped in.
"I challenged our big guys. I told them 'As they go, we go,'" Elie said. "I said 'You guys are not playing up to your capabilities.' I said what I said. And it was the truth."
At one point, center David Robinson asked Johnson why Elie was so mad. He even wondered whether Elie was really happy in San Antonio.
Johnson told Robinson that Elie was hacked off because Robinson wasn't playing well.
"Avery told him, just like that," Elie said. "But we turned it around because of them [Robinson and Tim Duncan]. Tim took it to another level, and Dave stepped back and became the second man behind Tim."
Since the slow start, the Spurs have won 43 of their last 49 -- including 11 straight in the playoffs. More than anyone else on the team, Elie is credited with turning the previously "soft" Spurs into the power that they are.
"They have more fire, and they are hungry now," said the Knicks' Latrell Sprewell, who often played against the old Spurs when he was with Golden State. "They are playing with a confidence now that I hadn't seen when I was on the West Coast."
Elie averaged only 9.7 points a game this season. But he has been a defensive force all along, and his hard-nosed play on New York's Allan Houston in Game 1 was a big reason the Spurs won.
He was there right after Game 1, too, telling his team that it was only one game, and that the Knicks would not go quietly.
Now, of course, the Spurs are listening.
And so is everyone else.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/bas...6/18/fcp_elie/
And furthermore:
http://www.canoe.ca/NBAPlayoffs99/may30_elie.html
When Elie's on his game, he's super Mario
SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- For all the talk about Tim Duncan and David Robinson, Mario Elie probably has done as much as any player to transform the San Antonio Spurs from a good team to a le contender.
He's a tough defender, he's played on two NBA championship teams in Houston and, most of all, he's brought an at ude to a team that needed one.
Elie was a major factor in holding down Isaiah Rider in San Antonio's 80-76 victory over Portland Saturday in Game 1 of the Western Conference final, and he had a crucial drive to the basket, as well as two important, free throws down the stretch.
With the experience that comes from nine previous playoff appearances, he keeps his team from ever becoming complacent.
Game 2 tonight, he tells his teammates, "will be the toughest game of the series."
"No. 1, he stays angry," Avery Johnson said. "He's one of the angriest guys on the court. On the court, he has an edge, he's bitter about a lot of things. He stays mad all the time and we kind of needed that little edge."
Coach Gregg Popovich used the same word when describing Elie's importance.
"He adds an edge to your team. He really helps you create a personality, a toughness," Popovich said. "He's somebody who doesn't accept losing. If we lose a game, he doesn't want to talk any of us. We're all bums, and that's kind of good."
Johnson said it's no coincidence San Antonio got rolling after a 6-8 start when Elie's role grew.
"We finally got Mario into the rotation," Johnson said, "and we took off from there."
Elie saw a blandness on his new team after he signed with a Spurs as a free agent before this season began.
"I thought at first when I got here that we were sort of a corporate team, just punch in and have no fun," he said.
For Elie, who had to claw his way up to the NBA by playing in Europe and the Continental Basketball Association, there was no excuse for just going through the motions.
"We had a lot of laid-back guys, and that's just not my personality," he said. "I just try to bring some fun, excitement, some chest bumping, some high-fiving, just having fun and enjoying the game. It seems like now our guys are showing a lot of emotion."
They will need it tonight against a Blazer team that remains confident even though it has lost four of five from San Antonio this season, a confidence that comes from playing the Spurs close in each loss.
Rider, who came to practice at the Alamodome on Sunday wearing a straw cowboy hat that looked as if somebody bit a hole in the brim, noted that Portland lost by just four points Saturday despite a sub-par performance by almost everyone on the team except Rasheed Wallace.
"What's so funny is we're still confident we can beat this team," Rider said. "We haven't played well at all against this team, not for 48 minutes. We feel if we play good, we'll be fine."
Wallace, whose size, long arms, jumping ability and quickness create a serious matchup problem for San Antonio, scored a career playoff-high 28 points in Game 1, but no other Blazer managed more than Rider's 13.
Portland also committed 16 turnovers, twice as many as the Spurs.
"For us to have a chance to win, we need other guys to step up and have good games also," Blazers coach Mike Dunleavy said. "That's the good thing about our team. They could be over there worrying about Rasheed all day long and it's not Rasheed tomorrow, its somebody else. That's been the strength of our team all year long. You don't necessarily know who to prepare for, who it can be on any night."
The Spurs didn't think much of their game Saturday, either. They believe they relied too much on Duncan and Robinson, who scored 21 points apiece.
"Basically, we've got to shoot the ball better," Robinson said. "We shoot 40 per cent it's going to be tough for us to put together a good game."
Still, San Antonio was good enough for its sixth straight win in the playoffs. Three more, and the Spurs have their first trip to the NBA finals.
"We had five days off. We weren't really in-synch the way we should have been," Johnson said. "But whether you win ugly, whether you win pretty, it really doesn't matter during this time of the year, as long as you win."
In rememberance of the man who truly lead the Spurs to the promised land:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAGDN...elated&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lkee...elated&search=
For 17, the number that e'er should be retired, for it wears greatness, like greatness wears it
Don't worry...you can count whottt to keep pounding that bus..er...rock.
whottt,
calm down, it's only basketball.
I don't care if you get David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Gregg Poppovich and the all knowing ghost of Angelo Drossos up here telling me AJ was the guy who did it...
They'd be wrong about that.
Becuase I was freaking Spurfan before that...and I know, we were soft choking es with AJ leading us...and so was Gregg Poppovich.
If they can't see it...their problem.
Mario was the guy who did it. Period.
End of argument.
Are you in love with seeing yourself in print so much that you needed a new thread?
And your mother was only a mother....
Just because you got repeatedly owned in the AJ thread doesn't mean you need to start a new thread. New thread, same result.
Now I guess I'll actually read your post . . .
I don't deny that Mario Elie had a huge impact on the team's psyche, how could I? I saw for myself that the Spurs were a different team in 1999. But two years out of a long career does not a Spur make.
If anything, Elie reinforced the type of at ude AJ had. One guy saying it is just one guy saying it. Two guys saying it starts a movement.
Had he played here as long as Avery played here, I'd be fine with the retirement of #17 as well.
I agree. The idea that AJ did anything other than finally find a way to motivate David Robinson out of being a playoff doormat is revisionist. Even my wife knows who the leader of the '99 team is, and she only follows the Spurs grudgingly.
For once, just once, I wish an "End of argument" from whottt would actually come to fruition.
Um, I seem to recall the other guys on the team getting tired of AJ and five-oh constantly trying to convert them to Christianity. Again: Revisionist.
Whottt makes me laugh harder than anyone when he gets flipped into Crazy Whottt mode.
Thank goodness the season is almost here. So we can have arguments about stuff that matters
Um, who the are you that you recall how annoyed they all were?Um, I seem to recall the other guys on the team getting tired of AJ and five-oh constantly trying to convert them to Christianity. Again: Revisionist.
This isn't spelling smack. I actually had to look it up because I wasn't sure. I posted it because it is now my great hope that whottt uses the word "pettifogger" in the near future.
Um, I'm someone who the knows how to read a newspaper or listen to the radio. I'm not someone who makes up about AJ just because he hit a fifteen footer for a ing change.
Gotta wipe Pepsi off the monitor now. Holy crap.
First of all, those who read the other thread will see that whottt admitted to liking Dallas more than the Spurs. How can this Dallas homer tell Spurs fans who should or shouldn't have their number retired? He needs to stick to his real and admitted favorite team.
Secondly, why must he pull an attention move and start a new thread? He was getting his azz handed to him in the old thread. I guess he's going to call in his local Victoria posters to come prop him up in a new thread so he won't feel completely owned. Not only did he lose a bet to timvp regarding AJ, he gets obliterated for his poor takes on top of it.
In the other thread, whottt called David Robinson soft and a choker in his attempt to trash AJ. Then he claimed that AJ's lack of three-point shooting was a championship killer. When it was pointed out that multiple championship teams won les without making more than two three pointers in their entire playoff run, he backtracked like the Dallas fan he is.
Now he thinks some weak bolding of some Elie fluff pieces will distract those from venturing into the other thread where his ownage was utterly embarrassing for fellow Dallas fans.
Classic.
Why wasn't this bolded? By propping Elie, you are basically propping AJ's recruiting skills. Which is still a skill.
Even more reason to raise that number to the rafters.
You are a disgrace to fans of the Spurs who like Dallas teams more.
How can you say Mario freakin' Elie "truly lead" the Spurs to the 1999 championship. The two players who "truly lead" the Spurs to the championship were David Robinson and Tim Duncan. Elie, much like AJ, was just along for the ride.
I don't know why you suddenly hate David Robinson. You used to be a fan but now you call him soft and a choker. Then you say it was Elie who "truly lead" the Spurs.
David Robinson and Tim Duncan deserve better.
I made up now?
You're whott plus spelling, minus ellipses.
No no no no no no...
AJ was like a mosquito...because he talked a bunch of , got in guys faces knew it all...
But he never did Jack on the court...
Thus he was annoying pest that only made losing suck worse...
Mario Elie OTOH, talked a bunch of , got in guys faces, and knew it all...
Plus he ing knocked shots when it matters...and that was what was most needed.
We don't win without Mario...period. If you want to give AJ credit for bringing in Mario...fine. But Mario was the catalyst.
And when he left we became soft choking es again...
Until we got a similar guy who called himself Jack...it wasn't rememberance...it was lightning striking twice...with guys who could hit those damn shots.
There he goes again.
Lame.
It does get boring being 35 laps ahead of everyone else...
No, you implied that I made up. I just said you are being revisionist. There were reports (plural) that guys in the locker room were getting tired of AJ trying to hold prayer meetings on the bus and in the locker room. Perhaps that was earlier or later than '99, though. I do remember the reports though.
AJ was still the captain, as he had been for a number of years, but Elie was the de-facto leader of that squad during the championship run. Since you are arguing that AJ's body of work, rather than his contribution to the championship team, is why you think he should have his number retired, then I really have no argument with you beyond what I perceived as an unintentional misrepresentation of the mood of the team.
My firm handled a case not too long ago in which a judge on the Fifth Circuit issued an order accusing opposing counsel of engaging in pettifoggery.
I had to look it up.
Where below is the revisionism?No, you implied that I made up. I just said you are being revisionist.
As to the reports you read, I don't recall them. I'm not saying that I did not read those reports - I may have and they left no impression upon me. My filter is different from yours, clearly.I don't deny that Mario Elie had a huge impact on the team's psyche, how could I? I saw for myself that the Spurs were a different team in 1999. But two years out of a long career does not a Spur make.
If anything, Elie reinforced the type of at ude AJ had. One guy saying it is just one guy saying it. Two guys saying it starts a movement.
Had he played here as long as Avery played here, I'd be fine with the retirement of #17 as well.
whott remark withdrawn.
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