You can get caught up in all kinds of hooplah, and hubris when you micro manage your way through an entire season as we serious fans tend to do.

Is the loss to the kings indicative of a gaping maw where our defense should reside?

Is Kevin Martin really that good or are we just that bad?

The three point shot? Can we hit it? Is this a trend or an aberration?

Its a weekly rollercoaster built upon the failures of certain players, the inadequacies of the team as a whole, and the strengths of our opponent, as much as it is upon our success.

Some call for heads to roll, others preach a steady hand. Some have monster trades in mind, foul beasts that stalk their nightmares feasting on the insecurities of poor pick and roll defence, bringing in the projects of other lesser GM's in the vain hope they turn into David Robinson mark 2.

With each progressive game we tend to shift our perspective a little more from column A to column B or vice versa.

Continue reading this post »

It's all over the usual sites at the present, yahoo, probasketballtalk, true hoop etc.

Apparently the owners want to cut players salaries by 30%.

According to everyones favorite New York Lawyer, the same guys who pay Darko Milicic 20 million for being tall, and  are unable to make an honest dollar from it.

I am not sure that there will be a groundswell of public support for the league if it pushs this thing to a lockout.  

I wonder how Stern can get out front for what is to be candid, a rabble of owners(is that the collective ?  It should be). He is basically talking about defending these guys from themselves.

Take a buffoon like Michael Heisley, a guy who created his own labour dispute out of nothing, by refusing to pay his rookies 120% of scale (Someone told him it was just convention not an actual rule type thingamy) and got into a low rent game of chickent with Xavier Henry.  

The kicker obviously was that he was trying to save a few hundred thousand, after paying Rudy Gay all of the bananas in the world to not rebound the ball well for his position and only take a bad shot when he was physically touching the ball.

I wonder at Donald "Whats a contract" Sterling, I wonder at James Dolan, I wonder like hell at the Kroenkes in Denver, and the conglomerate of humans running the Hawks in Atlanta who decided to create Salary Apocalypse by committee. I pretty much wonder at the majority of NBA owners.  They have access to the same kind of information we have only better, yet they still tend to grossly overpay for the services of players who tend to almost immediately sink a franchise.

These are the same owners who have basically made huge expiring chunks of flesh like Tracy McGrady, Stephan Marbury, Kenny Thomas, Allen Iverson et al valuable because they can release a franchise from the salary cap stupidity they generally backed themselves into in the first place, with their wonderful & magical expiring fruit.

I know this isn't 100% spurs centric even though of course it will affect our beloved franchise.

I just find this kind of thing enraging.  Obviously the owners are going to inflate losses, the players are going to complain and come back with record profits...it's all grist to the mill, but it sure looks like the lockouts coming.

We are rolling the league over from last season that several of you played in.  The first league just drafted today, so anyone who missed out there are a few guys coming back from last year and hopefully we will get enough to roll out a solid season.

It's a yahoo league.

Pounding More Rock is the league name the password is ptr

CLICK HERE PILGRIM

Or PM me and i can send you the details.

Cheers.

Not sure if this has surfaced elsewhere but it surprised me.

Straight from Adrian Wojnarowski's honker to you.

 

Morrow draws several suitors

Golden State Warriors restricted free agent Anthony Morrow(notes) has attracted a slew of interest in the first hours of free agency, including from the Los Angeles Lakers, San Antonio Spurs, Boston Celtics, Portland Trail Blazers, Utah Jazz and Los Angeles Clippers.

 

While he would be a great guy to have on board, I don't know where the front office would find the financial wherewithall to actually make a deal happen?

If we grab Tiago for most if not all of the MLE we really don't have much more than the LLE to offer and no way we pick up a RFA for that.

Woj while not 100% is for my money the most accurate of the commentators out there, which makes this especially interesting.

My little bit of fluff on the side is the Sacremento Kings.  I have always had a soft spot for them, for whatever reason despite them not being very spurs like and I particularly enjoyed Kevin Martins tenure there as he toiled unappreciated and unloved by the rest of the NBA.

Well Aykis16 went to the pre draft workouts for Hassan Whiteside which featured none other than our own #49 pick Ryan Richards from the old dart.

I think the massive white guy in the video is Cole Aldrich.  Man these guys are massive. Whiteside has the most ridiculous wings i've ever seen.

Richards hustles and he is aggressive, but you can see the difference between posting up joe average in front of 20 people and doing full court drills against monsters.  One thing i do like is that he is playing against Shot blockers and not being utilised as a stretch catch and shoot guy.  If he gets a matchup like whiteside in summerleague he is going to get seriously open looks.

Sacramento Kings Prospect Workout 6/8/10 Part 1 (via AykisStR)

Sacramento Kings June 8th Pre-Draft Workout Part 2 (via AykisStR)

Lots and lots of internet gossip regarding Cavs coach Mike Brown being given the bums rush in Cleveland.

Have a look at the last five winners prior to Scott Brooks taking the title this year with OKC.

2004–05	Mike D'Antoni^	United States[b]	Phoenix Suns	62–20	.756
2005–06	Avery Johnson	United States	Dallas Mavericks	60–22	.732
2006–07	Sam Mitchell	United States	Toronto Raptors	47–35	.573
2007–08	Byron Scott	United States	New Orleans Hornets	56–26	.683
2008–09	Mike Brown^	United States	Cleveland Cavaliers	66–16	.805

Notice anything apart from the fact that they all had a penchant for designer suits and three of them liked to sport a mustache? 

They are all currently not employed by the team that they won the award with, well in fact Mark Cuban may well be paying Avery Johnson still but you get the idea.

If Brown goes you'd have to fear for Brooks.  It could be that this is the poison chalice of professional sports.

Daylight came second (well actually calaca87 came second) but it was a pretty soul destroying beat down post all star break.  When you win a 17 team comp by nearly 10 points it's nothing short of a Ducan MVP season.

The Duncan Ultimatum romped home in 3rd to finish out the standings.  We'll definitely be doing this again next year should be a lot of fun.

Heres hoping the Spurs handle the Mavs the same way Las Espulas handled the other 17 hooligans on Yahoo.

Last chance to join, if anyone is interested theres currently 13 teams in the yahoo league.

Link to Join

The league I.D is: 243222
the password: ptr

I know a lot of you have other leagues etc, I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware before we rolled it out.

We already have more teams than last year so that at least is a positive :)

Any questions will be happily answered as time permits.

Last season as other Pt'Rockers become less and less interested in their fantasy teams, the unthinkable occurred and the crown of BEST IN UNIVERSE fell to me an unlikely kangaroo lover from the Northern Beaches of Sydney.

It was all over the local papers though some of you may have missed it due to a percieved geographic insignificance. Anyway I would like to strive for irrelevance again this season with any and all who are interested.

The Duncan Ultimatum was the iron fisted commissioner last season, and cleared the way for my win by suspending half the league for leaving the bench.  Comedy gold.

Is it on again then?

I have been searching high & Low for a spurs iphone 3GS case.

I know this isn't the normal kind of spurs post we generate here at PTR but hey I have made heaps of those kinds of relevant posts, and i figured if anyone could help out it would be one of you, especially you Texan's.

As a lot of you know I live in Sydney, near the beach in Queenscliff, so its more surfboards and rugby league, not exactly a lot of spurs merchandise floating around out here, i tried google, ebay et al but had no luck whatsoever, unless of course you wanted to buy something relating to KG, Kobe, Or Lebron in which case you can get anything from ball sack warmer to Life size pyramid (in royal purple and gold of course)....

But i digress...I am not a big team logo guy, I have a spurs hat...which doesn't fit, and i had a pair of spurs shorts when i was like 10, however i figure it's time to ring the merchandising cowbell, plus my youngest sons 10 months old now and I want to hook him up into a spurs outfit soon.

Is it possible that he might consider an MLE deal?  He is a good rebounder and works hard, he obviously doesn't space the floor and is not an ideal fit, but i'd certainly prefer him than a platoon of Gooden and Pachulia/Rasho.

He seems committed to defence, and whilst he might not have the range we require he would be a very handy big to throw into a rotation.  His young and would be a banger you could rely on for a lot of years to come.  I honestly don't see him doing it but no one is jumping out of their skin to offer the guy the kind of money he seems to have been after (around 9 -10 million per).

Obviously now that I have written this Adrian Wojnarowski will have some free agent buzz inking him to the warriors at 11 million per.

They are some kind of crazy over at Draft Express.  Or rather not crazy but reporting rumours that seem CRAZY!

Draft Express Scroll Down to the Memphis Thabeet thing

To break it down they are talking about swapping picks with memphis with either of Shock & Hawes as "compensation" for the trade.  Just nuts that we give one of those two up to move up two spots in this draft.

What say you the heaving huddled masses?

Of trading up in the draft to the kind of area where we can get an interesting PG prospect.

Then sending that Pick to the Hawks for the rights to Josh Childress?

I know there is no way he plays for the hawks again after the way things went down, and they need to figure out what the hell they are going to do if they don't resign Mike Bibby now that Acie Law is a failed human, and flip murray is not a long term answer..?

I think this is something that would be a good thing for us long term.

Hopefully we will have Tim, who will be surrounding him, whats the rotation going to be like will Gooden stick around?  Do we want him to? What will we do with George?  Can he become a starter?  Where do we put him?  What about Roger?  Can he be a 2 guard for the forseeable future?  What are his issues with coming off the bench?

So much to figure out. 

Heres a good start

Hoops Hypes Contracts

I think Goodens gone, I pray Findog gets nothing more, ditto Imme JV et al.  It would be good to see Ian back as our athletic big etc. 

What say you the people?

So we are down 3-1, I am gutted.  It is only now I realise just how spoilt I have been as a spurs fan this past decade.  This is how it feels to be a fan of a mortal NBA franchise. 

We have one more game this season should we continue to play this demented brand of basketball.

No one else is scoring consistently or with anything approaching confidence outside of the all star tandem of Tim & Tony.  They pumped in 68 points between them, accounting for all but 22 of the final 90. 

Can we win with just these two scoring and very limited contributions from various role players?

My thought here, and it is not a terribly original one, is that the spurs move back to what they know.  For the past decade the calling card of the franchise has been outstanding. exemplary defence. 

Does Pop have the minerals to change the starting five from one All NBA Defender & four average/below average defenders, to a beefed up traditional spurs five, with Bowen, Thomas & Hill filling out the numbers.

Live by the old axiom.  Hold em under 80 and let God sort em out.

Can the spurs win with this?  Findog is a reprehensible defender.  Age has robbed him of his speed, and the league is jam packed with superb wings who have all the skills, length and zip to get where they want to regardless of how much he wants to stop them.  Josh Howard is one such player.  Bowen can handle Howard if allowed the time.

Hill can mark up on either Barea or Kidd, he has the length speed and desire to hound people into the dirt. 

Thomas while not the perfect man to defend Dirk rebounds the ball makes smart decisions and is tough as nails.

So what price defence?  Dirk can probably go get 30 regardless of what we do to him, he always has in the past.  Can anyone else on the mavs score enough?  Can we score enough?

I would adore the sight of a hard nosed angry spurs team.  Making great rotations, staying in front of their man funnellilng penetration to the large human with the long arms in the middle.  Getting stops. 

So what of it?

though i did check the box score this morning when i woke up.

Apparently George hill is good for 5.45 per night and the JV is rocketing along at around 11.  Slightly perturbing.In fact diabolical.

I am pretty much horrified that Pops lost his marbles and is divvying up the rotations based on who has the shiniest head.

Someone put my mind at ease..please...did George get an elbow to the face or some such dastardly act that held him out of the fight?

Found this while noodling on Wizznuts, you guys have probably seen it, but it gave me a real chortle when i read this section on Larry Hughes & how he related to the NBA Trade Dealine,  seemed like the perfect description of larrys career.

Everyone was anticipating the mega-trades, player moves that would realign the balance of power but lets face it this is what the NBA trade deadline turned into: a game called "Osbournes" played by NBA GMs where they pretend Larry Hughes is a giant ham and they try and throw him over their neighbors fence when he's not looking.

Lets blame the world

Basically rehashes everything and makes an excuse for every failure....

A championship never seemed closer to the Phoenix Suns than on May 14, 2007, a day that should have been celebrated for finally slaying the San Antonio dragon in enemy territory.

With the Suns poised to forge a 2-2 deadlock in a best-of-seven series that felt like a championship bout, it seemed like Phoenix had finally broken through after injury excuses (Joe Johnson’s face in 2005, Amare Stoudemire’s knee and Raja Bell’s calf in 2006) and playoff inexperience doomed the team in prior years.

Yeah it all went wrong when you failed to actually TIE the series at 2 apiece, that was pretty close to winning a championship!...Anyone would think that the big Robert Horry decking Nash thing was in Game 7...of the finals...

Followed up immediately by playing of the injury card to cover seasons 2005 & 2006.

Then you get another 1000 words on how David Stern followed the "letter" of the law instead of the "spirit" in handing out suspensions blah blah blah.

hahhaha..the spirit of the law.  Go watch a super hero movie for gods sake.

then there is this absolute zinger

There’s no saying the Suns would have won Game 5 at full strength (or even with just Diaw, which I believe would have been the case) or even a Game 7 against the playoff-tested Spurs not to mention the later two series San Antonio won to take home the crown.

But to this day, a legitimate case can be made that Cheap Shot Rob cost the Suns a championship.

So you can't guarantee that the suns would have won game 5...(they didn't win game 4 by the way....and were down 2-1 in the series at that point so it's not like they were red hot favorites..) but you can certainly make a good case that they would have won THE ENTIRE SHOOTING MATCH if not for that one play....

good lord.  It gets better last years double OT loss after TImmy Nails the three to smash it up...

If the Suns rotated out to Duncan is this a different series? Who knows the way Tony Parker carved them up all series long and who knows with the way the Suns badly missed Marion with Grant Hill ailing, but we do know it would have been closer to being the seven-game showdown all of us were expecting.

EXPECTING EXSHMECTING......Who was expecting???  I wasn't i was sure that Shaq was goign to get his pants handed to him because he'd refuse to do anything other than stick his arse under the ring on D and would miss crunch time free throws, and yeah it pretty much panned out that this is exactly what happened.

But its not like the series was close, after that...you know getting eliminated 4 games to 1 sounds so much worse than ...4 games to 2...

Why are suns fans so incredibly wound up in the idea that they have been cheated out of a championship?  The world gives you nothing teams that play as a single entity for each other figured it out long ago....

Just waived by sactown.  He is not a starting PF in a team that needs scoring or anything approximating a low post prescence.  He is more Kurt Thomas mid range jumpshot, as well as ..dunks...

He could be had for next to nothing.  He only really rebounds and defends and he is an athletic guy...Would probably go for a season long contract with a conteder for peanuts...Really passionate...I know he wasn't that loved in Sacremento, but that was mostly for the fact that he was standing in front of Jason Thompson & Spencer Hawes, young bigs who were full of potential but not getting enough minutes to develop due to Brad Miller & Mikki being in the way.

He fills a niche and it costs us next to nothing?  Worth a flyer imo.

I am so sick..to death..of the kobe/ lebron love fest...

The spurs go out and stick a dagger in Boston on it's home court, two of the top four teams in the league duel it out in a very close game.  We prevail..great game etc...

All I see  on any sports site, sportcenter, etc etc etc, is a total bum pat fest of kobe vs lebron and how amazing it was.

This right on the heals of Lebron triple double where he scored 52 jacking up the ugliest most ridiculous jump shots and travelling on a bunch of possessions...and the entire world had to be updated on the fact every 15 seconds.

How can ppl fall over themselves when the guy is shooting mulitple airballs  (he shot TWO Freaking three point airballs man in his face no one else touching the ball the entire shot clock from way downtown) and ill advised jumpers just because he is allowed to?

Kobe got 61...and not a freaking rebound..are you kidding me he shot the ball 35 times or something ridiculous why?  Its the knicks ffs...it was like watching a layup drill, how hard can it be to break down Danillo Gallinari and david lee off the dribble for lebron james..jesus...I

SOMEONE STOP THE BUS I WANT TO GET OFF

P.S No denying the talent of these guys but lebron is at 80%.  If he threw the heat check three point shots under the bus and took his man to the hole 90% of the game he would be batshit insane.

Kobe just wants to kill ppl to win.  I get it...people will start paying attention to the spurs eventually only because like every year, they will be forced to acknowledge that holy pants they are right up the top of the standings again and it's playoff time...Constant conversations amongst overpaid analyst rating the top 5 players in teh game or at SG or at PG and TD getting slotted in behind the latest flame are really started to F##K me off...I can only imagine how bad it would be if i lived in the states.

According to Adrian Wojnarowski, (a man who has opinions I mostly enjoy disagreeing with) Frenchy is going to Arizona.

Yahoo! Sports obtained the rosters, and the West reserves also include the Los Angeles Lakers’ Pau Gasol, New Orleans Hornets’ David West, Dallas Mavericks’ Dirk Nowitzki, San Antonio Spurs’ Tony Parker, Denver Nuggets’ Chauncey Billups and Portland Trail Blazers’ Brandon Roy.

He is obviously jesus in tight pants.  Get with the freaking programme you llamas.  Two All Stars in this year, though snubbing the mighty George gets me down.

From the mouth of old man Pop following the last gasp defeat of the imposing Bobcats.

Maybe getting our butts kicked in Philly made them realize we did suck on defense, It’s got to be our focus because we’re going nowhere without defense.

None of the palatitudes, the cliches that we got away with one etc etc. Every opportunity to talk the lesson he talks it.

I just love the complete lack of hubris.

p.s i suppose the case for excessive hubris can also be made when i think of some of the other things he does so, like scratch the lack of hubris

I think the spurs got serious vs L.A because the game preview on PTR was serious.  Instead of a Led Zep montage or comparision to past spy movie characters, we just had the guys names.

Hence the voodoo cast was of a serious nature and the boys manned up.

Maybe we should use this as our secret weapon..Don't stop the love with comedy starting line ups, until we have a really big matchup maybe a first round playoff game or a last day top seed fight something of a serious nature anyway.

Hear me out here...

I believe our biggest issue is front court D and rebounding.  I floated a thread previously asking how we could fix this.  Nothing much came of it but ..I have found someone i think could fill the box perfectly with what we need.

I know some may groan...but..

What about Joel Pryzbilla?

He is currently the backup in Portland, and he is one of those guys that does nothing to hurt your team, he only does positive things, and what he does he does really really well.

He rebounds like a machine, he blocks shots, he sets monster screens and he is afraid of no one.  Imagine if TD had someone like that with his back?  He has been taking in 15% Of available rebounds, thats really solid top tier rebounding numbers and he takes nothing but what the offence gives him.  He is shooting 80% because all he does is put backs and good looks from assists. 

I don't know if Portland would look at a trade because he is playing so well for them but they have Oden and Aldridge already with Frye and a lot of young tall guys on the team, I just don't know if we have the bodies to match up in a trade.

What do we do with George?

I remember cleveland with Price & Terrel Brandon.  The best backup in basketball.  Tony Parker is actually the youngest member of the big 3.  He is more than likely going to be the one who is long term after TD and E.G are gone (been playing my old ps2 nbalive 2003 and they have manu listed as EMANUEL so i'm going retro and sticking witht E.G...p.s..jason kidd is on the cover its pretty hilarious the spurs are ranked 23rd over all yet i march them to the championship year in year out), yet he plays the same position as George.

Do we see george long term as a 2guard?  I know at...IUD?  DUI?  some form of contraceptive? he played the 2.  Do we groom him long term for a rotation of TP and Cubits ?  Or do we look at using him to sweeten the deal to bring in the next front court messiah? 

You know where I stand on trading Tony if you read jollyrogerwilcos thread, I am a staunch frog lover.  George is a find.  He is above backup, where do we put him in 2 years when he is 100% ready to start and dominate?  A possible sign and trade for the 2010 chris bosh sweepstakes?  Do we hold the talent and make him a 2?  Does anyone think he wont develop enough to be a solid contributor and deserve a starting spot in this league?

Drunk kangaroos would like to know.

As pointed out by ATS.  Manu and TP are economically wonderful.  On contracts that rank at #45 & #64 in the entire league money wise they produce per dollar at a great rate.

This got me thinking.  What have been the worst contracts in the leagues history and who gave them out?

Then i got to thinking well...what have been the worst contracts in the history of the Spurs?

I really don't know the answer to the second one, the first one i figured was a no brainer with Stephon Marbury finishing a clear winner.  But looking at the numbers Steve Francis is getting 18 Million and can't even walk at present.

But i'd be interested to see the opinions of people who have been crunching the numbers of Spurs players for longer than I on the worst contract in spurs history.

Not here to troll.  I'm an SB Nation regular on Pounding the Rock(the spurs blog).  I just see this annoying Marbury diatribe on every NBA website i come across and they keep mentioning the HEAT as a probable destination for him should he recieve a solid buyout offer from New York.

How is the water in the peninsula pool with regards to Steph the malcontent?  Would you guys be happy taking him on to play PG?