A National Media Spurs-Analysis Template:

It's become so expected of the national media to neglect the Spurs that I thought I would put down a universal template for all national organizations to use when discussing the league. That way no one gets confused and starts saying things like the Spurs will lose it all because the Oklahoma City Thunder swept their opponent in the first round. Swap the Dallas Mavericks with an opponent from women's tennis and that statement would be just as logical. I'm here to help.

I'll do the show prep, your prompter readouts even--just copy and paste, copy and pasters.

Spurs have a game tonight and here are our thoughts: "The Spurs are just old. Like don't corpses play for the Spurs right now?" and then laugh that fake laugh you save only for your great uncle's jokes. "Is this AMC's The Walking Dead? Where's Deputy Rick to shoot us down some zombies and then ruminate about leadership for 45 minutes, yikes! I mean Duncan is what, 36? He is the MVP of the ARP and I don't like him because he does not beat his chest and bark at people, nor does he play in a market where I'd like to get a job so I'll just keep spouting nonsense until that little magical red light goes dark above the words that I'm supposed to read and nod approvingly to when read by others."

Work in "Remember last year?" a bafazillion times to the power of aw crap did he really just say that again?

Also, repeat the following as often as you are pointed to by other men in suits: "Tony Parker should be in the conversation of the MVP race." (Because this means nothing). Don't ever actually say Tony Parker should be MVP. (It helps you look like you realize great basketball when you see it without committing to an actual opinion.) "Tony Parker should be in the conversation."; "Pork Rinds should be in the conversation."; "My doctor should be in the conversation because my right eyelid rolls upward like old timey-window blind." None of this makes any sense but just keep saying it because others do the same. It is now a part of the template.

The last part of the template is the easiest. Just say nothing at all. That way, when the Spurs get to the NBA Finals, it will be sort of creepy. It'll be like a family member who just got out of prison, and then they show up to the toddler's birthday and everyone's like, did he have Facebook in prison? How did he even know how to be here today? And that will be fun too.

Enjoy. I only charge your soul.

[Editor's Note: While it's obvious that the recent Grantland piece has struck a chord, I haven't taken the time to respond to it. But Aaron McGuire at Gothic Ginobili has, and below is the most interesting take yet posted on this site. -jrw ]

Bill Simmons's article regarding championships he deems unworthy or marginalized got me to thinking. Simmons also needs an asterisk by his name indicating that while he can be an entertaining writer, he is not all that intelligent.

If you're a fan of basketball then you are a fan of Spurs. If you choose to diminish the accomplishments of the Spurs by snark and revisionist history, then you become not a fan of basketball but a fan of celebrity and geographical location. Simmons has shown us that not only can he not appreciate a team-oriented (ahem) team, but he chooses to bash a small market club ad nauseam. On his most recent piece about tainted championships, all four of the Spurs championships were tagged with a half-hearted addendum, stating that really this shouldn't have been how it went down.

"Hmmm, you're right.
This under-inflated ball DOES feel just how I imagine Bill's noggin would if I decided to crush it."
(Photo by Steve Dykes/Getty Images)

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In an interview Andre Royo, the actor who played Bubbles on The Wire, was asked about some of the things he learned on the set. His answer left an impression with me. He said that the creator, David Simon, had this saying when micromanagement for the sake of micromanagment arose: better is the enemy of good.

Dejuan Blair is now in our statistical crosshairs here at Pounding The Rock. There is a call to eat up his playing time like a Whataburger double with cheese and jalapeños would be eaten but by a late night Dejuan Blair. I'm here to say that this is unfair I have no answer for it, numerically. Well, that's not true. I have one answer: winning percentage. There is nowhere to go but down in this category. There's not much room for improvement there unless we replaced the team with cyborgs fitted with echo-guns, the kind make your stomach hurt and your ears ring in white hot pain when shot at you. Only then could we see improvement with our team. And I'm just not willing to go there yet. And at what cost? The end of humanity? Is that what you want Blair-Bear haters? Skynet?

Thank you.

Last night was Manu's game to win would he not have a spiral fracture in his hand that requires surgery to install more hardware than my complicated locking mechanism designed to protect my Takis stash.

The end of the Milwaukee game is where Manu does his best work, much like me and topographical maps.

School was pretty much Lord of the Flies on top of a fail salad for me, but one year, for about a week, I was introduced to topographical maps and I performed and analyzed those so well that I finally got the respect and admiration that I deserved from my peers. (I was home schooled).

Manu would have destroyed those last four minutes, leaving Stephen Jackson in a stupor, back to his regularly scheduled programming. Manu thrives for those moments, tight ball games, a measure of will and creativity--he is the artist who specializes in such blank canvases that are pregnant with violence. But he's out.

Closing out tight games is what he does. Imagine him in any other field or job and it just seems silly. Could he use this same jugular stomping physicality and genius in software design? Maybe during Christmas work-party karaoke--but at no other time. Or while managing a Denny's, could he break the hearts of so many people with a Grand Slam comp, due to a waitress's bad night due to over exhaustion from working at Denny's? Probably nuh-uh.

He was born for closing out games like that, much like I was born to gauge the canon fire subjugated with the land layout using battery only usable during the Napoleonic Wars, but I was born way too late, and he has not. He has to get healthy and has to stay injury free. Drink your Mootopia milk Manu. As you say in the HEB commercial, in your somehow getting-worse-by-every-year accent, "It's all part of the healing process."

--Jack Clemens

Last night, after the kid is in bed and I've done my daily duties as a man of Texas: wash dishes, sweep, pick up random sock clusters like so many wounded pedestrians, I got to sit down for a Spurs win--which is always a good way to end an evening.

My wife, 8 months pregnant, sat down next to me and wished she could just have a baby by clicking a garage door opener, right there and then. I told her that I don't have any pots of water, or one of those cool masks that hid the pig faces in that Twilight Zone episode, or a turkey baster to get the snot out of the baby's eyes, so she'll have to wait a month. We baste no turkeys.

She watched the game with me.

Normally she tunes in during the playoffs, but due to such an early exit last year I don't really think she caught a game the entire season, so some of these Spurs folks are new to her.

Upon seeing Blair: "I bet he doesn't like to practice." --which is only funny because I'm fat. And I have, like, two fat friends.

Upon seeing Tiago: "Who has such pretty hair as a man? (She's a hair stylist) "The Spurs don't allow people to play with pretty hair." --Then I told her about PTR's long running meme about how Tiago is Edward-esque and how they call him Sparkles. "He is kind of like Edward." And then she said nothing for a long time.

Upon hearing my story about how I got to play pick-up basketball with TJ Ford when I was in college: "That's really neat. I'm going to bed."

And that was it.

I'm so excited about this season for some reason--I have no expectations, maybe?--which allows for me to just relax and see how it all shakes out. I don't remember enjoying two regular season games as much as I have with these last two. Before I'd just be fast forwarding and saying, just get the W so we can have home court advantage, please.

I'm learning to smell the flowers, so they say. And so far they stank pretty well. They stank pretty well indeed.

--Jack Clemens

I want to make a case in favor of the Spurs winning the series, in spite of the warning signs, the Memphis 1st Round Championships T-shirts, and the nagging suspicion that our guys have nothing left in the tank or electric fuel cell in Bonner's case.

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What happens the day 21 doesn't suit up in black, silver, and white?  Does it get any better for a sports fan than it has in the last 15 years?  I recently told a friend that I worry about my future fan-hood.  So I came up with a plan: it involves fake microphones made up of dried macaroni, a strobe-light to imitate ambiance, and a blue curtain. 

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The following email/letter/message was found by the PtR Department of Reclamation & Re-use which finds items of note in the flotsam of the interwebs, and posts them when the tone approximates recent happenings in the world of the Spurs:

Don't give up hope just yet. 

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I'm on a careful contact high from the recent Spurs win.  I feel really good about this Spurs team sans any injury, yet I hope our peak days are still ahead and not behind.  And considering Tim had arguably, according to ESPN's Hollinger's guestimate, his worst game of his career during a win against the NBA champs, maybe I should stop the self-reflection and just enjoy this crazy open-carcass pinata. 

But long live King George.  Long live Splitter getting quality minutes and long live Dejuan Blair playing like the internal giant he is. 

I wrote the following. 

Also, I am not entrusted with any rights to create DTOURS.  I will accept my punishment. 

Hope all your holidays were great. 

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It's another DTOUR.  Here's my author forward for Achieve! Success without Being Successful, my self-published, self-help guide. 

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First off, I know you got offers out there Lebron: big offers with currency so strange I couldn't even guess the historical person on it: Taft?  Coolidge?  But to that I say: money is a tool to be used, not an ends.  Money is like a wrench, a gold flake encrusted wrench that you could buy by the millions, so let's get deeper than that here.
  

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Nash has this move, where he dribbles the ball to the wing or corner, hands it off then does a sort of jump-screen into the off defender.  It's the exact definition of a moving screen, but I don't blame any refs for not calling it for two reasons: one, Nash is so darn light and purse-carrying-friendly that it harms no one, and secondly that it's just good basketball: if you can take advantage of your bodily position and not get called for it, so be it. 

My only desire in bringing this up to you my fellow PTRockers, is that I'd like to see Dejuan Blair learn the exact same move.  It's a sort of hand-off/hop-skip/moving screen where you allow your body to fly into oncoming traffic.  I would like to see the discarded limbs and future dreams scattered about the hardwood floor after the play, and the sheer amount of LOLing.  And in an ideal world, the play would be a no call due to the consistency of the league officials, and the fact Nash has been doing it since before I had biologically created people. 

First off: NYC has a feel in which it belongs to no nation.

At our hotel, on every elevator ride, and even in the street we were surrounded by a different language, and while that makes you wish for one of these, you still have to take a step back at the wonder of it all: Swiss, German, Russian, French, Irish, even some gangly Texans such as ourselves, it is truly is a melting pot and we had the best time there.  But writing about all the good things may bring warm fuzzy flutters to my stomach and behind my ears, but that's not what you came for: so for the bad. 

The Big Apple has its seasons wrong.  Where I grew up, in Central Texas, we do things right.  We go from a mild, I'm talking Pace Picante sauce mild, winter to Scorched Earth Summer in a matter of days.  There are no buffers, and we don't want any, because buffers are false representation of the dog days of August to come, a mirage.  I don't even own a jacket, but I had to buy a Snoopy Rain Parka in NYC, where the material is so comfortable I can only assume that it was made of old lady wig. 

But I need to get to the Spurs here, because that's why I come to PTR, not for the community and feedback on bad jokes: We flew Jet Blue, my first time.  Blue potato chips do wonders to your stool.  Having a television on every seat is remarkable, and does make the flight go by faster.  But there's a problem with new, innovative ideas: they don't always work.  And when you have spent your entire time in some foreign land, only to look forward to watching your favorite team play as you sit on a chair in the air, and then only to find that you and your spouse are sitting in the only seats where the televisions are not working, you start to get sad.  And when I say sad I mean irrationally incredulous.  Stopping a flight attendant who is in mid stride to get the plane off the ground to ask about your tv not working may feel like the silliest thing I've ever done in my life.  Louis CK came to mind several times. 

So I missed the game.  While others around us watched Iron Chef Tallahassee, tater tot episode, I bored holes through their skulls with my anger-vision.  But I caught the highlights, GO Spurs GO, Go Najara's jealous clothes-line move being a catalyst for great Spurs basketball: the best revenge is the W, and Go Pop standing up for his players, and huffing loudly.  I wouldn't want to make Pop mad in real life, due to the fear of him removing some organ in my body, caramelizing it pan-fried style, and feeding it to me as some sort of secret neuron disabler. 

I can't wait for game five. 

The playoffs are upon us.  I'm excited but I still have to get through two days of the 8 hour grind.  Here is some randomness that helped me get through a workday last week.  It was rejected by McSweeney's, but hopefully it won't be rejected in your collective hearts:

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I enjoyed the first Thread of Utter Randomness so much that I thought I would start my own. 

I don't even know if I have permission to do this.  But logical thinking has never saved me before.  There's a lot of randomness after the jump:

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Feeling good about you today?  Is all right with the free world?  Remedy that rainbow in your gullet by gulping an ice cold Pop-Juice: your ultimate drink when you need a cold hard dash of cautious pessimism. 

Testimonial from summer league, youth basketball coach:

"I once was content with letting my 4th graders play the game willy-nilly.  Fun was my goal.  That was before my wife brought home a case of Pop-Juice."  (Camera pans out to the court, revealing a group of youngsters learning the baseline lure technique.  On their faces there is only pain and the promise of future regret.) 

Pop-Juice is fortified not with the vitamins and alternative medicine ingredients most energy drinks contain.  Pop Juice has a special blend with the tears of a killer whale, the sadness of Carl Malone, and shaved micro fibers off of Pop's life long collection of note cards. 

An endorsement from Pop:

"…" (Stares at camera.) 

-------

EXT SCENE:

(Camera pans to a bouncy college co-ed, looking to go to her first sorority initiation meeting.  She reaches over in her console, takes a swig of Pop-Juice, and then furrows her brown in self-reflection.  She busts a U-turn, picks up her world history 1850- text, and begins studying.)

Tag line: "Pop Juice!  Let the good times roll to a stop!  And get to work."

Or: "It's not the taste, it's the consistancy." 

In the 4th grade city championships in Amarillo Texas, circa 1989, we were getting our butts handed to us.  A kid by the name of Matt Webb, the best player on our team, looked us over during a stop in play and said something I would never forget.  It was cheesy, but to a 4th grader's ears it made a lot of sense. 

What he said was this: This is like a Walt Disney movie guys, everything will work out in the end.  That was it.  Simple, yet profound.

When I look at the Spurs this season, it has been one of the most inconsistent, emotionally draining seasons in memory.  In the past, it was a given that the Spurs could tangle with the heavies, and now, each game it seems unlikely that the Spurs will come through against premiere teams. 

Usually, you could count on two out of the big three having great games--with rotating contributions from the role players, but now that is not so.  Most games, we're getting one great game from the big three and either an overflow of stellar play by the rest or absolutely nothing.  No consistency. 

Tim Duncan has been mildly consistent yet not dominant.  My favorite player of all time, number 21, is at the age in his career that David Robinson was when he got his Tim Duncan.  Timmy D can still do a lot, but he can't do it all. 

But I didn't want to beat up on Spurs fans here; I just wanted to offer up a simple statement: This is like a Walt Disney Movie--it'll all work out in the end.  You never know when a team may peak, especially this Frankenstein version of the Spurs, and to be honest we've seen the Spurs peak in Feb. before, only to come up limping come late April. 

The playoffs are an entirely different season, really.  They are the only season: you play good enough to get in, and then you take your shots in the spring.

And that's my message here: This is a Walt Disney Movie; the Spurs are simply sucking for dramatic effect. 

And yes, my idealism doesn't blind me totally: there's always Old Yellar, but I think in the scheme of things, the Spurs are going to take their shot, and who knows what will happen next. 

We ended up winning that city championship after that line: that's why it always stuck with me I guess.  The next year, our school was bumped up another level and we were dismantled every game we played. 

I like to read.  I like to write but no one likes to read what I write, so I'll write about what I like to read and see if you like reading it.  You can also write about it: 

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