In the past two years I've felt a measure of personal responsibility for the Spurs' early playoff exits. The playoff beard is a noble tradition, but I - being of Nordic ancestry - have never managed to contribute more than a quarter-inch of stubble to the cause. I understand that this is unacceptable. I understand that the Basketball Gods demand sacrifice. I have fasted and meditated, and I feel that Their will is clear.

I am taking a lovely young lady out tonight. I actually met her at the sports bar where I was watching the NOOCH game - she's a huge sports fan herself, though not much of a hoops-lover, and she understands the importance of watching key games. Consequently, she understands my priorities, and we're going to be having dinner at a great little restaurant that always shows basketball games when they're on TNT.

This young lady is truly a thing of beauty: tall, slender, pretty, and - as John Cusack might say - a 'sure thing'. My pledge, before the FSM and the PtR community:

If the Spurs win this, I'm going home alone tonight.

I doubt the Basketball Gods are getting many offerings this early in the season - surely, my sacrifice is too great for them to resist.  When Lauri wrote that the mojo favors the Spurs, she little knew how right she was. Keep me in your thoughts tonight, my friends. Every Ray Allen brick, every 'Sheed technical - know that Bonner's treys and Blair's boards will be divinely guided. No question, PtR: we win this game. Not without cost, but I'm prepared to do (and not do) what is necessary. By this time tomorrow the Spurs will be 10-6, and I will have redeemed myself.

UPDATE:

I hear the anger. I see the pointed fingers. I hear talk of jinxes, of bad karma, of my lack of traditional deference to the Mojo Gods.  And you know what? You're right. We do tend to tiptoe around the basketball deities here at PtR. And you know what? I put it to you: isn't that a problem?

Haven't the mojo gods gotten used to our cowering deference? I think they're taking us for granted - and in the larger sense, I think this is hurting our beloved Spurs. I say we've got the most talented crew in the league (and yeah, that includes LA). I say we've got the best coach in the league (and yeah, that includes LA). And yet we've got no swagger, no fire in the belly. Sure, we neither expect nor want a bunch of chest-pounding from our team, but past championship squads have had a sense of inevitability about them - a quiet dominance, an innate menace that put other teams back on their heels.  We've improved the squad, but lost that black-and-silver magic. It's time we demanded it back.

Remember how our relationship with the Mojo Gods used to be? We paid them homage and offered them the traditional sacrifices, and they hung banners in our rafters. When did the magic die? What can we do to resurrect it? Well, I'm calling for a New Deal with the Spirits of Spurs Mojo. The sacrifice I put on the table last night, which our gods so callously rejected, is now a standing offer: every single game we play against a top-five team, I'm putting my love-life on the line.

For the sake of Sima's heart, no more predictions. No more guarantees - although I contend that it was only the presence of Guaran-Sheed in last night's game that derailed mine. But we need the Mojo Gods to understand that this is a two-way street. A world of worship awaits them ... but they've got to make with the Ws.

Mojo doesn't just come back. It has to be taken back. I'm doing my part.

This was inspired by boredom and a comment from 'the little o'  in response to the excellent BatManu wallpapers with which silverandblack_davis has favored us. So, credit and blame where it's due. Since it's early in the season, I think we could all use a little hyperbole - plus a reverse jinx, to counter all the positive energy around this year's team. We've compared the boys in black and silver to everything else under the sun; why not to the most dysfunctional team of them all?

If you haven't read 'Watchmen', go do that. If you've only seen the movie, go read the book. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you ... the WatchSpurs

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Remember the Run-and-Gun-and-Fun-and-Lose 2006-07 Phoenix Suns? The ones who saved basketball by being, oh my god, the most potent offensive force in history? Sure, defense was de thing separating them from de trophy, but who cares: the ball went through the basket. After all, they had five guys who could score - Nash, Stoudemire, Marion, Bell, and Barbosa all averaged 10+ points per game. Imagine! Five guys who can score!

Now, I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong.

You're thinking: wait! But the Spurs have ... hold on ... there's Tim, Tony and Manu ... and RJ, he can score by the bushel ... Hill was a huge scorer in college, and he's started doing it again ... and damn, Blair averages over ten points despite only playing fifteen minutes a night (and then it's in those weird Pop-is-experimenting lineups). Six! Six guys who, at any given time, can go NBA Jam and set the net on fire! Even when running actual half-court sets, we've got six guys who can straight-up kill the other team!

Wrong. See, I told you that you were going to be wrong, and then you went and did it. Jerk. In fact, we do not have six game-changing scorers.

We have nine.

When's the last time you listened to Mick Jagger's 'She's the Boss'? How about Keith Moon's 'Two Sides'? Some guys just weren't meant to go solo, but put them in the right situation with the right teammates and they will bring the proverbial fire. When you ask the wrong things of some guys, you won't be happy with what you get. When FinDog has to carry the offense, he sucks like a chest wound. When Mason has to run the point, he looks lost and crappy. When Bonner has to act like an athlete, he soils himself (just watch how he runs). When the other team is focused on shutting these guys down, these guys get shut down. But how the hell is the other team going to focus on shutting down Finster, RoMaJu and Red Rocket when they've got six legit scorers to deal with?

The 06-07 Suns were dynamite one-through-five, and Diaw was a definite threat, but after that? Their next best contributor was James Jones, who averaged four points a game in Miami last year. We, on the other hand, have three of the top three-point shooters in the league - y'know, on top of the six guys who can tear it up in the paint.

Oh, those boring, boring Spurs.

BSAT-time, folks. For purposes of this test, all players 6'10" and taller will be referred to as 'seven footers', because people do that for some reason and because it makes this sound even cooler:

1) What is:

Ian Mahinmi

Theo Ratliff

Marcus Haislip

Malik Hairston

George Hill

(A) A list of five guys who we either didn't own or barely used last year.

(B) A list of five guys who have at least a semi-fighting chance of cracking the regular rotation on an elite NBA team.

(C) A list of five guys who, if they were used as a second unit, would not only be fairly middle-of-the-pack among actual NBA second units - they would be the BIGGEST second unit in the NBA.

Seriously. I mean, I know we love small-ball, but it's not unrealistic to think that we could have these exact five players on the court during garbage time this season. Think about what that would look like:

C - Athletic seven-footer

PF - Wily seven-footer with mad shot-blocking skillz and Youngevity(tm)

SF - Athletic seven-footer who, if his YouTube mixes don't lie (and they never do), could block the shuttle launch ... with his fist.

SG - Will have twelve inches on his generic matchup ... of biceps girth. Hairston's stupid-strong, and if not over-tall he's certainly not short for the position.

G - C'mon, it's Qbitz. Albatross. Long, strong, down to get the friction on.

These guys will bestride other teams' scrubs like a Colossus.

(D) All of the above.

---

In fact, now that I think about it, your 09-10 Spurs are a considerably bad-assier lot than any other recent incarnation. Sure, we lost Ime 'Might Have Killed A Man In Africa' Udoka, but think about what we added. Besides Mean-Punch Marcus, we've brought on:

- A guy who the most powerful human being on Earth described in hushed tones as 'a man' (as in, "Now that's a man")

- A guy who played a game after throwing up all night following surgery to repair a broken nose the previous day (and that's nowhere near the top of the 'Wow, Dice is tough' list)

- A guy who can occasionally dominate the paint despite being simultaneously French and made of glass

- A guy who left his bride sort-of at the altar so that he could devote every last ounce of energy to kicking ass and taking names in a Spurs jersey

The Spurs will be walking away with the Larry O'Brien trophy this year. Seriously, even if they don't win the championship, they're just gonna take the trophy and leave. Nobody will try to stop them.

Hey all,

Just had a thought. We know how a Spurs season works: we start off soft, look lost and weak, and drop a slew of games in the first half of the season. Then we gel, the team comes together, and for a while after the All Star break we look unbeatable. Then Pop decides we've shown the opposition as much as we need to, we start resting guys, and we play okayish until the real season starts.

How about this year?

Getting bounced by Dallas apparently earned Holt, our beloved owner, a visitation from the ghosts of chamionships past, present and future. The wallet's open, and even if we're done making moves for the offseason we're a lot richer - and Hold is consequently a lot poorer - than has been the case in recent memory. That being the case, I ask you:

Does Pop owe Holt home court advantage?

Sure, we know that Pop could care less whose pine the Spurs play on in the postseason. But playoff games mean mucho dinero for the home team, and HCA (potentially) means extra home games. Do you think there will be some pressure on Coach for us to dominate throughout the season, rather than just at the end of it, so that we can return a little extra green to Holt's wallet when the time comes?

Western thought, traceable down through Locke and Hume, past Thomas Aquinas and all the way back to Aristotle, rests to a great degree on the endurance of identity. A thing is what it is - an apple is an apple, an orange is an orange, I am me - and our way of thinking revolves around the generally-accepted assumption that an apple today will not be an orange tomorrow. That is all well and good. However, it leaves us open to certain types of intellectual laziness. We are so anxious to quantify, we tend to overlook the inherently transient nature of that being quantified.

In all things we must see reality through the prism of change, even though by doing so we force ourselves to grapple with the thorniest of questions. Is a man who has spent the last ten years in jail the same man who committed the crime that put him there? Can you step into the same river twice (or, to follow St. Augustine's conjecture, even once)? And who are the Spurs?

This season we have seen many different Spurs teams. But have we ever seen the Spurs? We know that there is a certain rock-ribbed poetry about a Spurs squad that has hit its stride, an inevitability that sucks the life out of opponents. We've been good, on occasion. But have we ever seen prime Spurs ball this season? I think not.

Certainly, there have been injuries. There have been acquisitions, and new players added to the fold. But our team's character hasn't changed, has it? Timmy, Tony and Manu have all, at times, shown the kind of dominance that makes them the only true Big Three. But we still haven't seen that true magic.

Maybe it's gone.

Or...

Maybe Pop's tired of hearing about how 'the Spurs always come on strong in the second half of the season'. Maybe he doesn't want to reel off an umpteen-game winning streak right before the playoffs. Maybe he's been telling the truth all along: the regular season doesn't matter.

Maybe he means it.

I've always been eager to give Pop the benefit of the doubt. God knows he's earned it. And now, with Timmy taking it easy and Manu getting comfortable (and Tony playing out of his mind) ... well, isn't this a squad that's about ready to gel? These are all great character guys, guys who know their role. We've got a few more regular-season games to get warmed up, and then the start of the postseason itself to fine-tune. With luck on our side, we could end up facing the Fakers with 80-90% of Duncan and Ginobili, plus 110% of Parker, plus the best set of role-players and specialists this team has seen in recent history.

So c'mon, Spurs. Saddle up. The real season's about to start, and the best is yet to come.

Let me preface this by saying: as of now, I'm a perfect 3-0 in my bracketology - so nobody can accuse me of writing this post out of bitterness. And don't get me wrong, March Madness is a blast. It's just ... well, it's a blast the same way dating a cokehead is a blast. Fun, crazy, unpredictable? No doubt. But once the novelty wears off, you've pretty much got to recognize that you're dealing with an inferior product that will bore, then anger, and finally depress you.

Most of all, I'm tired of hearing weekend-warrior fans get sniffy about how "college teams play better defense than the professionals." Wrong, wrong, wrong. College teams hustle, and they do it against crappy ball-handlers and poor shooters; that, plus the relatively lower game scores, can be used to create the illusion that the NBA is a lackadaisical dunk-fest in comparison. Never mind that college games are 17% shorter, or that the college shot clock is 46% longer. That means that there will be a minimum of 120 possessions in a non-overtime pro game, compared to 68 in a college game. "Only" allowing 65 points - against pissant offensive players, at that - doesn't sound like such lock-down team defense now, does it?

If I wanted to be entertained by a competition amongst losers, I'd watch Wheel of Fortune or Survivor: Whogivesacrap. I watch sports to be entertained by a competition among the best and most talented athletes - and sorry, Charlie, that ain't college basketball.

Update: 7-for-7 so far, and college basketball still sucks. Not as much as LatinD's bracket, though.

I read Bill Simmons sometimes. I'll thank you not to judge me. Sure, he's no kind of legitimate expert, but he's sorta the Jon Stewart of sports journalism: a hack, but with something to say, and with occasional insights that are worth hearing even if they're hardly original.

In the latest ESPN Magazine, Simmons collected a paycheck for an article that loosely applies sporting statistics to the judging of actors. He came to the conclusion that Meryl Streep is the greatest actor/actress working today. I like his arguments, they just happen to be completely wrong. Here's my take on the subject:

via www.wildaboutmovies.com

The first step in brokering a lasting peace between PTR and photographic images of female human beings

Streep's good. Damn good. But is she really The Greatest, the winningest of the winners? In the world of acting, the Oscar is like the NBA regular-season MVP award. It gets you in magazines, but what does it really mean? The MVP hasn't ended up winning a ring since Duncan in 02-03. And Oscars do not the 'best actor' make.

Meryl Streep is the acting equivalent of Steve Nash - beloved, respected, and a repeat award-winner. How many Streep movies are on your all-time list? 'Doubt' was superb, 'Death Becomes Her' and 'She-Devil' were wildly underrated (why did she forget that she does comedy?), and 'Kramer vs. Kramer', 'Sophie's Choice', and 'Out of Africa' are all on somebody's list of top films. Probably not yours. How many of those flicks do you DVR?

Here's another list for you: 'Star Wars', 'The Empire Strikes Back', 'The Return of the Jedi', 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', 'The Temple of Doom', 'The Last Crusade', 'Blade Runner', 'Witness', 'The Fugitive', and 'American Graffiti'.

Nobody stacks up to Harrison Ford in terms of the indisputable pantheon gems on his resume. On a gut level you appreciate every single one of those movies more than anything Meryl Streep ever did in her life. And that's okay. Ford is like Manu Ginobili - nobody's ever going to sing the praises of his surgical passing, effortless stroke, or long flowing locks. All he does is go out there and beat people. And even after his recent crimes against humanity, Ford will still take Streep off the dribble on the best day she ever lived.

I giggled at the screen last night. It was in the fourth quarter, Spurs down by twelve. All I could think was 'man, this comeback is gonna be awesome'.

In an effort to recapture that feeling, I thought I'd take a stroll through popular culture to hunt out instances of the same quiet bravado that I saw in Manu in particular and our boys in general as they set about the task of destroying a team that thought it had its foot on our necks. Here are my suggestions; others are welcome.

1) The source of the title quote. If you can think of a more apt parallel for the magnificent mayhem that the merely-human-yet-preternaturally-focused Manu can accomplish, I'd love to hear it. Oh, bonus points for not needing to Google the quote.

2) With a nod to Big50's very-recent post: Gladiator, after Phoenix stabs Crowe in the final showdown. Because winners are winners, even when we're bleeding.

3) The Matrix, after the agents unload into Neo. Because when you stop to think about it, there is no spoon - and there is no opponent, not when the Big 3 are operating on all cylinders.

4) Tying in both Moore and the Wachowski brothers, V for Vendetta: you don't think Nellie was on the sidelines screaming "Die! Die! Why won't you die? Why ... won't ... you ... die?"

5) The Crow. I'm pretty sure that during that timeout where everybody was fired up and yelling, Manu muttered under his breath: "They're all dead. They just don't know it yet."

What have I missed?

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3838234

In case you didn't know, we just picked up journeyman forward Austin Croshere for a 10-day contract. I remember being generally well disposed towards the guy when he was in Indiana, and he's certainly got plenty of that good ol' veteran savvy we love so much. Plus, this has got to be a hopeful sign:

"Croshere was waived by Milwaukee on Jan. 6 after appearing in 11 games. He averaged 3.3 rebounds and 2.2 rebounds."

The one thing we could really use is a big who gets boards. And looks goofy as hell. Score!