Sunday, I dragged Mrs ATS to San Antonio and attended my first WNBA game. I've got two things to report. The games are fun to watch and Becky Hammon can shoot. I mean, she can really shoot.

It was the final regular season game for the Silver Stars and it proved to be a thriller.

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From Hirschof, in a comment on Manu's birthday post.

“On the twelfth day of Manumas, 
an Argentinian sent to me… 
Twelve jumpers a-fading, 
Eleven passes amazing, 
Ten dunks a-slammin’, 
Nine fast breaks a-blazin’, 
Eight seasons a-golden, 
Seven clutch shots a-winning, 
Six Lakers a-crying, 
Five Cuban tirades, 
Four Euro-steps, 
Three title rings, 
Two future Spurs, 
And a dead bat in the AT&T!”

He had a whopping 19 recs on his comment.

...Or why I am a Spurs apologist.

Things have changed a lot around here over the last year and change. The two biggest, or influential, being that I took over editorial control of the site and that the Spurs were kind enough to give me access to the team. I had some big ideas about each and I had some strong opinions about what would be good to do. I had never managed any kind of social site and I had never had media credentials. As a result, I did a lot of learning.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about PtR. How it is different. What I want it to be.  What I like.  What I don't like.  What I will tolerate.  What I won't. I'll write a couple posts outlining how I view things. Hopefully, they will provide you some context for the various rules I have and the way in which I write.

This one is why I write the way I do and the beginning of why I moderate the site the way I do. It really comes down to two things. 1) I'm not anonymous. 2) I'm not anonymous.

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At this point, signing RJ is good for the Spurs. He was certainly the best player available to the Spurs. Once they get the signing out of the way, RJ and Pop have work to do.

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So, tonight after our Summer League victory pushed us to 3-0, I got to thinking.  It's been awhile, so the thinking didn't come natural.  Here's my question at the root of my thinking.  How valuable is Curtis Jerrells to the Spurs organization?

I'm starting to think the answer is:  Quite.

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It's an early tip.  3:00 Spurs time.

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Let's discuss.

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Buyout problems?  Failed physical?  Don't let any of this get you down.  Tiago will sign with the Spurs.  I can think of no other reason why he would follow PtR on Twitter.

...and I wont' be there. Sorry. Due to resource constraints, both time and money, I wasn't able to make it happen this year. To top it off, I have a business trip next weekend that will keep me from seeing three of the games. And, I have a commitment Wednesday night that will prevent me from watching game two.  I will only be able to watch the Summer League opener. A 5:30 tip against the Minnesota Timberwolves and I am ticked.

Here are some things for us to keep an eye on when we do get to watch.

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Color me surprised.  In my defense, I will say that I had thought it a possibility all along.  I recall during the drive back from a post xmas and pre new year game that I told Graydon I thought he could opt out.  Graydon told me I was full of it.  I gave him my logic for thinking it was possible.  Graydon told me I was full of it.  I concurred.

Yet, here we are and RJ has opted out for the very reasons I thought he might.  Wait.  Honestly, I'm not sure why he opted out.  It could be for a couple of reasons.

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You know I'm stoked about Summer League being around the corner.  However, before Summer League, is free agency.  And while I don't expect the Spurs to be serious players in the sweepstakes for overrated players, it is still an important time for us and it is worth taking a look at what we can expect them to do.

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The second round pick is Ryan Richards.  NOT Solomon Alabi.

Chitter chatter.

We all await CapHill's scintillating storytelling involving James Anderson.

Who will it be?

Are you really sure you really want what you see?
Be careful of something that's just what you want it to be.

Personally, I always thought the second line was one of the best lines in any song. Ever. It perfectly captures how I think people can fill in the blanks of what they don't know about a person. Without evidence, you can make them be the things you would like them to be. You have to be careful because you are setting expectations for them that they can't hope to meet. Generally, I think of it being in relationships that people do this.

When the trade went down, I did a little bit of research -- mainly looking at his 3pt shooting percentages from the corners, and combined with the words of the Spurs front office, came away thinking that he was a HUGE piece for the Spurs. I thought he was a giant upgrade at the small forward position and a great fourth wheel.

It went wrong. Or rather, it didn't go well. I can't imagine the Spurs, any fan, or RJ himself would say that his year went well. Or that the team enjoyed success. But why?

And further, what can we expect? I think as we head into the draft and free agency that RJ is the key to the Spurs offseason.

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The Suns series, each game in the series, was like taking the entire season and jamming into one game.  Moments of brilliance mixed with moments of incompetence.  I wasn't shocked by the outcome.  Disappointed?  Yes.  Shocked?  No.

Face it.  The Suns were the better team and it wasn't really that close.  They would have beat us 8 out of 10 times.  They had better chemistry.  They had better execution.  They had better stars.  Their stars played better than our stars.

I said it during the season several times, but I didn't think you had to look too deeply at the Spurs to see the problem.  Our Big 3 wasn't that Big this year.  There were very few, if any, times that I watched a game and saw three guys playing like all-stars.  The Suns series was no different.

Today, let's look at Tony and Manu.  They have a few things in common whereas Tim is his own animal.

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Yeah, that's what this season has come to.  I'm stealing lines from "Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's dead".


On a night like tonight, it's all I've got.  In order to undermine whatever credibility I might have had, I'll tell this bit from tonight.  With a minute left in the third quarter, Goran Dragic hit a 3-pointer for his first points of the game to cut the Spurs lead to 3.  I said out loud, "Wow.  Big shot.  I didn't think he had it in him."  

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!!!!!!!!

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Just a few thoughts for you to ponder heading into tonight's game one.

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When nothing seems to help, I go look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it.  Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before. -- Jakob Riis

This might sound crazy to you, but I have lived my professional life by this quote for the last 4 months.  I  embrace the essence of it with all that I have every day.  Watching the Spurs tonight reinforced my belief in its value.

This season, the Spurs pounded the rock.  This series, and tonight, the Spurs pounded the Mavrocks. Tonight, we saw the result of all the hard work.

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This game from now on should be referred to as Manu's Speedy Claxton game.  The kind of game where you wish he'd get benched and his substitute could save us.  I love Manu, but he was bad tonight.  In fact, we were almost all bad.

It didn't look like we came to play tonight at all.  Hell, it didn't look like we wanted to compete. We were lucky, thanks to Tony's energy off the bench, to be within 7 at the break.  In fact, Tony looked very Manu-esque in the first half.  He saw a team with nothing and he tried to put them on his back when he came off the bench.  He succeeded in getting us to halftime in a great position despite a terrible team effort.

But then, halftime ended.

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Easily the grittiest, toughest game the Spurs have played all year. Not a single player in the Big 3 had a good, much less great, offensive game. This game was won with a combination of the role players and team tenacity. If you can't believe in this team now, well, I can't help you.

In a game the Mavericks absolutlely had to have, the Spurs just smacked them down 92-89. With a 3-1 series lead, the Spurs have the Mavericks on the ropes and the Mavs will be lucky to find anything good from this loss.

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Tony Parker was CLUTCH!!.  Yes.  Tony hit the big shots in this one.

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I started this season with the highest of high hopes. Slowly, over the course of the first 61 games, those hopes were ground down into dried bits of poo. Fragments of compost ready to be spread across my lawn. Mediocrity and inconsistency abounded. Over the last 21 games, hope sprang out of the poo like a field of poppies. We went from looking uninspired and discombobulated to looking like the class of the league.

Now, after 82 games, we enter the playoffs and I have no idea at all what to expect. We enter as a ridiculously low seven seed. But, we finished the year only 5 games behind the two seed. Only 3 games back if we didn't tank the last one. Really, I just have no clue at this point. No result would surprise me. Lose in 5 games to the Mavs. Ok. Push the Lakers to 7 in the conference finals. Fine. Absolutely blow up and make a run to the championship. Awesome. Surprised? No.

I'm doing two series previews in one post. One is a glass half empty.  The other is a glass half full.

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These aren't your father's boring old Spurs.  They have some youth in that locker room.

The Spurs have 15 players on their roster. 7 of them, yes 7, are 23 years old or younger. There are a lot of interesting aspects to this youth movement. Tonight, I just want to contemplate the age and how many of these young guys we are likely to have when the 2011 season tips off. Here we go:

• George Hill: 23
• Malik Hairston: 23
• Garrett Temple: 23
• Ian Mahinmi: 23
• Curtis Jerrells: 23
• Alonzo Gee: 22
• DeJuan Blair: 20

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I'm not sure which was worse.  The 37 point second quarter or the 28 point third quarter.

What I can tell you is that for as good as the Spurs were playing last week, they are playing that poorly right now.  I hope it is just a tired team trying to get healthy.  Unfortunately, the Nuggets await tomorrow.

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