I voted for Tolliver.

I think he is a very limited player who just so happens to have a mix of skills the Spurs like and might be able to use.

He shot lights out in summer league. If he can continue to shoot well and show improvement and ability on defense, then I think the Spurs will keep him.

My next choice is Stoudamire. For him, it will depend on several factors I think. How ready the Spurs think George will be is the biggest? Then, it will come down to how well Salim can play defense vs what he gives them on offense. I’m not thrilled with him as a signing and wouldn’t be surprised if the Spurs let him walk.

The darkhorse, to me, is Devin Green. He showed some flashes in summer league that were intriguing to me. He’s an athletic wing, but not TOO athletic for Pop not to keep him.

Best ATS post of the summer by far. And yes, I only say that because you didn’t needlessly, inexplicably and incoherently berate the SiMA as we’re all so accustomed to. Kudos to you, ATS. Further proof that even old hairy bald men with retarded feet CAN change.

I agree with ATS on this one. Tolliver is staying aboard, especially with the recent news of Ian. Reading his profile linked above I chuckled at the phrase “shows excellent court awareness for a big man.” That alone pretty much guarantees that he’ll at LEAST get Rocket’s minutes.

PS- The team’s winning 53 AND making the playoffs (shame on you, doubters). Yes, we won’t have the best record. Yes, there will be 4 50-win teams. And unfortunately, we’ll be dealing with another injury not-named-Manu during the season. No jinx there, just a recognition that Bruce is going on 46 and the clock is ticking. I love you, Bruce.
I’d side with Salim next as well. He’s got the NBA background and is a good shooter. When completing a roster, Pop loves to take those two qualities …………. and bench them. Seems like he’ll fit well considering our other options. Just to clarify, I’m not refuting my comments in the Salim post. Basically what I’m saying is that I’m content with Strep throat when the other options are Ebola and Mad Cow.

Here I am all bent out of shape that I forgot to ask the question, “What happened with Malik Hairston?” in my post and went off to find the answer ONLY to find out the Spurs signed him today. He and Brian Morrison. Morrison is the bald-headed point guard from summer league.

So, you can add Hairston to your picks.

well, the reason your intelligent wife picked up on this, is because the “two period space ’em” (as I am going to call it…) was used in the typewriter age, when the use of monospaced fonts made it necessary to use two spaces in order for the eye to discern where one sentence ended, and the other began.

If we wanted to get technical and discuss typesetting in the modern era, you would find more than a few people that tell you the number of spaces between sentences never changed per se, but that we were better able to configure words, fonts, and spaces through computer use.

On a slightly less relevant topic, I am the keeper of a possibly (probably?) unnecessarily large list of criteria to be used when selecting a life partner. One of my many items of provision is that the person in question have a working knowledge of grammar and spelling. Based on your wife’s keen eye for spacing and thirst for prehistoric typing trivia, I’d say she’s a keeper.

NICE catch, ATS….

I always figure they’ll come back, they always do :)

i’ll take tolliver with a hearty +1 to SiMAs assessemnt of his limited, but fitting in well kind of skills. he is kind of sthletic overall, so i’ll also choose to beleive that will help him be a better defender.

i’m also in the 50+ wins for the spurs camp this season.

as far as the pre-seaosn goes, it will be listless and boring. you will wonder if the spurs could ever win 40 games juding by their pre-season W/L record, which i will predict at 2-7. seems like it always goes that way until the bell rings.

i’m picking tolliver, and then having a hard time deciding between hairston and stoudamire. in short, i think tolliver will be the horry replacement. and then between hariston and stoudamire, i think stoudamire has the edge because he does have 3 years of NBA experience, but i would like to think hairston would make the team just because i like his name better. but since we’ll be short a MANU to start the season, stoudamire will probably get the nod.

i haven’t read the full post nor any of the comments but i must say this: pop is the shit. that beard alone is the shit. i don’t want him to shave it at all this season. i want him his hair all over the place come playoff time, something akin to bill murray at the end of kingpin.

I made the article!

I went with Salim primarily b/c of the real lack of depth behind Tony. JV is aging and not much of an offensive threat. Hill is about as unproven a commodity as the Spurs have had in a long time. So Salim, with his ability to stretch the D b/c of his range, should get some minutes at the 1, while Mason serves more of the Barry role.

I see somewhere between 53-57 wins. I cant believe I neglected to take into account, not only an improved west, but the gains made w/i our own division. But Timmy and Manu are older, but theyre still in their early 30s, so a top 4 seed in the West is still conceivable.

 The team is essentially the same, the only real losses are in Manus ankle ligaments and Timmys youthful vigor.

I will be forever perplexed by the George Hill pick, its inexcusable when we couldve had Donte Greene or CDR. We might as well use Becky Hammon for our third pg.

However, I see Ian being a real contributor by xmas time, Mason being avg, Ime taking a step forward and the front office biding their time until the free agent frenzy kicks in the next two off seasons.

Hey ATS, glad you tried Thai Village. If you go back, I’d recommend the Red Curry (Gang Ma-Sa-Monn (sp?)), the dry curry, and Pad Se Ew. You are right about the atmosphere, though I think I told you that before. If you can believe it, it used to be worse—the owner recently put in some new carpet and other little touches. My wife and I speculate as to how much more successful the restaurant would be if the owner put a few thousand dollars into the decor. I’ve had a few people tell me they like the food, but won’t go back due to the atmosphere. I also find it an interesting coincidence that you guys ordered two of the only things on the menu I haven’t tried (I haven’t tried about 10 dishes on his menu of 50+).

I never went there when it was an Italian buffet, but the restaurant’s former life used to be much more evident—fake ivy plants on the trellises and Italian decor. It’s been Thai Village for more than a decade now. One last note: they don’t have a liquor license, so it’s BYOB, meaning you can have a nice dinner and a bottle of wine without breaking the bank. If you do bring your own beer or wine, though, you probably ought to bring a bottle opener or corkscrew as well.

You have until the end of October to make it down to Jim Jim’s Water Ice before they close their doors for the season.

Also, I’m a professional graphic designer, and your wife and Scrappy are absolutely right about the single vs. double space issue. Graphically, double spaces cause “rivers of white space” running down the page. In other words, if you squint, you see weird patterns of broken up text running down the page due to the excessively large spaces.

As for the Spurs this year, who knows? I like Tolliver to make the team and take all of Matt Bonner’s minutes. I like Salim Stoudamire to make the team as well. Those two predictions are in line with everyone else’s here. I feel like this could be a “last hurrah” kind of season, like when the Bird-McHale-Parish Celtics lost to the Mourning-LJ Hornets. I don’t expect them to win or even contend for the title, though it’s entirely possible IFF (“if and only if”)
1. Manu comes back healthy and rarin’ to go
2. Timmy and Tony are healthy come playoff time
3. Roger Mason can play
4. Ime takes Bruce’s minutes
5. Mahinmi comes on strong and has taken Fab’s minutes by the end of the year
6. They find one more useful player out of the group of Hill, Tolliver, Stoudamire, Finley et al

The bright spot in all this is that while those Celtics fell off a cliff after that year, the Spurs will have cap space and a still-viable core to rebuild around. For those Celts, it was the big three that broke down. In our case, it’s the supporting guys; Timmy and Manu still have a few years left on the treads, and Tony’s just entering his prime.

he’s already been waived. didn’t even get three days of training camp in and he’s already gone. not that it matters much, it didn’t affect my 2 choices to make the team. Charles Gaines, a 6-9 veteran of four seasons of European ball, was signed Wednesday. he’s mainly there to help in the scrimmages with Big Frenchy and KT injured. KT’s injury is not serious, but he won’t be playing for a few days or so.

Tonight’s word: accountability. Why accountability? Well, because I get tired of people not stating what they believe in, but bad-mouthing everything the way it is. I get tired of people being critical without having an idea for making things better.

I just want to say you’re utterly and completely wrong. And not just about this, but about everything. It all sucks. It sucks more than the suckiest suck ever sucked.

ATS for the record, I am a nut. Haha. I just don’t see a great season ahead, the offseason “moves” were highlighted by signing Roger Mason. Sure I guess he fits the Spur mold off the court and he seems like a nice guy and all that, but I’m just not wowed by that move, and then they let Bones and resign Finley. Not a smart move. Before that there was the draft, and I’m still asking “who in the fuck is George Hill!!!!?”. Then Manu’s out until mid to late December, and we saw how the team performed without him last season. Tim is declining and I don’t subscribe to the benefit that he can play 3-4 more years at a high level. He was never a leaper to begin with, and his BPG are sliding down year after year, and he in turn is getting his shot blocked more regularly. I should have some stats to back all that up, but I’m busy and don’t have time for research, I just know he shot 44% this past postseason, that ain’t good. I also think that Tony is what he is at that point. I know he isn’t officially in his prime, but he has to get his APG up to at least 7.5-8.0 to be truly considered an elite point and do we expect that to happen? I’m not even going to get into what I think about the Obertos, Vaughns, Finleys of the team, I just know that they would be on the top 8 rotation of any other contender in the league. The Lakers got better, the Hornets are improved, Portland is going to be a beast in the very, very near future, I’m skeptical of Houston(I’ve seen glass less fragile than Yao/T-Mac), but they are a threat. I’m probably wrong about them not winning 50 games, but if they do win more than 50 games, it will not be by much. They will max out around 51-52, and in turn be lucky to win that many. IMO. If I’m wrong, I’ll be thrilled, but I don’t think I will be.

Well, I’ve been away for the last month, traveling because of pesky work assignments, so I haven’t had much time to idle here. Not that I’ve missed all that much, really, but posts like ATS’ remind me of the incoming season and force me to put hands to the keyboard.

I really don’t know what to expect from the Spurs this season. We didn’t do much during the offseason, and what we did was wholly uninteresting. Manu will be out for an indeterminate amount of time, and Findog is somehow still in the roster. Can we get 50 wins with this team? I think so. Especially if Manu comes back before the ASG.

That said, it should be a painful RS for us fans. Expect a lot of we-don’t-belong games where Timmy and Tony simply can’t match the CP3s, LeBrons and Kobe of this league. We’ll just have to weather those and keep the faith till the playoffs come around.

In Mahinmi we trust.

i believe the current iteration of the spurs has one more title in it – and by the current iteration, i mean the duncan/parker/manu version. i’m hoping that is this year as it will only get tougher with each passing season.