Adiós, Stampler. Hope your summer is pleasant, too, and that you won’t be a stranger.

Welcome back and good-bye? WTF! JK.

You’ve been missed. I definitely hope to read more Stampler stories/posts in the future. Maybe about the bar? How do you feel about Tennis? Hell, I’ll even be happy with a Soccer preview. :-)

Go join Manu’s facebook page… it’ll make you feel better. And it’ll definitely help you brush up on the Spanish.

www.facebook.com/manuginobili

I forgot to mention… Great Post.

I wish I didn’t agree with most of it, but I do.

nice to see you on – no worries about the delay. i have totally quit watching the play-offs now that my team is out.

i think you are absolutely right about 1-3, but i am always the pop backer.

response #1 to item #4: name 3 coaches better than pop. they don’t exist.

response #2 to item #4: there is no question in my mind that roger was never the same after pop tinkered with him. however, that should be just as much roger’s fault as pop’s. roger had experience at point and his playing there was part of the deal when he signed. it was a reasonable expectation. to me, roger never did look right there – but some seemed to think that it was working out OK until the dallas series. either way, roger needed to work harder/play better. however, i do very much agree that pop should have given up on it more quickly.

same deal with gooden/matt. spurs sorely needed an inside presence and gooden provided that. matt was always in a role that was too big for him to fill – but he did it for a good chunk of the season. it is fair to fault pop for having bonner in such a spot, but there just weren’t that many guys available last off season. heck , re-signing kurt thomas was considered a big catch for us at one point.

…and hell yeah to more bar/drinking stories. i likes them.

You don’t know if you’re going to write for PTR again? You mean during the Summer, right?

Nice to know you’re alive. Good points throughout, I agree with most of them. We definitely weren’t worse than NOOCH, though, and Pop’s a keeper.

Have a nice Summer, Stampizzle.

I’m not sure an ‘05 playoff Manu, an ’03 playoff Duncan and an ’09 playoff Tony could’ve propelled the rest of that sorry outfit to the title.

Unless the rest of the outfit could manage to get negative points, I think they would have won a championship. Those guys can win a championship 3 on 5 if necessary : P

Answering a few questions…

@Bellasa: No, not really a big tennis fan. Don’t know too many players. I liked the female circuit in the 90s when there was some depth with Graf, Hingis, Sanchez-Vicario, Sabatini, Seles, Davenport, Capriati, Pierce, even Kournikova and I think the Williams sisters were just coming on to the scene.

Soccer season is just ending and I’m sad about that because this was the first year I really got into the EPL (English Premier League). I rooted for Liverpool because I really like Fernando Torres (positively dreamy) and Middlesbrough because they feature a Turkish player (Tuncay Sanli). Unfortunately Liverpool just lost out on the Premier League title to those Manchester United bastards despite beating them both times head-to-head, and they lost in the quarterfinals of the Champions League to Chelsea. ‘Boro’ meanwhile finished second to last in the league and will be relegated. Crap. Hopefully a bigger club will buy Tuncay and he’ll transfer out so I can watch his highlights next year.

No soccer previews for a while. The World Cup isn’t until next summer and I’m kind of bummed about it because despite having their best pool of talent ever, my Turks just can’t seem to put it all together and losing a couple of qualification heartbreakers to Spain means that they will need almost a miracle to qualify. (Here’s the table…) They’ll have to win their final four games and really hope that Bosnia-Herzogovina shit the bed. Turkey will need to win road games at Belguim and BH and BH’s final game will be against Spain who’s already clinched first place and will be playing backups by then. Not looking good.

re: Manu’s facebook page I’m awful at Spanish. He should write in English on Twitter for his American fans. Prick.

@Bones Actually I’m watching the other teams in the playoffs a lot more this year than years past when I would just watch the Spurs. I’ve been enjoying most of the games, Spurs aside. I knew Denver would blow that game last night because of all those missed free throws the first three quarters. That will always come back to bite you on the road. I also enjoyed both of Bostons’ series against Chicago and Orlando. I made a bet with my friend Roh that the Magic would win at least two games with Cleveland, so go Hedo. Turkish pride!

Also, I knew when push came to shove that the Gooden thing wouldn’t matter. He came too late to help, was too much of a defensive liability, and Pop just wasn’t going to trust him when it mattered. The only midseason guy that Pop has ever trusted/played right away was Nazr and that was only because he just needed defense and rebounding and he was just so goddamn fed up with Rasho’s softness that he was desperate for anyone. (And I liked ’sho, btw).

No more bar/drinking stories I’m afraid. The Mexicans who took over the place basically lied to me and laid me off a week after taking over. They didn’t even have the balls to just fire me. They just said “We’re not making much money now, we don’t have the money to pay employees, we’ll call you when things are better.”

This was a month ago. They still owe me like $120. I still work for Manoli’s family, doing all sorts of odd jobs. I buy their food (like $500 worth of stuff at a time) at a wholesale restaurant purveyor called ‘Restaurant Depot’ and other times I do things like shoveling dirt, which is decent exercise I guess. I’m looking for a real job.

@LatinD I really don’t know. Depends on a few things.

To everyone here, I encourage you all to follow me on twitter (twitter.com/aaronstampler) and I’ll answer questions there.