Still waters run deep

I'm not naturally inclined to be the participatory type when it comes to community endeavors. Blogs, forums, comments, wall posts... meh. I don't engage in social networking, and in that perhaps you should consider me something of an atavism. Like the Spurs, I am what I am, and I don't deign to apologize for it.

That said, I'm a ruthless and relentlessly competitive sonofabitch, and I bleed Silver and Black. I want to see equal mixes of precision and passion from my Spurs. I demand flawless execution, and I rant at the television when I don't get it. This post-season, I have been ranting a lot. I've been doing a lot of pacing of the hardwood in front of my couch, like some kind of demented Stan Van Gundy, nursing a 30 point lead against Atlanta.

I've growled at the screen innumerable times, willing my team to dig just a little bit deeper, make the pass just a little bit crisper, make just a little bit smarter a decision - please, anything, just fight for crying out loud. Fate, however, doesn't budge for the likes of me. It's easy to fall into the trap of believing that they simply don't want it as badly as you do, but the inescapable truth is far worse:

The talent is there, but the will and wherewithall to force aged bodies to express that talent is waning. And our young guns still have not yet taken on the mantle of responsibility, preferring instead to bull on with questionable decision making, or looking meekly back to their spent leaders for guidance.

The regular season is a long grind, and somewhere around February the fire was extinguished. The contrast between now, and the beginning of the regular season is striking: one paints a picture of a team hungry to reach deep within themselves and find that elusive fount of greatness, while the other picture closely resembles something more readily found in my 5 month old son's diaper. Where it all went wrong, I cannot say, but it saddens me deeply to have witnessed the fight, scrappy determination and sheer stubbornness seemingly bleed out of my Spurs over the last few months.

I've leaving work early today in order to be home to watch the game. I firmly believe that these Spurs can - and should - find it within themselves to be the team of destiny they set their designs upon in the pre-season.

They just have to fight.

There is a folk idiom which goes, "still waters run deep" - if there is but a grain of truth to it, then somewhere inside the blank façade Timmy puts up to the world at large lives a seething cauldron of silent rage.

Now is not the time to keep that rage silent, Timmy.