On April 16th, or sometime soon thereafter, this blog is getting a giant redesign.  This has been in the works for well over a year, and many SB Nation blogs (the baseball ones) have already been migrated over to the new format.

The changes coming are too numerous to highlight in this space (even if I was familiar with every new facet, which I'm not).  One thing everyone should enjoy is auto-refreshing comments.  This feature should ensure that playoff game threads are out of control.

Here's the main page of one of the redesigned blogs, and here's an introductory guide to the new format.

There's only one thing you need to do to prepare for the new PtR:  you need to claim your old blog account.

Greetings and salutations amigos. I come to you filled with joy in my heart and air in my dry, wrinkled husk of a ballsack, thanks to another "romantic" encounter with my nymphomaniac flame at the bar. I'm always sore, gimpy, dehydrated and unable to think clearly for hours at a time. I'm not doing anything particularly well but I'm getting lavished with praise. I can't shake the feeling that I'm getting away with something but I'm hiding my guilt as best I can. Really this must be what it feels like to be Robert Horry during an NBA game.

The few free hours that I have though, I devote almost exclusively to Spurs basketball. We have much to be excited about obviously after a thorough beat downs of the punchless Rockets and the Golden State Matadors, and a fairly convincing affair with the Orlando Madge. Yes, the games with the Clips and T-Pups were uncomfortably close late, but I don't mind those so much because they just give Manu the opportunity to do the voodoo that he do. I'm shallow that way.

So of course I'm straddling both sides of the fence, and with my ample bottom, it's really not very difficult for me to do so. On one hand we can absolutely say that we're playing as well as anybody these days, now that we're into the nitty gritty, and we're tied for 1st in the Western Conference (though not really, the loss column is what you really pay attention to and the NOOCH are still, at the moment, our superiors there).  On the other hand, our scoring differential ain't so hot and there is reams upon reams of empirical and historical evidence that suggests that stat is immensely important when it comes to figuring out who's gonna win this thing.

Let's face reality folks: The title is Boston's to lose. I'm not saying it's inevitable or anything, but they are the definitive favorites. I will be surprised if they don't win the whole thing, and outright shocked if anyone outside of us, them, the Lakers or the Pistons do so. Parity schmarity. It's a Jessica Simpsonesque top heavy league, like always. The other 12 playoff teams are cannon fodder and some of these series won't be as close as the experts think. Naturally for any playoff matchup you're tempted to pick the winner "in six" because that's the safest result, but I'm telling you, for most of the expected match-ups of the first two rounds, if I had to pick only between "over in five" or "going to game 7" I'd lean toward the former.

Anyway, the reason I'm posting today is that since we've entered the stretch run now, PtR will surely be more populated by curious gawkers than ever. "Hits" the nerds call them, I believe and I expect we'll have, during the playoffs, days where as many as six or seven hundred different humans on this planet clickity click to our site perfectly of their own volition. Sure, the majority will do so because they meant to go here (NSFW) and typed the wrong thing in their eagerness. God knows that's how I found PtR. Still, we want these first timers to enjoy their visit to PtR, to read it, to love it, to tell their "friends" about it and to propel Matthew and I to untold riches and fame.

Obviously the only way to accomplish this will be new nicknames.

I don't exactly know how it came to be that PtR has gained a reputation for coming up with clever nicknames for the Spurs, but it seems that we're more notorious for that than for any analytical claptrap that we might offer or our other gimmicks such as "3 Stars" and writing semi-funny captions below pictures. Yeah yeah we kiss Manu's butt, but poke around on the web a little. LOTS of people are doing that, and most much more nauseatingly and unabashedly than us. Nicknames are our thing, and we've certainly come up with quite a few gems over the years. But like Asian men, nicknames don't age well, and they need to be refreshed constantly so that we can give the guys the proper mojo and at the same time ensure that PtR is what you hear when you ask your household magic mirror "who's the cleverest of them all?"

With that, I'm introducing a fresh batch of AKAs for the fellas. I'm just throwing them out there. If you don't like them, Veronica Corningstone, then just toss them back.

I want to be on you.  

And after an hour of drooling and furious self-gratification, you're back. Hey there. Don't worry, you haven't missed a thing. We've all been waiting for you. We totally understand. That site is like Lay's potato chips, you can't stop at one photo, one gallery, one model. I've spent whole weekends there, believe me. (Well not this year, but in the past).

I'm gonna go from least important to most, just like how we do at the ring ceremony, to build up ze drama.

Damon Stoudamire

Here I come to... wear a pretty pink dress.
1.    Suit - As in the suit he'll be forced to wear once the playoffs start.
2.    Minnie  -  Short for "Minnie Mouse" the cartoon rodent his game truly is worthy of, rather than his current "Mighty Mouse" moniker.
3.    JK eh? - This one is a bit versatile, and can be used in a couple of different mocking ways. The JK could stand for Jason Kidd, as in this was our version of the Jason Kidd trade, acquiring an old-as-shit has been point guard whose play wildly underwhelmed his new "fans". Or you can adopt the more common computer/text message usage of it and take JK to mean Just Kidding  as in, "The Spurs front office was obviously Just Kidding when they said that Stoudamire would be a contributor for us." Or you combine both insults, disparaging Kidd, Damon, the Spurs FO and the Mavs FO, all in one fell swoop. "Just Kidding, eh?"
4.    JVJV  - This one's simple enough. It stands for "Jacque Vaughn's Jacque Vaughn." I can't think of anything more damning.

Robert Horry

In the Fresh Prince's defense, my dad thought that song was very catchy.
1.    Jiggy - We all know that Horry bears a passable resemblance to Will Smith. It's been mentioned in the media ad nauseam.  Anyway, some of you may be too young to remember, but believe it or not Will Smith was at one point a rapper before he was a famous movie star. He went by the handle of "The Fresh Prince" I guess so people wouldn't confuse him with Prince and he even had a sitcom on NBC called The Fresh Prince of Bel Air that lasted a few seasons and was a perfectly bland portrayal of an extended African-American family that in no way would be found threatening by white America. As a rapper Smith stood out amongst the crowd for working clean, as in not swearing or using the N word and things like that. When rap first went mainstream his songs like "Parents Just Don't Understand" were big hits, but his street cred went kaput when rap started getting more hard core. By the time Smith released "Getting Jiggy With It" his music career was all but dead, and therein lies the link to Robert Horry's current state of affairs. Also, Horry has been stealing money for years with his disinterested regular season play, so after this season when he'll presumably retire, the "Jig" will be up for him.
2.    Big ED - ED as in Erectile Dysfunction. Every time I'm excited about Spurs basketball, it seems Horry has to get in the way and ruin my fun. He's the anti-viagra for this team and I don't think it's much of a coincidence that most of our big winning streaks have occurred when he was out of the lineup. You can have all sorts of fun with this one like "another flaccid night for Big Ed" or "Big ED is looking like a total stiff today."
3.     DNP-DC - Almost like the abbreviation for "Did not play - Coaches decision" but with a twist. This one means "Did not play - Didn't care".
4.    Big Shot Blob - He's not exactly in trim playing shape these days.

Matt Bonner

Nice coconuts.
1.    Red Rover - A play on the popular "Red Rocket" nickname. Bonner is always in Pop's dog house, and Rover is a popular name for a dog, so...
2.    Mary Ann - I've always preferred her to Ginger. I think I'm in the minority but I don't care. Red heads are fucking nothing but trouble.
3.    Mud Butt - Anybody ever see Bonner run? He always goosesteps so gingerly out there, like he's afraid to take a full stride for whatever reason. Basically he looks like he's hobbling along having accidentally dropped a deuce into his shorts and he doesn't know what to do about it. That would also explain the perpetually confused look he's got on his face.
4.    Chucky - Eh, he's got red hair, he's manic, and he's not exactly shy about shooting or "chucking" when he's on the court.

Brent Barry

Start planning the parade everybody, we got the savior.
1.    Mango Tree - Obviously this one is from his H.E.B. commercials. He was pretty adamant about being the tree, though I did enjoy Manu's bird dance. Somebody at Spurstalk came up with this, in all fairness.
2.    Spacemonkey - When Barry shears off his hair it reminds me of Brad Pitt in Fight Club for some reason when he makes all the new recruits do it and tells them that now they look fierce, like space monkeys. He also "spaces" the floor for the other guys.
3.    Mr. Tiny - When Brent does play, he almost exclusively does so in tinyball line-ups. He's like our specialist in that regard.
4.    White Jesus - So many teams pursued Brent when he was a free agent there briefly, you'd think he was a savior or something. He's just a limited role player folks. And I put the "white" in front of it because I always thought it was absurd when some African-American athlete got labeled "Black Jesus" for being so good. Uh...the original was black, or pretty damn brown anyway, so it's kinda redundant, no?  

Kurt Thomas  

Kurt needs a Mohawk in the worst way.
1.    The Hooligan - I've thought for years, I don't know why, but Kurt always looked British to me. He's got the look and disposition of an English guy you see in bank heist movies, like a henchman. Really, all sorts of British terms would work for him: Ruffian, scallywag, rabble-rouser, even "proper villain." He fits the bill for all of them.
2.    Mug - One of the NBA's most uh... disturbing distinguished faces deserves this simple handle. And speaking of handles, when you factor his gigantic outward sticking ears into the equation, his head is literally shaped like a mug.
3.    Marbles - The man's crazy pupils rattling around like fireflies inside his eye sockets look like wayward marbles flung off a slingshot. Plus Marbles sounds like another bag guy name you'd see in a British movie like, "Hey Marbles, get o'er here and help me jimmy this here vault, eh mate?"
4.    House Money - Thanks to Barry's deciding to return to us instead of more wide open pastures, we basically acquired Thomas for a song (a 1st round pick we haven't done shit with since Tony Freakin' Parker). Thus whatever he gives us is like playing with House Money.

Jacque Vaughn  

Quit chewing on that grass and pass it to Manu!
1.    The JV - Someone else at PtR came up with this (I think it was Rick2g, but my apologies to the proper individual if I'm mistaken) and we HAVE to keep it, it's frickin' brilliant, much better than anything I can come up with. It encapsulates Vaughn's game ne his whole being, perfectly.
2.    Least - Short for "At least" or explained fully, the most common fan rationalization of Vaughn's place in the Spurs rotation as in "At least he's not Nick Van Exel, Beno Udrih, Damon Stoudamire, Darius Washington, [enter crappy point guard here]..."
3.    Zebra - Like a referee or a "zebra" you know Vaughn is really on his game when you don't notice him out there. If Vaughn stands out to you, it's usually one of those nights where he's 1-7 from the floor and -15 in nine minutes.
4.    The Prototype - An eye-rolling response to Pop's BS praise of Vaughn, calling him "The prototypical backup point guard" on numerous occasions. Puh-lease. If he's so god damn prototypical how come you go into training camps looking for guys to beat him out? How come you sign Minnie? Does anyone buy this tripe?

Ime Udoka  

Here are your French fries, please don't kill me!
1.    The Growth - Sean Elliott calls Bruce "The Rash" so it would only make sense to call Bruce Jr. "The Growth" - and of course it'd be a reference to his impossible-to-miss birthmark.
2.    Blotch - And another reference to it. I'm a prick. It's probably not too smart on my part to make fun of the appearance of the team's resident badass.
3.    Grimace - Udoka usually is sporting some kind of scowl, like wondering if Pop would release him if he just decked a guy and got himself suspended. Plus Grimace is purple, just like Ime's birthmark! I'm so sorry, I can't help myself.
4.    Seven? - Can you believe Udoka is the 7th most important guy on the roster? Who'd have thunk it when the season started? Now he's a critical member of the rotation. For this nickname to be effective, it must be said with an uncertain vocal inflection or written with an adjoining question mark. Like who him? Also, we probably need the guy to average seven points or so in the playoffs if we want to repeat. Just so you know.

Fabricio Oberto  

No, I'm not thinking about Gino in tights, you mean jerks.
1.    Concha de tu madre! - Translated from Spanish, this little gem means "Your mother's pussy" and it was what Oberto yelled at Stephon Marbury from the bench during the 2004 Athens Olympics after suffering a hand injury. It remains his most memorable quote to date.
2.    Trash - I don't care that he's Argentine and that Argentina is in South America, Fab's got himself a Eurotrash haircut folks. Plus, all of his buckets are of the simple, trash variety.
3.    Robíno - I couldn't find a literal Spanish translation for "sidekick" so I used my American ignorance of foreign cultures to worth and came up with a Spanglish version of America's most famous sidekick, Robin. Plus this sounds like some fancy Brazilian soccer star's name, which me rationalizing would only offend Argentines further, I suppose.
4.    Piedra - "Stone" in Spanish, A tribute to Fab's striking resemblance to porn star Evan Stone, whom I refuse to give y'all a link to, for obvious reasons. It could also refer to Oberto's inability to catch many of Manu's uh... more creative let's say, efforts to pass him the ball.

Michael Finley  

Ironically, he can't guard anybody.
1.    B.O. - Short for "Billy Ocean" but of course it also stands for "Body Odor" so whenever Fin has a stinky night (which hasn't been often of late) you can write, "Boy that B.O.'s game really reeked tonight" or "Another funky shooting display by B.O."
2.    Caribbean Queen - For those games where you feel that Findog hasn't been sufficiently manly enough on defense or on the boards.
3.    Michael Finished - So, so clever.
4.    The Stroke - To be used either sincerely or mockingly (okay, mostly the latter) to describe Fin's deadeye shooting touch. Plus he moves around like he's damn near old enough to have one.

Bruce Bowen  

Maybe Bruce could introduce me to Mila Kunis.
1.    The Funneler- For Bruce's main defensive responsibility, overplaying jumpshooters and "funneling" guys toward the bigs; a tactic that I've written numerous times alleviates Bruce from the responsibilities other perimeter stoppers have.
2.    Cleveland - Bowen's voice sounds eerily similar to that of the Cleveland Brown character on "Family Guy".
3.    Bruce Dee - D is for defense of course, and Bruce Dee is like Bruce Lee, and as Wally World can surely attest, Bowen is quite a kung fu master.
4.     Handles - For the guy who could quite possibly be the worst ball handling wingman in the NBA and also for his reputation of being extra liberal when it comes to holding on to his man in his own end.

Tony Parker  

I wanted to find a classy picture so the engineer wouldn't object.
1.    Antoine - Tony is not a very French sounding name. "Antoine" sounds much better, especially when he does something smooth or silky. "Another lay-up from a ridiculous angle by Antoine..."
2.    Desperate Jumpshot - Let's face it. In all likelihood our winning a title or not will hinge on how well Tony's strokin' his jumper. When he can make `em, we're damn near unbeatable. When he's a bricklayer we're only an above average squad and have to rely almost exclusively on Manu's heroics to save the day. The "desperate" part is obviously a reference to the missus.
3.    36 - A reference to how many minutes of a big basketball game we can count on from Tony, as fourth quarters are not exactly his forte. And if you add up 3 + 6, you get 9, his uniform number. Spooooky.
4.    Spaceball - A reference to Tony's "Now" status with ESPN. I can't possibly explain how I came up with this, but this clip can.
Imagining this scene with Stuart Scott and Stephen A. makes it even funnier.

Manu Ginobili  

Daniel Day Lewis could totally play Manu in a movie. He can play anyone. Look at that nose!
1.    BLOG - Manu's bemused eye-rolling reaction to being the frontrunner for the 6th Man of the Year award was something like, "Who cares? It's like being named best left handed guard." And while I agree with him completely, I thought to myself, you know, he probably is the best left handed guard. So BLOG literally stands for Best Lefty Off Guard. Also, he's probably the main reason I write (albeit occasionally) for two separate Spurs blogs.
2.    Hulk - Don't make him angry. You won't like him when he's angry. I think we all know this about Manu by now.
3.    The Exception - To our otherwise uncompromising heterosexuality. Admit it, you'd totally give it up to Manu if he asked. Right? Right? Surely I'm not the on- uh... I've said too much. He's also the exception to all sorts of unflattering un-PC basketball stereotypes about white guys, foreign guys, and guys who have to work side-by-side with the French.
4.    Plainview - By now it's widely acknowledged that Manu is looked upon as a villain by most American followers of the NBA, despite David Stern's best efforts to promote him in 2005. So now, predictably, Stern has turned on him and Manu gets no love. But he doesn't care. He doesn't care if he won't make your All-Star teams. He doesn't care if your fans call him a flopper. He doesn't care if your ratings suck. He's still gonna kick Steve Nash's ass. And Kobe's. And LeBron's, all your glamourama superduperstars. And when he's through doing that he's gonna spend his summer humiliating your preening primadonnas in China during the Olympics. Manu is going to DRINK. YOUR. MILKSHAKE, Stern. He's going to DRINK IT UP!!!

Tim Duncan  

What I crap out every morning is tougher than KG.
1.    Bank - Cos he's not just money, he's the whole damn bank. And his signature shot, of course.
2.    Humi - As in "Who, me?" If you haven't noticed Duncan usually takes exception with foul calls.
3.    Fran - Short for "Franchise" which is basically what Duncan is. Without him the Spurs are a nonentity.
4.    GOAT Puff - A cute way of saying "Greatest Of All Time PF (Power-Forward)."  Yeah this sucks, but it's not any sillier than Allen Iverson's friends calling him "Bubba Chuck" and I've done over fifty of these...

Gregg Popovich  

Yeah, great call Joey, you fucking idiot. ::Cue exaggerated eye roll in 3...2...1...::
1.    Get Off My Lawn - Pop hates youngsters. One would have to put it in quotes between coach's first and last name for it to make any sense.
2.    Professor Zzz - Pop is so utterly bored by the regular season that he spends his whole time experimenting with wacky line-ups that can't possibly be expected to work.
3.    The Smirk - Pop's perpetual facial expression when he thinks he's surrounded by people less competent than he - which is pretty much everyone. Mostly reserved for referees or the media.
4.    Coach LAMB - Stands for "Look At My Brain, which is what I think Pop is attempting to do, rolling his eyes so blatantly at any reporter's simplistic question. Not only does he have an arrogant, "I'm too smart/important/busy for this" attitude, but Pop wants you to know he's much more evolved than you are. Hell, you care about a bunch of grown men bouncing around a basketball, for crying out loud.

So yeah, there you go. Hope you enjoyed those, maybe some will catch on, most probably won't. I spent way more time on this than I thought I would. For your patience in reading through this whole thing, here's a little reward - PtR legend James "Flight" White in the slam dunk completion of the Turkish basketball league. The free throw line here can't be the regulation 15 feet away or the rim can't be the regulation 10 feet high. I mean, no human being can possibly do this, right? Oh my god.

P.S. Yes, I know that first link was a cheap, disgusting joke. What can I say? Sometimes I'm cheap and disgusting. Personally, I was a lot more grossed out by the Hammer song than the images, but your experience may differ.

P.P.S. I'm aware I wrote "Manu's butt" and "poke" in the same sentence. Totally unintentional. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

P.P.P.S. Boy how `bout that wacky NCAA Tournament, huh? Four number one seeds in the Final Four. The Madness! The Upsets! I've got UCLA beating North Carolina in my bracket, but if Cinderella Kansas pulls the upset, I won't be too upset because it'd be such a heartwarming story and all. Seriously this is the stupidest, most overrated sporting event ever and I refuse to take anyone who feels otherwise seriously. I'm not even winning my office pools because I had the nerve to pick #2 Georgetown as one of my Final Four picks. I'm losing to people who picked all four top seeds to make it to San Antonio. All you need to know about college basketball is that I don't know any of the teams, I might have heard about ten players maybe, I don't watch any of the games the whole year and I picked six of the elite eight, three of the final four and have an excellent chance of getting both finalists right. Wheee!

Well this wasn't pleasant news to wake up to. Hamit Altintop, midfielder for Bayern Munich and one of Turkey's three or four best players, broke a bone in his foot during a friendly with Belarus and is now doubtful for Euro 2008.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=520345&cc=5901

I AM NOT HAPPY.

You people don't understand. I've almost been looking forward to the Euros more than I am to the Spurs playoff run. This is the first significant soccer tourney my homeys will be a part of since the '02 World Cup. And now we have to go at it with out Altintop (literally translated his surname means "Goldenball" - Turks are weird).

In fact there is a small chance that the Turks and the Spurs could play on the very same day once or twice. But the Spurs would have to make it to the Finals I think for that to happen. Such a thing would probably lead me to having a heart attack.

For once I woke up without nary a care or a responsibility, so I went on the computer and check up on my favorite blogger/sports owner/douchebag. He wrote some dumb thing about foreign sports ownership, and here was my witty comment, which to my shock hasn't been deleted by his Nazi mods yet. http://www.blogmaverick.com/2008/02/29/when-will-foreign-ownership-of-us-sports-teams-start/3#commen ts

53. Man, speaking of foreign ownership your boy Dirk fucking OWNED that weaksauce Russian the other night. That was MAD GANGSTA SHIT YO!!! JIGGA JIGGA JIGGA WHAT!!!

Right now you guys are straight up BALLIN!!

As a Spurs fan, I sure wouldn't want to run into the Mavs in the playoffs, no doubt. The way they're playin', I don't think anyone is gonna have to worry about that though ::giggles::

Totally looking forward to your post in mid-April about how Stern should change the playoff format so the best 16 records get in and not just the best 8 in the West. Promise a brotha you'll do this if you can't fight off the Suns for the 8 seed, aiiiight?

I can't wait until you buy the Cubs and lead them to the same level of quasi-psedo-Diet Coke level of contention that has been the trademark of your basketball franchise. Because that's what the Cubs fans want: To be competitive. They don't want to actually win the World Series or anything....

P.S. Can you even smell the Spurs butts from your place in the standings or are they just too damn far away?

http://www.spursdynasty.com/2008/02/timmy-nooooooo-shes-only-14.html

Darryl Dawkins, after the dunk contest, giving his thoughts:

Hey everybody, long time no posts, I know. But I'm not apologizing, because I have nothing to apologize for. I am... happy, believe it or not. Life has gotten complicated. I was on vacation in New York/New Jersey from January 16th to January 23rd, and I had all the intentions in the world of continuing to write for the blog, write about how cold it was and how my mom's boyfriend is such a fucktard and how everyone in Atlantic City is rude and how expensive New York is and how surreal and phony a taping of the David Letterman show is and then... well Amanda happened. I don't know if anyone knows anything about her, I might have mentioned her talking about the bar once or twice, but she's really nice and sweet and she seems to adore me and we spend a lot of time together. It's safe to say that at the moment Manu Ginobili is only numero dos when it comes to capturing my heart and my imagination.

But then we get games like last night and I wonder...

I mean, holy shit. There's just no way to describe what we saw. Dude just wasn't missing out there. It was inspiring, it was jaw-dropping, and it was breathtaking. And it still wasn't better than his performance against the Mavs earlier this season, all things considered. That game meant more. We hadn't beaten them in forever, Tim was out and they were giving The Sickness all kinds of cheap shots in that one.

But yes, this one was sweet. Everything about it was fucking sweet. The behind the back dribble setting up a three to Bowen was nasty. Mr. Potatohead hitting some shots for once gave me hope for May, when we'll need him. The block on LeNike was like the cherry on the sundae.
In the end even the over-the-top homer announcers of the Cavs had to just shut up and give Manu his due. Only took them about 47:30, but whatever. I'll tell you this much, I have a whole new level of respect for LBJ. You have any idea how hard it is to put up 30-7-7 a night when two broadcasters are fondling your balls in their mouths the whole time? What an athlete!

And what's up with Austin Carr, their color guy? He was like openly advocating violence during the second half. "They gotta put Ginobili on his can." "They gotta knock him on his keister." "They gotta knock him around and make him know they're there." "They gotta gouge him in the eye and stick two fingers up his anus."

(Okay, I might have gotten carried away).

I don't think Mr. Cavalier has seen too much of The Hustlemaker's career. The more you hit him, the better he plays. Whereas I usually spend Spurs games cussing out the opposing announcers, I was openly laughing at this clown the whole time. Yes, by all means, put Gino at the line so he can have a couple of uncontested 15 footers instead of contested 30 foot fadeaways. Give him the free points you idiots!

I guess statements like that are why Austin Carr is in the broadcasting booth and Mike Brown is the coac- uh... I guess I really have no point.

But yeah, 6-3 for the Rodeo Road Trip is darn near miraculous, considering we started 0-2 after a
loss to lowly Seattle and were without the fragile Mr. Longoria the whole time. Plus, my regular season goal of beating everybody at least once is still alive! I know it seems trivial and hokey to the rest of you, but to me, this is like the Holy Grail. Just once I want to see the Spurs do it. Last year we screwed it up against Cleveland and Milwaukee (although we certainly got appropriate revenge on the former in the postseason). This year, thanks to these thrilling road wins in T-dot and The Mistake By The Lake, we're still alive. In fact only three obstacles remain in our path: 1) We got to win a simple home game in April against the Dubs, the only Western team we have yet to vanquish, and to my great shame I've witnessed two losses to them in person already. 2) We gotta beat the Celtics, presumably with a healthy KG, on St. Patrick's day at our barn. Total must win, that. 3) Finally, the biggest obstacle of them all, we must somehow, someway squeak one out against the Stones in D-Twa. They're playing miles better than anyone these days, but hopefully they'll have cooled down a bit by the time we go up there.

Anyway,  as much as I hate to admit it, I am starting to regain some faith, most of it due to Manu's otherworldly play. Apparently nobody has ever averaged 24-6-6 in a 9 game road trip before. This stat sounds suspicious to me. MJ never did this? Kobe? Magic? Oscar? None of these dudes ever had nine game roadies? Whatever, I'll take Elias' word for it.

Anyway, here are a few scattered thoughts about everything I've missed...

The potential Mavs trade

Ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease let this trade go through. God, it's like the Western teams want us to repeat, when really we have no business doing so. First the Suns commit suicide, trading their whole identity for a has-been who can't move and who absolutely can't be on the court in the final minutes and now the Mavs want to get rid of the one guy in the world who can guard Tony. I'm in shock, I really am.

Seriously, who in the world right now is happier than Tony Freaking Parker? This must feel almost as good as the one of the four billion times Eva Longoria touched his penis in the past year and a half. All of a sudden he has a chance to play like something resembling himself against Dallas and doesn't have to face my wrath anymore (Tony hates my wrath, I'm telling you). Not only does Tony get off now, but Manu and Tim will get to feast on lay-ups and trips to the line thanks to Diop leaving. That's a huge bonus about this deal that nobody is talking about. The Mavs will get WAY FUCKING WORSE on defense. I'm positively giddy about this.

"But Stampler," you wail, "what about Kidd improving the Mavs offense with his wizardly point guard skills?" Uh, the Nets this season, with two fairly decent wing players in Jefferson and Vinsanity, were like 24th in offensive efficiency this season. The Mavs were 5th. I think Harris has been doing pretty well for them, for the most part. Kidd won't have a chance to impact the Mavs offense unless they radically change the playbook overnight (very unlikely with the season two thirds gone) and let him run the show. Currently the Mavs run more isolation stuff than any team in the league. They can't just change everything to accommodate Kidd, can they?

Plus, is it just me, or wouldn't it seem that the Mavs would be incredibly easy to guard with Kidd in there? Double team the ball and give him the Jacque Vaughn treatment. HE CAN'T SHOOT. HE CAN'T FUCKING SHOOT! EVERYONE KNOWS THIS!!! I just can't imagine, for the life of me, how such a trade could possibly work for Dallas. We're right on the precipice of being able to make fun of Cubes forever.

So of course, Devean George is ruining everything. I never liked George. He's always had the sourpuss, his whole career, even as the 5th banana on the Lakers when they were winning rings. Why is he never happy? Is he trapped in a bad marriage? Does he have a tiny winky (I apologize, my mind has been in the gutter lately)? Is he a member of the John Amaechi All-Stars and tormented about his secret life? I just don't get why he's always been so miserable looking when clearly he's in the 99th percent tile in lives a male could be having. I wish Scoop Jackson could get down to the bottom of this for me. I think the trade will ultimately go through, but in a weird way it'd be kind of funny if it doesn't, because at this point how fractious is that locker room gonna be with him and Diop and Harris in one camp and a resentful Cubes, Dirk, and J-Ho in the other? You're telling me nobody is gonna come to blows during a practice in the next week? I swear, I'm like half considering ordering a Mavs Devean George jersey on-line and wearing it in front of Cuban the next time Dallas visits the W's.

The "I can't believe Steve Kerr is so fucking stupid Shaq trade

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
He can't play! He can't play anymore! He's done. Fucking done. D-U-N DONE, SON. As much as Manu going off against the Cavs was a pleasant surprise, it pales in comparison to this. I can't believe the Suns completely sold out like this. I mean, as much as I derided them for being whiny puss-boys, at least they stood for a style of play, and one could argue that they were entertaining during the regular season.  

But this? It's indefensible.  Yeah fine, the Suns didn't match up well with us, that's been established. But they matched up just fine thank you with everyone else. They made a trade that gave them a 5% better chance of beating us but probably made them 30% more likely to lose to everyone else. Congratulations. You lost Marion. Who guards The Big Bug or Dirk now? Who guards Gasol or Odom? Carlos Boozer? AK-47? David West? Peja? T-Mac? Crazy-ass Stephen Jackson?

Good God. Marion may be less something less than an All-Star in a half court set, but he's an All-Star rebounder, defender and transition guy. Just because he struggles against the Spurs it doesn't mean he's not valuable and certainly it doesn't mean he's less valuable than Shaq. I don't care if it comes out that Marion choked Nash in the locker room or kicked Amare in the nuts (I'm rather fond of players that kick Amare in the nuts, as you know) trading him for anyone else other than Kirilenko was a colossal error that will send Steve Kerr back to TNT in a matter of months.

Shaq can't move his feet to guard anybody. Tim will get open 13 foot bankers all game long. We can pick and roll him to death. We can run him off the floor or foul him on purpose. We can force him into a turnover every third possession. Also, I don't see how he and Amare can play together. Amare needs wide open lanes going to the bucket. With Shaq's fat ass in the way, how will little Stevie feed S.T.A.T the ball where he wants it? Stoudemire isn't the type of guy who can face the basket from 17 feet away with the ball in his hands and create offense. He doesn't really dribble or pass. I sense we're going to see all kinds of offensive confusion and frustration between him, The Diesel, and Nash. I can't wait for this.

Also, if the game is close late, as most of our games with the Suns are, Shaq can't even be on the floor because he can't make the freebies. So he's a late game liability. Also, he's an early game liability. And yeah, he's a middle-part-of-the-game liability. Other than that, this is a solid move for the Suns.

Meanwhile the addition of Shaq means the subtraction of the great praying mantis, Shawn Marion. Man I'm gonna miss that shooting motion, where he literally looks like he's vomiting the ball toward the rim. What I won't miss is his length bothering Tony. Seriously it's like God just smiled down on Tony one morning and declared, "I want you to lead the league in scoring this postseason." I don't know what to think about this. It might be easy. Too easy.

The Gasol trade

Now this is scary. The Lakers are kinda freaking me out. If you ask me right this second who I see winning the West if it's not us, I'd have to go with the purple and gold. They have depth, a clutch time star, scoring threats inside and outside all over the court, and a great coach. Their only weaknesses that I can think of are inexperience, unfamiliarity with each other, and perhaps a soft frontcourt, mentally. We would really, really need Tim and Tony to play well to get by them.

That being said, I found Pop's comments about the deal highly inappropriate. Grow a pair, Pop. Just because another GM found a way to get a deal done where you couldn't/wouldn't, it's no reason to whine about it like a baby. The Spurs are supposed to be above whining. You're the one who wants to go to war with the likes of Horry, Francisco Elson, Findog and Vaughn. You made your bed dude, don't blame other teams for doing everything they can to kick your ass.

Pop's laissez faire attitude with losses

Now this is fucking annoying. He's dicking with refs, he's smiling and joking with P.J. after losing to the third worst team in the league, he's massaging Doc Rivers' bulge after the Celtics game and hamming it up with Craig Sager on TNT.

On one hand, I get what Pop is doing. He won't give the media ANYTHING. He'll give them smart aleck answers ("I told them to play better" "Because he's Manu Ginobili" "Can you repeat that, I'm kinda drunk right now") and won't ever look nervous or tight.  And maybe the end of game stuff is a psychological ploy to fire up the players like, "If you all don't care about these games, why should I?"

I don't know. I understand the formula calls for slow, gradual improvement leading to a peak in May and June for the playoffs. I understand that for the most part the regular season doesn't matter. But coaches aren't supposed to admit this stuff, right? I mean, the fans and advertisers pay good money for this stuff. They don't want to see coaches goofing off with the ball after a two point loss, right? It's one thing to not respect the media, but when you show the fans you don't respect them either, that's a slippery slope, my friends.

The Webber trade

Don Nelson must have lost what little mind he had. Webber has as much hops these days as George Wendt. He played like three games and already has been shelved for being more out of shape than the front office foresaw. Nice. I'm not going to beat around the bush about this: If Webber plays 15+ minutes a night for the Warriors this year, they won't make the playoffs. It's that simple. The guy is a loser. The Warriors would've been better off signing that 6' 8" high school chick who can dunk. Poor Manolis.

Robert Horry's inevitable insertion into our rotation

::waves white flag::

I give up. That's it, really, I give up.
They're gonna ride this corpse another year. Why? Not because he's any good. Cos he's not. At all. It's just that the other bigs are soooooooo bad. Elson, I'm convinced, has some kind of undiagnosed learning disability or he's just like some sadistic psychopath sent to torment us. Bonner is too um... white, I guess, to play any defense and has thus fallen out of the rotation. So really, thanks to incredible shortsightedness  by the front office, Robert Horry - freaking 82 year old Robert Fucking Horry - is still our second best defensive big man. Just super. Welcome to tinyball hell and to us repeatedly being crushed on the boards.

Here comes your reflexive rationalization though: In the right circumstance Horry can still potentially not kill us. He has to play with Tim and Manu and Tony and either Finley or Barry. Basically, four offensive players. In that situation we'd be okay with him. If he's on the court though with like Vaughn and Bowen and Udoka (and Manu of course, cos Pop loves to surround Manu with more excrement than Babe the Pig) well then I'll start throwing things.

Assuming everyone comes back healthy, I think the rotation should be Tim-Fab-Bruce-Fin-Tony with Horry, Manu, Udoka and Brent as the subs. We shouldn't play Mighty Mouse or Vaughn. Manu has proven in Tony's absence that he's a better quarterback than either of those guys and I think he and Brent can handle the ball well enough and give the opposition fits with their passing vision. I'm not worried about their defense much because it's not like Vaughn locks up anybody. He just "tries hard" while he's being mediocre.

Manu not being selected to the All-Star game

Hardly surprising. The whole league is xenophobic. I'm sure there was outside pressure to put Roy on the team because the Blazers are so damn heartwarming and the Spurs are ratings poison. Manu wasn't the only fob who got fucked. Jose Calderon is having a season for the ages as a point guard and he's being widely ignored (Nancy boy Allen, having the worst season of his career got named as Caron Butler's replacement) and my homeboy Hedo Turkoglu has quietly been Orlando's best player for the past three months. I think the East team is like 12 African Americans, unless I'm mistaken. How diverse.

I won't even bother arguing Manu's statistical and intangible merits over Roy. One would have to be a complete moron to even debate such a thing. What I will tell you, and what I've said for years is this: If Manu Ginobili was from Des Moines, Iowa instead of Bahia Blanca, Argentina, you would be absolutely sick of him by now, because he'd be on more commercials than Peyton Manning and more magazine covers than LeBron James. He's one of the top dozen players in the league, unequivocally, and all you hear about him is the flopping and the bald spot. It really is astounding. I keep waiting for the Simmons column about this phenomenon, because as he keeps reminding us he's such a huge basketball fan, but he's as blind to it as everyone else. John Hollinger seems to be the only national media guy who's bright enough to figure out that Ginobili is a superstar.

The league and its fans have been looking for The Great White Hope ever since Bird retired. The problem is that nobody imagined that he would come from Argentina or Spain or Turkey . It's really fucked, if you think about it. Somehow I blame Bush for this.

The funny thing is that Manu gets more open looks from three than anybody in the NBA. Guys are so afraid of being posterized by him, they just sag back and let him fire away. I'm sure Pop just goes to bed every night laughing his ass off about the league's preening, arrogant vanity. The Spurs will always compete for a chip because they're one of the three or four teams willing to win ugly when the league is saturated by "stars" who are perfectly content to look good (and get paid handsomely) while losing.

You know why Stern is ignoring the suggestion made by numerous media types to make the All-Star game U.S. vs. The World? Because the U.S. team would get their asses kicked by 30 points (especially if Duncan counts as a foreigner) and it would set off a firestorm in the league and before long Al Sharpton would get involved.

Anywho, I don't know when I will post again. I'll do it regularly in the playoffs for sure, but before then, I don't know. I see that PtR has gotten along fine without me anyway. It's just hard to do this while I have a life. It was so much easier last year, when I didn't have a whole lot else going on.

P.S. I know it was in some other post, but for the record, I have the all time best Manu picture....

Pssst! Don't make any sudden movements, he's kinda crazy.

Stampler and I have much love for The Sickness, and his performance last night brought us back together.   But the reunion lasted exactly 151 seconds.  At about 135 seconds stampler said, and I quote:

Apparently our stampler has fathered a child.  But seriously, he has a lady friend and gave me permission to break the remarkable and alarming wonderful news to all of you.

For the record, if the Suns trade Shawn Marion for Shaquille O'Neal they drop to no better than the 7th seed in the Western Conference and I would not be shocked to see them drop out of the playoffs altogether.

Your thoughts?

Fuck the Patriots.  Fuck Bill Belichick.  Fuck Tom Brady.  (And a hearty "screw you" to Bill Simmons, too.)

In the end, they got what they deserved.  They made this season about perfection, about 19-0, about blowing people out, and in the end they lost what the season is really about, the Super Bowl.

Now they're just another Super Bowl loser.  And with Congress getting involved and Spygate expanding to their Rams Super Bowl victory their whole legacy is at question.

A couple moments of the game I wanted to highlight:  Belichick throwing the challenge flag on the punt in order to get the 12 men on the field penalty called against NY.  He was well within his rights to do that, but oh, oh so fucking chicken shit.  I thought football was a man's game?  Poor form.

Moment # 2.  Third quarter, NE up 7-3 with 4 and 13 at the NYG 31.  Belichick, being the raving lunatic that he is, went for it.  Idiotic.  It's one thing to go for it when it's 4th and short at the opponent's 40.  But 4th and 13 when you're in FG range?  Yeah, it would have a long FG, but you're on a perfect surface playing indoors and your kickers long is 52.  Plus you're only up 4 points.  And it's fucking 4th and 13!  What the hell are the chances of converting that?  1 in 10 at best?

In the regular season you can do this sort of thing; go for ridiculous 4th downs, run up the score, etc.  Because then you're trying to throw shit in everyone's faces, you're trying for the elusive 19-0.  You lose and it's no big deal.  But you carried that egotistical attitude into the Super Bowl.  And you lost.  And it's a big deal.

18-1.  Put that on a shirt and wear it with pride.