Below there is a short new post about the Sonics move.  (I am going to keep this bumped to the top for a while.)

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I grew up in San Antonio, and have been a Spurs fan my whole recollected life.  I lived in Seattle from 2001 to 2007.  I watched a lot of Sonics games because I enjoyed watching basketball and I, at the time, could not afford League Pass.  I never rooted for the Sonics.  It's not that I disliked them, but I already had a team, and my team was good.

I saw probably a 10 basketball games in Key Arena.  I have seen two or three games at the new Spurs arena.  As a fan, there is no contest.  Key Arena is by far the better place to see a game.  It's not even close.  The Seattle venue is small, quaint even, and the worst seats in the house offer a decent view; you're never far from the action.  I used to live within walking distance of the arena, and it is in an amazing location.  You can take a 3 minute monorail ride to downtown, yet there's still ample street parking available.  The area streets are safe and teaming with good restaurants serving all sorts of food.  The arena itself is nestled in the Seattle Center, with plenty of wide open meeting spaces... you are in the middle of the city, but it's not cramped.

AT&T Center, or whatever it's called, is new.  The upper deck seats feel like the upper deck.  It's dropped between the Freeman Coliseum and a golf course.  There's nothing within walking distance except for a chance for a good mugging.

The whole thing makes me sad.  Key Arena, the supposed reason why the Sonics are Oklahoma City bound, is a wonderful place to be a fan.  But it's a horrible place to be an owner.  That's why Stern moved the team; so his rich friends could get richer.  I realize I am just pointing out the obvious here.  All I can do is be yet another voice declaring this whole affair was an affront and insult to the fans of Seattle and the fans of the NBA.

(Thanks to PtR member DennardC for the link.)

While no deal was imminent, Maggette would be expected to sign a multi-year deal for the mid-level exception, a move that would fulfill the Spurs’ desperate need for perimeter athleticism and scoring. Maggette would be leaving the Clippers, just as the team came to an agreement with Golden State free agent Baron Davis on a contract. With so much sudden salary cap space, the Warriors could be a threat to swoop in and take Maggette for themselves. The Boston Celtics have also shown serious interest in Maggette.

This is all according to Adrian Wojnarowski.  The Spurs and Maggette have been linked before.

I find it hard to believe that Maggette can't do better than the MLE, which is what Beno freaking Udrih got.  Maggette is one of the most underrated offensive players in the league.  His lowest PER and TS% of the past five seasons is 18.7 and 57.4%, respectively.  His average TS% of the past five seasons is actually higher than Ray Allen's.

He's not the most durable of players, but he wouldn't have to play the same quantity or type of minutes with the Spurs.  He's not a plus defensive player, as noted in the article:

“He’s going to take a lot of the offensive load off (Manu) Ginobili, but (Spurs coach Gregg) Popovich will have to hide him defensively on the floor,” a Western Conference scout said Tuesday night.

Umm, I'm thinking we could hide him in the same place we hid Michael Finley and Brent Barry.  Maggette would represent a gigantic, nearly immeasurable upgrade over Finley, and he would be the first non-Big Three that could create his own shot since, uhh, hmm.  Well.  Beno?  That's a stretch, but I guess Beno would be the last guy.  Jesus.

Summary:  ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease let this happen.

From ESPN.

I wonder if this counts as the Kings MLE considering Beno played with them last year.  I don't know, and I'm sure as hell not going to look it up.

Is this too much for Beno?  Hmm.  Yes.  What's hilarious is that Mike Dunleavy flew out to NYC to meet with him at 12:01 a.m. on the first eligible day.  From Pop's doghouse, to trade fodder, to outplaying Mike Bibby to having a coach fly across the country to woo you.

I hope he torches the Spurs four times a year for the rest of his career.  Congrats to to Beno.

I am back from Italy.  I will eventually upload pictures to flickr (or someplace) and I'll post the link.  But the NBA draft is today, so I suppose we should talk about that.  Of course you guys have already been discussing it, but I want to throw in my two cents.

First, here's a list of current Spurs players I want to play more than 20 minutes a game next year:

Tim Duncan
Manu Ginobili
Tony Parker

Second, here's a list of current Spurs players I want to have the opportunity to prove they deserve to play more than 20 minutes a game:

Ian Mahinmi
Umadoka
Brent Barry

Third, allow me to explain why Bruce Bowen is not on either list.

He's 37.  When's the last time a 37 year old player not named Michael Jordan and 6'-8" or less deserved to play 20 minutes a game?  1972.  That's when.  George Kaplan.  Backup point guard for the New Haven Blackskirts.  The starting point guard got the clap something awful and George stepped up and played admirably the last half of the season.

It seems the general consensus amongst Spurs fans is that Bowen played terrific defense against Kobe during the playoffs.  Based on Kobe's statistical performance this simply isn't true.  Take at look at his true shooting % against his four opponents (TS% = PTS / (FGA + .44 * FTA)).

vs. DEN = 59.4%
vs. UTA = 62.9%
vs. SA = 58.5%
vs. BOS = 50.5%
during regular season = 57.6%

Kobe performed better against the Spurs than his average performance during the regular season, and the Spurs fared only marginally better than DEN.  The freaking Nuggets, people.

An additional point I would like to make about Bowen.   He's labeled as a good three point shooter, but I don't consider this true.  I know he shot 42% from 3 this year.  But at least 80% of those shots were uncontested attempts from the corner.  How many NBA SG / SF would have hit 40% or better of Bruce Bowen's 3P attempts?  50%?  75%?

I don't mean to pick on Bruce Bowen.  He certainly was infinitely more valuable than Michael Finley and Robert Horry (who, for the sake of my sanity, I am assuming will not see the court a single minute next year).  He should have his number retired as soon as he's done, and I hope the Spurs offer him a coaching / administrative position immediately.  But it's time for his role to change dramatically.  Any thoughts to the contrary strike me as more pie in the sky "We can win a title with the Big Three and any cast of scrubs" mentality that, basically, cost us the title this year.

I think that too often Spurs fans and management use the talents of the Big Three as an excuse to accept shoddy play / players.  Tim, Tony and Manu are so talented and hard-working that so little is expected from the players around them.  You hear about finding veterans that "fit into the system."  How about finding "good players?"

And by "good players," I mean someone that is not going to be stashed overseas for a couple and then not signed or traded for 25 cents on the dollar to a division rival.  There's your NBA draft content.  Oh, and Chad Ford has us drafting Nicolas Batum, saying:

Batum went into a workout with the Spurs on Wednesday and then disappeared off the grid. His medical reports never came out. His agent didn't return calls. I think the Spurs may have wrapped him up.

Who do I want?  CDR.

I effing told you the Celtics would win.

Ciao!

This Saturday I am going back to Italy; I studied abroad there in the summer of 1997.  It was unequivocally the best eight weeks of my life.  I still remember so much.  Maybe too much.

I met a host of wonderful people during those fifty-six days.  I no longer talk to a single one of them, including my ex-wife.

So.  It.  Goes.

Now I'm heading back with my parents and sister in tow, a tour guide to the family that remains.  Rome, Assisi, Florence, Pisa, Siena, San Gimignano.  Oh, the places I've been.

Play nice while I'm gone.  Stampler's in charge while I'm gone.  This place better be spotless when I get back.  No parties.  And definitely NO BOOZE / DRUGS / SEX, you hear me?

Oh yeah.  Celtics in 7.

This fanpost is dedicated for things are fucking awesome.  If you know of something fucking awesome than you should fucking post in right the fuck here in the comments.  If it's simply awesome and not fucking awesome then you should fuck the fuck off.

You know what's fucking awesome?  NASA landed some more shit on Mars.  Mars is a totally different planet than the one you're on right now.  And "planet" is really just science-speak for "piece of rock floating in space."  And that fine piece of rock is like a gazillion miles away from this piece of rock, and both rocks are moving like eleventy billion parsecs a fathom or some shit like that.  And they ain't moving towards each like some stupid ass math problem in 8th grade, and they're not exactly moving away from each other, neithers.  Plus they orbit if different planes around the sun.

Shit if fucking off the chizz, yo.

I mean it's fucking crazy.  You got this really expensive piece of sensitive machinery.  You strap some freaking explosives to it and shoot it off into space.  It's a fucking miracle it even got to Mars in the first place.  But to actually slow the fucking thing down and land it on Mars without it shattering into a million pieces?  And then it actually works?

And now them NASA dudes are gonna start digging around for stuff.  Water ice or some shit.  Got some organic compounds in there or some shit.  Some dude, in front of some computer in some fancy ass lab, writes some code speak that means "hey robot dude, dig a little over there" and that gets shot of into space and then like 5 minutes later a ROBOT WE FUCKING PUT ON MARS STARTS DIGGING.

That's fucking awesome.

The Rorschach inkblot test.  You probably know it.  It's used by psychologists to examine personality characteristics.  The subject looks at an abstract inkblot and verbally responds to it.

Show a Spurs logo to most NBA fans and you'll hear a litany of accusations:  floppers, whiners, dirty, boring, all-that's-wrong-with-the-NBA.  They, of course, would be somewhat right.  For comparison, someone who looks at the Grand Canyon and says "I see a rock" is somewhat right.  There are rocks in the Grand Canyon.  A man often sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest.

But there's more there.  You just have to step back to see it.

Spurs fans have a different vision.  They see consistent lock-down defense and finely executed offense.  There's Manu Ginobili, the rightful MVP of the 2005 finals, Olympic champion, clutch performer and fierce competitor.  There's Tony Parker, the one man fast break who, when he puts his mind to it, cannot be kept out the paint.  There's Tim Duncan, the best power forward ever and arguably the most effective NBA player since Michael Jordan.  You put those guys together and you get game 3 of the Phoenix series, where the Spurs shot 56%, never trailed and disemboweled the Suns by 16.  No team in the NBA could have touched the Spurs that night.

But there's less there.  You just have to step forward to see it.

The Spurs were a figment of our collective imagination all year. 

The fans, the management and the players all fiercely held on to the same belief:  no matter how good the opponent, no matter how dangerous the playoff path, no matter how pathetic the Spurs' supporting cast, the Big Three were good enough to pull us through.  After all, they had done this before, right?

Right.  They had.  But the Spurs are no longer "they."  They are all too much in the present tense.  The present Manu Ginobili, even with a healthy ankle, lacks the explosion and deadliness of the version in our heads.  Today's Tim Duncan just put up the lowest playoff shooting percentage of his career (and his second worst effort in terms of blocked shot per game).  This is not criticism.  This is just reality.

Reality is something Spurs management conveniently avoided all season.  Key players such as Michael Finley, Jacque Vaughn and Robert Horry were given playing time despite doing nothing this year to show they deserved it.  The best attribute of the three of them was Finley's 37% shooting from three, good for 63rd in the league.  63rd.  For a guy who took maybe ten contested threes all season.  He couldn't create his own shot, create shots for others or play anything other than barely adequate defense.  And he played 27 minutes a game.  If he was a 22 year old nobody instead of Michael Finley he wouldn't have made it out of training camp.

I don't mean to sound negative and bitter.  That's not how I feel.  More than anything I'm sad, but not for me.  I feel bad for Tim, Manu and Tony.  They were good enough this year to repeat as champions.  They dragged a bunch of scrubs deep into the Western Conference playoffs, carrying 98% of the workload between the three of them.  They deserved a better chance than the front office gave them.

As for next year, it's obviously time to reload, and in a big way.  We'll have plenty of time to talk about that later.

Wrapping up some loose blog ends:

1)  Thanks to everybody for reading / participating.  I didn't have as much time for this blog as I would have liked this season, but it didn't suffer from much (if at all) from my absence.  The game threads were especially beautiful; some of ya'll's is funny.

2)  Thanks to AusTechSpur for handling the game threads.  This place probably would have fallen apart without you.

3)  Thanks to Michael Erler for the writing.  You have a gift.  Thanks for sharing.

(I had this post already mentally written with about two minutes to go in the game and then the Spurs came back.  And now I'm all discombobulated.  And what's incredibly fitting is that I'm moving tomorrow, so I have to disconnect my cable, t.v. and stereo system tonight.)

Please don't Spurs fans.  Just don't.  Yes, it was an obvious foul on Derek Fisher.  Yes, it should have been two free throws.  But, but, but:

1.  Derek Fisher's shot with 5 seconds left, the one that hit the Corpse of Robert Horry's knee and went out of bounds, grazed the rim.  The shot clock should have been reset, forcing the Spurs to foul.  This would have changed everything.

2.  The goal tend call on Lamar Odom with under a minute left was incorrect.  It looked correct at game speed, but the replace clearly showed he got the ball before it hit the rim.  This would have changed everything.

3.  Kobe Bryant shot the ball 29 times.  He took 0 free throws.

Complaining about free throws is just grasping at straws, like a vanquished foe begging for their life.  It's unbecoming.

The story of this game is the really the same as the story for the season:  Old and Slow.  The announcers repeatedly talked about how the Lakers were "quicker to the ball."  Well, yeah.  They're quicker to everything.  They're quicker answering the door.  They're quicker taking a dump.  They're quicker.

I mean  Robert Horry played 16 minutes.  A guy that passed up a wide-open 4 footer played 16 minutes.  A guy that has LITERALLY done NOTHING all year to earn a SINGLE minute of playing time plays 16 minutes in the biggest game of the year.  Shouldn't this automatically disqualify the Spurs?

Ahh Brent Barry.  His play tonight makes me want to find Popovich and force him to give an adequate explanation for his continued infatuation with Michael Finley, who, by the way, was -18 in just under 9 minutes.  Pop, long lauded as the master of adjustments, has taken too long to make them this whole playoffs.  He waited until game 3 before putting Bowen on Peja, and West didn't even know Tim Duncan was on the defensive end of the court until game 6.  Those gaffes almost cost the Spurs the series against the Hornets.  Now Pop took too long to figure out Brent Barry should be getting Finley's (and / or Udoka's) minutes.  It's inexcusable, really.  Against the Hornets he could use the excuse that Barry couldn't defend any of their guards.  But against the Lakers?  Vujacic and Radmanovic are exactly the type of players Barry can be adequate against.

I didn't mean to turn this into a throw Pop under the bus rant... this is more an exhausted ramble than anything else.  And I'm avoiding the obvious topic that has to be addressed.  I just don't want to talk about him, you know?  It's too soon.  The wound is too fresh, and I just want to remember the good times we had.

Sorry this isn't eloquent.  Sorry it's not fiery or vehement.  I don't even think I managed a curse word in this whole thing.  I'm tired, folks.  This has been a long season for me, for you, for the Spurs.  It's not over.  But it's time to say goodbye.