Matt gives his optimistic assessment of the Spurs

[manu 008]

No, it is not a good post.

I agree with some of things he said but disagree with him a lot of parts as well.

[bonnington]

Good post by Matt. I mostly agree.

You can't depend on a player not to be injured or make a dumb mistake to have success after a full year of hard work.

We are just another good team. Not the perfect best team ever.

[omri]

i (almost) completely agree with the post.
for those who are saying we had lots of injuries - guess what, old players that play through the summer, and then have no back ups who can play normally tend to get injured by the end of the year. if this was a surprise to anyone in the FO than they simply made a mistake.
if we want to have the big three fresh for the PO, it`s important to have other weapons for the regular season.
another thing is i think having 12-13-14 old players in a team is not healthy. you don`t need both oberto and elson or oberto and KT you don`t need both horry and bonner, you don`t need both finley and barry, and you don`t need JV when you have barry. i agree with the spurs having SOME old veteran role players, but i think a normal team should have several young players at any time - young players are cheap, they may get better, they can run, rebound, defend and generaly bring energy and last but not least, they can later be trading chips.
yes, now the spurs are trying to bring several young guys, but i think it`s too little too late. we should have some players ready to contribute now.

[alpineballer]

Originally Posted by omri:

for those who are saying we had lots of injuries - guess what, old players that play through the summer, and then have no back ups who can play normally tend to get injured by the end of the year. if this was a surprise to anyone in the FO than they simply made a mistake. if we want to have the big three fresh for the PO, it`s important to have other weapons for the regular season.

I tried to point towards this direction one year ago. (not very popular back then).
my point was, that the Spurs have been far above average lucky in their 2007 title run.
(of course, to win a title you need both, quality AND luck). not because they needed so much luck to win the games, they were lucky, because not a single player missed a single game in the POs because of an injury and all have been more or less healthy.
you can't count on this if you have an average team regarding players age. if your team is far above average, it's like a little gift from heaven.
(I don't forget, that it's also a result of Pops genious and his way to keep the minutes of the stars low and still manage to win enough games for a top seed)

[DizzG]

Originally Posted by :

for those who are saying we had lots of injuries - guess what, old players that play through the summer, and then have no back ups who can play normally tend to get injured by the end of the year. if this was a surprise to anyone in the FO than they simply made a mistake. if we want to have the big three fresh for the PO, it`s important to have other weapons for the regular season.

I think many are pointing to just Manu - not that SA had lots of injuries. Manu's played in the summer and not played in the summer - its really never been an advantage for him one way or the other for the season following in terms of getting banged up or not. In fact he's gotten banged up even not playing in the summer or went all the way through including playoffs with no serious issues even after playing the previous summer. No one could ever predict Manu would have such a ankle injury

I just don't think anyone should write off such a MAJOR player of ther whole team playing on one leg as some sort of minor factor - and even go so far to compare it to LA missing Bynum or Ray Allen not playing well for a series with Boston. There is no comparison there. We will never know what would have really happened in that Laker series had he not been hobbled - but I think the impact was pretty big. Regardless I think most have agreed SA needed to get younger

[omri]

Originally Posted by alpineballer:

I tried to point towards this direction one year ago. (not very popular back then). my point was, that the Spurs have been far above average lucky in their 2007 title run. (of course, to win a title you need both, quality AND luck). not because they needed so much luck to win the games, they were lucky, because not a single player missed a single game in the POs because of an injury and all have been more or less healthy. you can't count on this if you have an average team regarding players age. if your team is far above average, it's like a little gift from heaven. (I don't forget, that it's also a result of Pops genious and his way to keep the minutes of the stars low and still manage to win enough games for a top seed)

i completely agree
only way to keep players a bit fresher is to bring players to take some of the load.
and sometimes anything that doesn`t include praise for the spurs and nothing but praise is not popular here
by the way, i think we should have get enough youngsters in past years, i think it goes beyond last year. then we would have them ready by now, or use them in trades.
i`ve said it somewhere on another thread, i hope it`s not this one and i`m just repeating myself

[dark21horse]

Originally Posted by DizzG:

I love how some give Pop the "Yeah but..." when it comes to being a great coach or not but people like Phil Jackson dont get the same from most. How many titles does he have without a freakin MJ of all people...and Kobe/Shaq? Pop's a great coach - will be in the hall of fame at some point and Spurs fans better enjoy what they have before its gone There is no guarantee SA will ever have a run over a period of time that they had had under Pop - nor any guarantee they will ever have a hall of fame caliber coach running things after he is gone as to Manu - I think many underestimate how important he is to the whole Spurs machine. This guy can call it whatever he wants, but I'll never believe SA loses to that Laker team (that I dont think was THAT good) with Manu not injured trying to say LA got to the finals without Bynum or that Boston won a series with Ray Allen not playing well does not compare to SA having Ginobili on one leg considering the impact he has on everything. it just doesnt

I'm glad you did the typing on this cause I was thinking the same thing. Saved me a few keystrokes.

[frenchfred]

this year doesn't look different; the big three is going to have to carry the load on any single night increasing the chances of getting hurt. I wish the team had another 2-3 who can slash to the basket and take the open three.