Trouble Builds In San Antone

by Steve Weinman on Nov 8, 2008 2:11 AM EST in NBA Comment 9 comments

Worrying about the Spurs' play in November generally tends to be a silly endeavor. But atrocious play combined with rapidly worsening health seems like reasonable cause for concern.

In case a humbling 16-point home loss to the Heat on Friday night wasn't bad enough, the Spurs (already sans Manu Ginobili) lost the second of their three stars as Tony Parker went down with an ankle sprain. He is expected to miss a minimum of two weeks.

At 1-4, the Spurs were having enough trouble hanging tough despite the fact that Tim Duncan and Tony Parker were playing at high levels even by their own standards. With the big three becoming the big one for the next two weeks (at a minimum), it's hard to imagine even Duncan being able to do too much with a cast that prominently features the likes of Desmon Farmer, Matt Bonner, Ime Udoka, several once-useful veterans who already seem tired and young gunner Roger Mason.

The general theory remains that so long as the Spurs can cruise into the playoffs, even with a low seed, they need to be considered a force to be reckoned with. But cruising into the playoffs looks more difficult than ever, especially with the Spurs likely to squander a very favorable November schedule. They sandwich a Houston game next week with contests against Milwaukee, New York, Sacramento and the Clippers, and they also see Memphis twice over the course of the month.

With two stars, this would have been a good situation - opponents just poor enough that Parker and Duncan could carry the black and silver to wins in a sufficient number of those games to hold down the fort until Ginobili returned for the tougher part of the schedule. Now, the Spurs could end up losing a bunch of these early-season contests and setting themselves up to need a huge performance down the stretch.

As a devoted believer in being wary of the power of an organization that is well-coached, smarter than most and doesn't beat itself, I'm by no means pronouncing the death sentence for the Spurs five games into 2008-09. But it is clear that there is more reason than ever to wonder if this is the year the confluence of age and injuries finally overcomes this team.

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Fall from grace and glad of it!!

I for one will react viscerally here and not analytically or with measure. This was the team whose good luck was our bad luck and a 10+ year perpetuation of the Bias curse. How many championships did they get that we could have had? How many successes did they achieve that could have been ours, merely because of the “random” bounces of some ping pong balls? And add to that Popovich’s comments (obviously borne out of envy and disdain) ridiculing our banners which proclaim “World Champions” and implying that WE are pretentious. Big stones, Gregg, and I hope that those stones keep pulling you and your team down to the murky depths of NBA irrelevancy.

by csfansince60s on Nov 8, 2008 8:07 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Surprised to see Pop turning into such a villain around here

I’ve only seen the text of what he said rather than any clips of it, so I’m not sure how serious he was – as the guy has a knack for the occasional bit of sarcasm.

I love the guy – he’s as unintentionally entertaining an interview as anyone in the league, he’s a heckuva coach, and he has an odd sense of humor, too. That Hack-a-Shaq thing was priceless.

-sw

Manuel Aristides Ramirez is the greatest hitter I've ever seen.

by Steve Weinman on Nov 8, 2008 2:38 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

again, why do I care about the spurs? isn’t this celtic blog?

by Red2 on Nov 8, 2008 8:56 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

You've asked this sort of question before

And last time around, I was a bit late in my response, so I’m not sure if you saw it. As such, since it’s a very similar question to the one you asked here, I’ll reiterate:

My official authoring capacity here is as the General NBA columnist, which means covering all 30 teams in the league. Of course, one of those teams in particular is especially well-covered on our front page (see: Jeff, FL, CB32, Roy, G17, Jim Weeks) on a regular basis, so a significant proportion of my work is done on the league’s other 29 teams. We’ve had no shortage of Celtics pieces on the front page here over the last 24 hours as well, as you’ll see from a cursory glance through the recent articles.

While I don’t look to step on the toes of any of our more Celtics-centric writers, I thoroughly enjoy writing about the team and getting some content up on them when I get the chance. In fact, you’ll note that today’s Daily Babble (the current lead piece on the front page) is about Tony Allen, and tomorrow’s will be a few more observations about the opener.

That’s my role here, and I hope I’ve answered your question. For any more about the site’s workings beyond that, you might wish to consult Jeff more so than me.

You’ll note that all of my articles are labeled “NBA” after my byline at the top. If you are so monumentally disinterested by what’s going on around the league, I would advise simply skipping the pieces with that label.

Once again, I hope that helps.

-sw

Manuel Aristides Ramirez is the greatest hitter I've ever seen.

by Steve Weinman on Nov 8, 2008 2:45 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

My only concern with them falling out of the playoffs and into the lottery, is that what if lightning strikes twice? What if they get the #1 pick again summer and climb right back to the top over night? That nightmare scenario woujld really burn my britches!!

by MetroGlobe on Nov 8, 2008 9:18 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Their big 3

is not as old as ours when you take their average age but I think one of their major problems aside from those 3 is not developing young talent like the Celtics have and I think it’s starting to catch up to them a little. Bowen is starting to show his age a little. Plus Oberto has missed a couple games. In reality though it shows how fragile a team can be if you have 1 or 2 key injuries. Once they get their big 3 together again they will still be a good team but too much damage to their record may be done at that time.

by JBcat on Nov 8, 2008 9:19 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Smart not to pronounce a death sentence.

JBcat has a great point about not developing young talent. Although Parker and Ginobili are homegrown and still young. This will be a formidable team come playoff time. Once the new pieces figure out Popovich’s system.

by Finkelskyhook on Nov 8, 2008 10:34 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

This is the first year in a long time that I don’t think the Spurs have what it takes to reach the finals. They have 3 great players but the talent around them is really bad. Finley and Bowen are old, Barry bolted, the other players are not talented. If any of the three is hurt, this team will struggle. If two of them are hurt, they will be horrible.
The state of the Spurs is kind of what we feared the Celts would be immediately after we made the trades for Allen and Garnett. Luckily we signed Posey and House and all of our young guys progressed.

by moiso on Nov 8, 2008 11:46 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

I realize the Spurs don’t generally get good draft position, but when was the last time they drafted a player that actually joined the team and contributed? A long time ago, unless you count Beno Udrich who they gave up for nothing. Scola would have been nice for them.

by moiso on Nov 8, 2008 11:55 AM EST reply actions 0 recs