If the Spurs win Tim Duncan a fifth ring, will they have the Lakers’ 2008 trade for Pau Gasol to thank?

The Spurs take on Kobe, Gasol and two-time defending champions Los Angeles Lakers. How have Duncan and Gasol historically fared when defending each other?

Empires fall. The history books are littered with them. The Greeks. The Romans. Spain. Britain. Maybe someday even America. The same holds true for nearly every major power that’s ever risen to the top, be it nation, corporation, or basketball team. Especially basketball teams. After all, unlike nations or corporations, basketball teams rely solely on [...]

European basketball site In the Game is running a long list of APM observations regarding some of Europe’s best players. Regarding San Antonio Spurs draftee Tiago Splitter, they write:

The San Antonio Spurs and Gregg Popovich didn’t provide the Los Angeles Lakers a full-on beating, but their 100-81 victory was impressive. And it looked like it hurt, if only a little. The Spurs’ usual late season surge has come fashionably late this season, but here it is, roughly a month behind schedule. And I [...]

Kevin Arnovitz, of TrueHoop and ClipperBlog, provides this breakdown from the fourth quarter of last night’s San Antonio Spurs-Los Angeles Lakers tilt. As Arnovitz points out, the Lakers look, uh, rough down the stretch. And the Spurs, I might add, are inching closer to unmistakable Spurs basketball. Arnovitz wonders whether the Lakers and Spurs will [...]

Texas is no stranger to intense debates, having long been the national hotbed for our public education system’s creationism vs. evolution discussion. Over the next few days a different sort of debate will play out in the AT&T Center, one that still challenges longstanding values and beliefs. Kobe Bryant or LeBron James, which one is the [...]

Via ESPN: Kobe Bryant did not participate in the team’s shootaround and spent the time undergoing “diagnostic tests” on his sprained left ankle, according to Lakers coach Phil Jackson. Andrew Bynum, who suffered a bruised right hip that caused him to sit out the second half of Los Angeles’ win in Portland on Saturday, is [...]

DeJuan Blair started for the Spurs last night against the Los Angeles Lakers. He finished it too. In between? Nada. Blair played the first five minutes of the game before being substituted for Antonio McDyess. He didn’t step on the floor again until there were just a couple of minutes remaining in the fourth quarter [...]

“La plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu’il n’existe pas.” -Baudelaire Kobe Bryant’s early exit and Pau Gasol’s overall absence dampened the enthusiasm that would normally follow a 20 point win by the Spurs over the Lakers. But even before back spasms made Bryant a non-factor, a 23-year-old second year point [...]

This is it. Tonight is the ultimate measuring stick, although previous results lead us to believe this team is still coming up short. Every move made over the last season and a half was done with the Los Angeles Lakers in mind. Last season, the Spurs were able to take the first game against the [...]

Tonight when the Spurs and Lakers renew their decade long rivalry, the defending champions will likely be without the services of their star center/power forward. But even as the Lakers are expected to miss Pau Gasol for a fifth straight game since suffering a hamstring injury, his impact still reverberates through both franchises. When the [...]

In this weekend’s Dime, Marc Stein drew attention to the fourteen teams that have luxury tax payments looming this July. The list includes perennial heavyweights such as the Lakers and Spurs (although, given their success, San Antonio pops up on this list infrequently), as well as the ashen remains of the Isiah-era Knicks. The list [...]