There have been no reports of meetings pitched diagramming how Matt Bonner can own his own sandwich chain, nor have there been any accounts of musician Matt Weddle being brought in to recruit him a la Jay-Z, but the Spurs appear to have settled on a fair price on Matt “the Mendoza Line” Bonner. New Hampshire’s [...]

The geeks may have yet to inherit the courts, but basketball has long been in the midst of a statistical revolution. To the casual fan the revolution has yet to take hold. Identifying superstars hardly requires advanced statistics beyond points per game and the number of SportsCenter highlight appearances. More often than not what analytics [...]

“For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me…it was Tuesday.” —Street Fighter: The Movie And so renews the most heated one-sided matchup in recent NBA history. The San Antonio Spurs and Phoenix Suns are an interesting story to tell, depending on who tells it. [...]

For all the anticipation surrounding Manu Ginobili’s return, it was the San Antonio Spurs focus and attention to details that were most sorely missed in the Game 1 loss to the Dallas Mavericks. For much of the past decade the trinity of Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker carried the headlines, but it was [...]

THE PRESENT — It’s strange to think about the emotional arc of the last twelve months: The soaring heights, the seemingly bottomless depths. This team tossed me around like a rag doll, while all along, without us knowing it, history was set on loop. The San Antonio Spurs will face the Dallas Mavericks in the [...]

The NBA playoffs open up with the San Antonio Spurs in their lowest playoff seeding of the Tim Duncan Era. But to understand why the Spurs are not discouraged about opening on the road in Dallas, instead of the friendly confines of the AT&T Center, there must first be an understanding of their philosophy. San [...]

According to Winston, the Spurs will beat the Mavericks so long as Keith Bogans doesn’t receive too much burn. That, and DeJuan Blair and Matt Bonner should play together. (They did last night, and it didn’t seem to hurt.) You’re right, it’s not that simple, but Winston raises several interesting points. Here’s how the Spurs [...]

Although it has been over a year since the San Antonio Spurs faced the Orlando Magic, tonight’s game picked up right where the ’08-09 regular season series left off. After playing a competitive first quarter, the Spurs failed to challenge the Walt Disney Co. Magicians for the remainder of the game’s 36 minutes, and lost [...]

Statistical geeks love him, casual fans and traditionalists abhor him. Given that the team manages to stay out of the headlines and no longer employs Bruce Bowen, perhaps no Spurs player is more polarizing than Matt Bonner. How polarizing? Just take a look at the opening paragraph of one of Timothy Varner’s more recent posts. [...]

There is a proper recap in the works (and I submitted a piece for tomorrow’s Daily Dime), but I wanted to lighten the mood after a tough loss. In the postgame locker room I asked Matt Bonner what it felt like to live the life of an adjusted plus/minus poster child? “Wait, adjusted what?” And [...]

Wayne Winston, who achieved celebrity status at Dorkapalooza 2010, emailed this morning to say the Spurs should be fine without Parker, at least over the balance of the season. Obviously, they’ll need Parker in order to compete in postseason play. The APM answer to Tony Parker’s injury, at least in the short term, is to [...]

R.C. Buford and Gregg Popovich may still be combing the waiver wire and developmental league to fill their 13th roster spot following the unexpected release of Michael Finley, but in all likelihood the Spurs best chance of improving or adding another rotation player lies internally. Matt Bonner, finding time in the rotation once again with [...]

Whenever I talk with Matt Moore the conversation invariably leads to Matt Bonner, someone I do my best to defend. Moore thinks Bonner stinks. Shouldn’t be on an NBA court, or something to that effect. He’s the cause of much beard-tugging consternation for our favorite hoophead. My response, the easy response, is to tell Moore that  Bonner eats APM [...]

San Antonio began the fourth quarter of this afternoon’s game against Phoenix with a three point lead. Over the next 12 minutes, the Spurs did not make too many defensive stops; Amare Stoudemire, Steve Nash, and Jason Richardson all scored with ease. Luckily the Suns aren’t exactly known for their lockdown defense either, and the [...]

Recently, 48MoH has discussed the struggles of San Antonio’s interior defense.  Please see The Roots of Defensive Decline and The Root of All Defensive Evil for discussion of these points.  But a struggling interior defense is often an indication of a prior breakdown on the perimeter, which seems to be the case with San Antonio this season, Manu Ginobili’s [...]