Entries Tagged as 'Spurs Culture'

Monday, August 17th, 2009

Beautiful Games

Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good soccer. I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: “A pretty move, for the love of God.” -Eduardo Galeano, Soccer in Sun and Shadow This past weekend the English Premier League [...]

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

The Embrace of Limitation

The always provocative Wendell Berry is good at digging for disease, never becoming arrested at the surface, staring at symptoms. He wants to get beneath all that. In a thoughtful Harper’s piece dated May, 2008 -Faustian Economics: Hell Hath No Limits-Berry takes on the disease of limitlessness. Early last year, Berry was responding to the [...]

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

The Dennis Lindsey Interview

During the 2nd quarter of Sunday’s Spurs Summer League game, Dennis Lindsey gave an insightful interview to Joel Myers, who had the game call. An transcript is not available, but LJ Ellis has summarized the interview in a set of talking points. He’s given me permission to reproduce his notes here. The Spurs are sometimes [...]

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

In Appreciation of Peter Holt

The presumed net worth of Peter Holt, CEO and owner of Spurs Sports & Entertainment, is around $80 million, making him one of the least wealthy owners in the NBA. Mr. Holt’s wealth derives from HOLT CAT, the nation’s largest authorized dealer of caterpillar machines, of which he is also CEO. Given the housing crisis [...]

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

Hooray for Presti

You can’t say the Spurs don’t catch breaks, even during a season limited by injury. The breaks started in earnest when the Mavericks dealt Harris for Kidd (and added to the fun by dismissing Avery Johnson) this time last year. They backed themselves right out of a fierce rivalry with San Antonio. The Suns trade [...]

Monday, February 16th, 2009

Do the Spurs Play Moneyball?

If you haven’t had an opportunity to read Michael Lewis’ cover story from this weekend’s New York Times Magazine, you probably should. Using the lives and current roles of Shane Battier and Houston Rocket’s GM Daryl Morey as a framework, the piece discusses the increased usage of advanced statistics in scouting and game-planning in the [...]

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009

The Notebook: Spurs-Raptors, 2/11/09

Even though tonight’s loss isn’t that surprising (we often underperform on the back end of back-to-backs), it is a bit disappointing. It’s not disappointing because we go into the break on a loss or because it brings our Rodeo Road Trip record to an even 2 and 2. It’s disappointing because it highlights the Spurs’ [...]

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

The Notebook: The Death of the Game

In the early 20th century, an assortment of authors grew frustrated with the limitations of the novel. Artists such as Marcel Proust, James Joyce and Hermann Broch crafted epic literary pieces which slowly but surely led to the deconstruction of the form that had dominated Western literature for 4 centuries. But the avante garde stylings [...]

Monday, January 19th, 2009

MLK Day Musing on "Spurs Culture"

Back in November Gregg Popovich was busy inculcating roster newbies into Spurs culture. Roger Mason Jr. summed it up this way: “Honestly, it’s beyond expectations,” Mason said. “The most impressive thing that I’ve seen Pop do is, before the election, he had us watch a video on the civil rights movement. For me, you know [...]

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

Gagging the Tired Old Nag

Last night’s Lakers game call featured a chart (with commentary) on the Spurs collective age. You know, the usual “window is closing because they’re long in the tooth” shtick. There must be a broadcaster Stuff Mart where this sentiment is sold as the candy of choice in the check out lanes. In honor of the [...]

Tuesday, December 30th, 2008

The Spurs, the Farm Team, and the Fan

I want to take a few moments to attach a follow up comment to yesterday’s TrueHoop, Malcolm Gladwell, and Malik Hairston post. The Austin Toros are a good basketball team. This will sound controversial to some, but they have more talent on their roster than most, if not all, D1 programs. The Toros are not [...]

Monday, December 29th, 2008

TrueHoop, Malcolm Gladwell, and Malik Hairston

Back on December 11, TrueHoop ran a bullet commenting on a New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell. In response to the article, Henry Abbott wrote: …in professions like picking NFL quarterbacks or good teachers, it is nearly impossible to know who will succeed until you see them try. That means that the best way to [...]

Monday, December 8th, 2008

David Robinson: 2009 Hall of Fame Nominee

David Robinson is a certain inductee into 2009′s Basketball Hall of Fame class. I’ll leave reflections about his measurable, on-the-court contributions to basketball for a later post. Those who do measurables well think The Admiral was the best center of the last 20 years. But, again, I’ll leave that for later. When I read that [...]

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

"When he’s mad…"

Rasheed Wallace was whistled for a tech in last night’s game after protesting an offensive foul he committed against Matt Bonner. This was the turning point in the contest, which featured multiple levels of embarrassing performance from the Spurs. Wallace scored 19 in the game, 17 of which came after being cited for bad manners. [...]

Thursday, November 27th, 2008

Loyalty and Low-Key

In grade school, I watched The Flintstones ad naseum. I liked the cartoon, but I was especially fascinated by Fred’s feet. How could he get the car to go so fast without scuffing a toe? Didn’t Wilma freak out when they rubbed feet in bed? Did he see a pedicurist? These are the hard questions [...]