Clippers 88, Spurs 118
Not exactly known for being fleet of foot, Matt Bonner pulled his best David Robinson impression, helping to force Craig Smith into a missed layup and then beating the Clippers in transition for an “acrobatic†reverse layup.
With the score still a reasonable 20-14 before the basket, and still in the first quarter, that sequence is all you need to know about the effort level of a Clippers team that rolled over at the first sign of adversity. Or, as head coach Kim Hughes put it:
“I think we had four players on our defensive side competing tonight and that’s not enough,†Hughes said. “I thought most of our guys didn’t compete.Â
“I don’t intend to let this team quit and if that’s the case minutes will have to be adjusted and those players will find themselves next to me.â€
For most of the night, Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili found themselves on the bench next to their own head coach, albeit under much better circumstances. Ginobili totaled 14 points and six assists in 18 minutes. In 13 minutes Duncan managed eight points and one unfortunate turnover that had George Hill (14 points, 11 assists) jokingly banning Duncan from further joining in on the Spurs recent alley-oop ways. Â
“On back-to-backs if I can give those guys rest it’s very important and tonight worked out well,†Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said.
Outside of rest, there were a few continuing trends from last night’s game that merit keeping an eye on as the level of competition escalates. Since rejoining Manu Ginobili in the starting lineup, Richard Jefferson has looked like the player the Spurs expected, finishing with 18 points and nine rebounds.
It’s become apparent that Jefferson is a much better fit in the Spurs new Ginobili-oriented offense, thriving off the free movement and passing that was not as available when the Spurs ran so much of their offense through Duncan earlier this season. In short, wherever Ginobili goes, Jefferson needs to follow.
Another development has been Malik Hairston cracking his way into the rotation as the first guard off the bench instead of Roger Mason. Hairston has shown he can get to the rim and finish, though it will be interesting to see if he can hit jumpers consistently against better defenses that will cut off his driving lanes.
For now he offers the Spurs an energetic defender, as visible by some of the work he did last night on Travis Outlaw.
“ Malik does a good job defensively,†Popovich said. “It’s probably the best thing he does and he takes great pride in it.â€
Finally, there is the continued improvement of Matt Bonner who scored 21 points on nine shots, missing only one three-pointer. And if the David Robinson impression wasn’t enough, he showed he can also pull off a decent Kobe Bryant too, hitting a shot from behind the backboard over two defenders.
Asked if he ever practices that shot, Bonner came clean.
“Only when I play horse,†he said. “This is like the one chance of my career to make the top ten plays.â€
Or at least until he plays the Clippers again.
Great win over a team that we own. Glad to see our starters getting some rest before the back to back to back games. Malik proving that letting finley go was a great move. Blessing in disguise with tonys injury. Seems like our backups are getting more confidence. Cedric Jackson seems to be helping out contrary to pops believe no one can help us out.
I know it’s the Clippers but I have two comments, Hairston is looking better than I thought he was capable of and Bonner, he’s baaaack
Bonner is a shooter. Shooters need confidence. Sometimes beating up on creampuffs is a great way to build that confidence. Very disappointing that Mason couldn’t get something going in the last two games (not that he played badly). I think Mason just missed his last opportunity to contribute to this squad, while Bonner cemented his place in the rotation through our playoff run.
I know it’s the Clippers, but it’s great to see RJ take 14 shots and grab 9 boards (2 offensive). Hopefully a sign of things to come. Looking forward to this gauntlet of games against top quality teams.
@OneWing, I’ll agree with just about everything you said, but won’t be quite as easy on Mason. That guy is a joke and I’m glad he’s finding his way out of the rotation, hopefull this will transition into DNP-CD’s unless he gets garbage time in a blowout. Manu, Bonner and Hill provide enough perimeter shooting and I’d much rather see Cedrick Jackson in whatever backup PG minutes are availabe over Mason as well!
I Know beating the TWOLVES and CLIPS isn’t anything to rave about but at least they are blowing those teams out. If they struggled then I’d really be worried.
Keep it going Red ROCKET.
The best part is TD and MANU practically sat out the whole game.
I think the bench is looking good. Usually when teams empty out the bench there is a lot of sloppy play. But for the most part the bench played with some flow.
Let’s do this. The 4th seed is still possible.
I love Bonner.
I love how he’s called Red Rocket.
I love how he defended Randolph a few games back.
I love how he actually tries.
I love how he has a reasonable contract.
And I particularly love how he will lead us to the Championship this year. He’s going to get Finals MVP, you watch.
RMJ’s struggles just help Cedric Jackson more and more. Spurs still need another guard outside Hill/Manu.
Hopefully they give Garrett Temple some run, since he’s a defense first guy with great athleticism and wingspan. And he can handle the ball/good passer.
RJ’s struggles only occurred when he was pulled away from playing with Manu. That happened once Manu moved to the starting lineup. It looks like the changeover helped.
When Parker comes back, I can see Pop moving both back possibly and moving maybe Hairston forward if he gains that trust. He’s definitely making the most of his minutes.
@ Mr. Anonymous
if he gets Finals MVP, I dye my hair redhead for the rest of this life.
I’d do the same, Gary. And instead of buying a Blair jersey this summer, i’d buy a Bonner one.
Well…maybe both. But i’d definitely have to buy something Bonnerish. Maybe I’d just mail him a sandwich.
Pop is doing what I posted in this forum in the offseason. Play 10 players at least 12 minutes every game. Of course, it took injury and back-to-backs for Pop to wake up.
I posted earlier the reasons to play 10 players, 12 minutes every game. 1) save minutes on veterans for playoffs, 2) get new players acclimated faster and know how they fit in, 3) get the team giving all out effort for 4 to 6 minutes stretches without saving energy during the game (notice the 28 fastbreak pts and 8 dunks per game avg in the last 2 games).
Way to follow my advice Pop! Got some blowout wins against inferior teams because of it. Keep it up.
junierizzle: Great point! You would expect with THAT kind of bench-clearing rotation last night, an NBA-team would at least put up the fire to make a few of the bench-warmers look bad. But the guys came off the bench and looked like NBA-rotation guys all night. Unfortunately, I only got to watch this game in bits and pieces while out with friends. At no point did I see plays that made me say “Well, he has the back of the bench in there, that’s gonna happen.” I just kept seeing a decent group of basketball players on the court for our guys.
yeah but parker is not the same 2-3years ago, bad thing about parker is his defence. its sucks very much, thats why hill and bogans should be in the line up together with parker to help on D. parker and dick JUST CANT PLAY TOGETHER PERIOD. when parker plays other players wont get into rhythm. if you guys want parker, we live or die on parkers play. if parker scores 30+ points we have chance of winning, opponents lock down a step slower parker, spurs are in deep shit. SO
i would stick with HIll and Gino who plays BETTER DEFENSE, SHARES THE BALL BETTER AND EVERYBODY GETS INTO RHYTHM AND CAN SHOOT THE 3! PARKER ON THE OTHER HAND SCORES BUT SUCKS ON D, SHOOT FIRST POINT GUARD WHO RARELY SHARES THE BALL AND CAN’T SHOOT 3s!(hill is better 3 points shooter better defender compared to parker)
pg – Hill
Sg- Gino
Sf- Dick
PF- Duncan
C- Dice
bring Parkers ass off the bench
bench
pg- parker
sg- mase
sf- malik/bogans
pf- blair
c- bonner/mahinmi
stick with this starting line up of hill, gino, dick, dice and dunc. i believe in a 5th trophy. with parker in the starting line up, 1st round exit baby!
Spurs have yet another opportunity to turn the corner this season and make some noise. We have won 6 of our last 7 and are starting to play better basketball. RJ (with all his faults) has started to come around and play two of his best games in months (they were back to back games which is encouraging to me). Manu seems to have regained much of his old form and the role players (Hill, Bonner, and Blair, not Mason) are playing pretty well. The big game this week is against the Magic. If we win against them at their place, then I’ll start to buy into our new-found success.
I agree with previous posts stating that a 6-7 seed would be better than a 4th seed. The obvious logic is that the longer we can delay the Lakers, the better off we will be. If this team is playing it’s peak basketball, I think we have a chance against the Denvers, Utahs, and Dallas’ of the league. If we lose to the big dogs over the last 18 games of the season, it doesn’t make any difference what seed we land. It will be a one-and-done post season anyway around it.
I won’t hit this point too hard since most are still smitten with Tony Parker, but you can evidently see that the team functions quite well without him and we weren’t beating the great teams WITH him. In the meantime, Hill really seems to be growing, Manu is certainly as invovled as ever, and RJ’s role is picking up. I really wonder what Tony’s future holds since he is an expiring contract next year, still a good player, but is insistent upon destroying his body by playing ball year around. The organization has some big decisions to make in the next 6 months and Parker may be at the heart of the Front Office’s discussions.
We beat the Clippers and T’wolves w/o TP and some ppl are now convinced that we don’t need him? We lost to the Cavs playing w/o LBJ and got smoked at Houston!
Hobson & Co,
It’s not really that hard to talk down tony’s production this year. He has not had 5 minutes without injury. I do find it hard to swallow when ignorant opinion states that he basically sucks and everyone else is worse off when he is on the basketball court.
Shoot first point guard nonsense is such positional fundamentalism. It’s like George is the second coming off Magic Johnson, when in fact George is way more of a shooter and grafter.
It’s this weird idea that George replaces Tony. Two very different players, with very different styles and abilities.
For all the chatter about Tony playing poor defence, within the actual schematic of the spurs D, he plays well. He gives good effort and fundamentally applies himself but his physical tools are not there for dealing with big guards.
That said George is not there yet either. He has been abused a few times this year particularly by Chauncey Billups. He is oozing potential and Time is certainly on his side since it usually takes a few years for a truly great defender to blossom in the NBA. Theres so much more to learn regarding NBA D, than there is NBA offence.
That instinctual decision making on D is something that seems to come with age, and George has the right work ethic and physical tools to really shine there in the future.
Hobson not calling you out was more the CAPS LOCK bonanza earlier on in the thread.
Tony Parker fans,
I never said Hill is better or even equal to Parker. At this point in Hill’s career, he is not as good as Parker and is only a long shot to achieve what Tony has done. Over the course of this season, Hill has averaged 12pts and 3 assists per game (his numbers would be higher if he started) while making $1.1 million dollars. Tony (granted while injured, but playing more minutes than Hill) has averaged 16 pts and 6 assists while being paid $12.6 million. Tony makes almost 12 times as much and if you compare their production on a PER DOLLAR basis, it is easy to see who is more efficient/cost effective.
The problem I have found with everyones argument against trading Parker is that no one takes into account what we could get via trade for Tony. The typical argument against this move typically begins with “The spurs wouldn’t be better off without Parker.” Of course the Spurs would be worse off if we gave him away and got nothing in return, but that’s not a reality. There’s no reason to think that a blockbuster trade couldn’t be made with Parker being the centerpiece. We won’t win a championship as currently constructed so let’s look to the future. Next year could very possibly be Parker’s last year as a Spur. Just like Manu this summer, Parker could walk for nothing in return. (I would argue that Parker is MUCH more likely to leave than Manu, but that is another topic)
With Tony’s game so predicated on his speed, this is a concern. He will be 29 by the end of next year and have a ton of wear for a 29 year old player, not to mention the fact that a pg’s speed generally declines once they reach 30. The idea of trading Tony is not such a radical idea that it should be lightly dismissed as lunacy.
If you just want to look at statistics as a measure of a production, Ginobili averages 14pts, 5assts and makes $10mil. So I guess comparing production on a per dollar basis George Hill kicks Ginobili’s ass! So maybe the Spurs should let him walk? After all we have George Hill who is younger and more productive!
Go SPURS…………. i cant wait for tuesdays game againts miami……. goodluck george, manu, malik , blair & cedric………
11 assist for george hill…….. that’s his career high….. & against wolves he has 8……… 9.5 in two consecutive games…. woow……. future allstar…….
No trade of Tony Parker…Too Good in too many ways. Besides, the stuff TP has cannot be taught.
Ginnobli-glad to see the return of his game. Completely unorthodox and totally unpredictable. A nightmare to defend for anyone.
Cant trade him either. Same reasoning as Tony Parker, but there is an added dimension with Ginnobli. He is the fan favorite. He is the main guy that puts butss in the seats…Moving on..
Richard Jefferson-Lots of complaints lately about Richard’s play, and deservingly so. However, Richard apparently demanded his gonads back from Pop and his game wasnt far behind. Welcome back Richard.
May main man Malik Hariston-So glad that this kid is finally getting the opportunity to show his game to the league and the fans. He is a baller and will make this team better. What took so long?
Jackson- This kid comes in to San Antonio and two days later, he is in the rotation and contributing. Blew me away. Ive been told and constantly reminded of the complexity of Pop’s highly detailed system. Well, apparently Jackson is a genious. Welcome to the family Einstein…
Mahinmi-Again, should have been playing all year. Can actually help this team in the middle with limited minutes. We knew this all along.
Finally,
George Hill-Make no mistake. George Hill is NBA starter material right now. He is playing well, cool under pressure, super athletic, and as smart as they come. He and Portland’s Demarcus Aldridge are the most improved players of the year, by far.
During the Clipper game, the team had a new and refreshing look to it. It looked like a family for the very first time. An entire group that felt like part of the plan. Once a team gets everybody involved and allows them to contribute, anything can happen.
Hope it lasts…..
the only reason hill is so cheap is becausw he is still on his rookie contract. I could see him in a 4 yr 16 mil contract after next yr. Parker should cut his ego and come off the bench until he is back to all star form.
Hobson honestly I meant it when i said it wasn’t directed at you.
Regarding a trade of Frenchy, as mentioned in some thread 80 pages back, the issue truly this year with any trade was that it was only contenders willing to take on future salary, and he couldn’t help a contender because he was getting up and down the court on crutchs.
It’s so difficult to trade an injured player unless he is a massive fat expiring (hello Raef La Frentz).
I love George, I love Tony, and I believe that we need them both.
George/Manu/Healthy Tony is an exceptional 3 guard rotation with someone like Malik Hairston/Roger mason jr sliding in and out of a couple of positions and taking up the last 10 or 12 minutes available.
It’s the frontline that’ll be the death of us in the next two years anyway.
Just stop with the RJ stuff…
I wanna see this guy perform in the clutch or hit a big shot down the stretch in a playoff game..
That WILL NOT happen…
The guy is softer then napkins….
This team will go as far as TD/TP will carry them once again….
Bushka,
No hard feelings. I knew your comments were meant for the illogical rant from a previous poster. I agree that the future of the front court doesn’t look too great. Even this year I think we are dangerously thin. McDyess is ok, Blair will be good, but for now is only a rookie, and Matt Bonner is Matt Bonner. Splitter would be a great pickup, but his situation is far from certain. My whole assumption behind the proposed Tony trade is that we can’t get free agents in SA very easily, we have no cap space, and it appears that we have very few young players that are in the pipelines. We are a team in decline. Perhaps by trading RJ or even Tony, we can address a number of needs, but if the FO looked into trading Duncan (as a previous article stated) then they will definitely look at trading Parker. Again, perhaps we retain Parker and trade RJ, but going into next year with the same lineup minus a few role players is suicide. As the saying goes, you can’t do the exact same thing and expect different results. A move has to be made.
“This is like the one chance of my career to make the top ten plays.â€
Bonner is underestimating his chances: that penetration which ended with the two handed dunk against Toronto (October or November) could have made the top ten, too!
N
Couldnt leave without commenting on The Red Rocket, AKA “The Red Improvement”.
Bonner finally decided to come out and contribute. He decided that he can be more than a one trick pony (first flash of this since he put on the silver and black). He even put effort in on the defensive end of the floor. He banged a litle bit and even drove the ball to the rack a few times…
Advice to Matt…Never let any coach convince you that you can only do one thing well. It is a career killer. Just come out to play basketball every night and do whatever it takes to contribute.
Due to your improved effort, I have removed you from my all time “super sucks list”, leaving Bogans on that list all alone.
As for needed front court help…..Of course we need it. Every decent front court player that has landed here in San Antonio, has been run out of town. I knew it was suicide, but all of the Pop praisers were convinced that he was right. Well, he wasnt.
This team can go out and bring in players. Players that can contribute right now and during the offseason. But wil this coach and FO allow it? Or, will they draft 3 more forein players that might or might not stop in San Antonio?
Our nucleous is older, but still effective. Trading them is dangerous business and could easily lead to a 10 year rebuild.
Lets stop making excuses for this Coach and FO…Thier miscues and horrible personnel decisions have hurt this team. Anyone that denies that point is simply in denial.
tony parker sucks!
Hobson13/Bushka -
If we are truly in “rebuliding” mode, I think you have to look at all options, including trading pieces of your core, i.e. Parker. It might not be popular, but at the end of the day, if we get an offer we can’t refuse, you have to do what is best for the future of the organization. By the same token, if someone offers Manu 4 years, $36M, I think you have to let him walk. I’d hate to see him go, but you can’t cripple your cap for a guy past his prime.
We’ll see how it plays out. To be honest, our team this time next year might look radically different. If we get off to another slow start next year, I think you’ll see RC make several moves in the hopes of shedding salary and getting younger. It might even come sooner than that (this summer).
But you can definitely count on one thing – our salary cap situation right now is not the norm for us. The Spurs organization doesn’t have the earnings power of LA or NY – we can’t sustain this level of spending. Eventually, we’ll have to revert to the mean and get back under the luxury tax line.
@Ballhog, yes it’s criminal the way Pop ran frontcourt players like Robinson and Duncan out of town. Had he checked his ego at the door and kept them around this franchise might not have sucked so much the last decade.
And you couldn’t be more right about drafting foreign players. They clearly should have drafted George Hill and DeJuan Blair instead of those furriners. What were they thinking?
@BALLHOGI don’t agree with some of your rants but this is an absolute classic, moreso because it’s soooo true… BTW, did you misspell genius on purpose to add to the flavor? Niiice…
Jackson- This kid comes in to San Antonio and two days later, he is in the rotation and contributing. Blew me away. Ive been told and constantly reminded of the complexity of Pop’s highly detailed system. Well, apparently Jackson is a genious. Welcome to the family Einstein…
Jackson has played 9 and 15 minutes in two blowout games. I hardly think that qualifies as “in the rotation.”
Tyler: with all due respect, I think you’re way off saying that Manu is past his prime. If you mean as a crazy-ass scorer, perhaps. But as a play -maker, I think he’s just entering his prime. Or perhaps more accurately, he has now been put in a position where he can show his full range of play-making ability. I see no reason why he cannot continue to be a play-maker in the Jason Kidd mold (although, honestly, I’ve never been a big fan of his), relying on his court vision (unmatched by anyone in the league IMO), high basketball IQ, competitiveness and leadership to contribute at a very high level for another 5 or so years. I also agree with Ballhog that we should not discard Ian so easily. The kid is raw, to be sure, but he shows flashes of game and he seems driven. And as others have said, you can’t teach height and athleticism. I hope we keep him and groom him.
Nice win by the Spurs; obviously we should have gotten the win, but seeing us dominate for 48 minutes is always encouraging. I have to say it’s funny to hear people say how great Bonner is now that he had a great game where a few days ago you couldn’t swing a cat without hitting someone who thought we should be playing the likes of Ian Mahinmi or Dwayne Jones, and I’m also amused at how people think us beating these bad teams without Parker “prooves” we’re better without him(clearly, it’s not like he was our most valuable player on our last championship or anything), but I degress.
Now we get to the teeth of our schedule. If we can go 4-3 in our remaining games against Cleveland, the Lakers, Orlando, Denver, and Dallas, I would be ecstatic, and 3-4 wouldn’t be so bad. Tough games still to come against Boston, Atlanta, OKC and Phoenix, too, and I feel like we’ve really got to go 3-1 or 4-0 in those games to restore any confidence that we might be able to hang with the other contenders come playoff time.
The interesting thing is, how high do we want to climb? 5th (or even maybe 4th) seed means we probably get Utah, a team that swept us this year, and then the Lakers in the 2nd round. Dallas and Denver look like no picnic, but I’d rather take my chances with them and give us a little more time to work Tony back into the rotation before we (hopefully) get to play the Lakers. The honest truth is that we probably still have a hard time making it out of the first round at all, but assuming our goal is to still win a title at this point, it looks like the 6-7 seeds is where we want to be.
…Just a weird thing I’ve noticed, on Hollinger’s Power Ranking thing we’re 5th… Wtf. Lol.
Why does everyone hate Tony so much? He is an all star caliber player. I have been a long time spurs fan and I have seen Tony’s steady improvement since his rookie year. This season he is playing hurt. On any given game Tony is in my estimation 75 to 85% healthy. You can see that sometimes he lacks explosiveness to get by his man and to the rim. Tony used to be one of the league leaders in points in the paint as a point gaurd! I love George Hill but he will never be an all star in this league. He will never be gameplanned for by opposing teams. He is a way better defender than Tony. But his ballhandling skills are not outstanding. He doesn’t take his man off the dribble and drive to the rim that much. Most of his buckets come off transition, jumpers, and execution of plays(good cuts). With that being said George has the oppurtunity to thrive in SA because our three “stars” take so much of opposing teams defensive gameplan. It’s pick your poison and teams just can’t stop George when their priorities are to limit Manu, Tim and Tony. The Spurs main problem is their lack of size and lack of a lanky, good perimeter defender that can gaurd multiple positions. George is not tall enough to gaurd the Carmello or the Lebron or have the size to bother a Steve Nash or a Chauncey Billups.
Holinger’s power rankings heavily way margin of victory over the last 10 games/25% of the schedule. Two big blowout wins in a row helps those numbers a lot, and the “slumping” Lakers don’t help their cause in that regard, but they are on cruise control to the playoffs and everyone knows it.
I don’t know about cruise control. Lakers don’t impress me at all this year.
agutierrez –
Over the next 1-2 years, yes, Manu might be able to keep putting up solid numbers in line w/ his career averages. But I think it’s safe to say, that with his style of play, his production is eventually going to taper off. Is that 2 years from now? 3 years? Longer? And knowing this, what price tag do you put on him at the end of this season? Keep in mind, you’re going to have to play him less and less minutes every season to keep him fresh.
It’s more a question of value than anything. Believe me, I want nothing more than to see him retire a Spur, but you can’t break the bank for him. Right now Manu is earning $10.725M (and earning every penny!). All I meant in my post was that the Spurs shouldn’t overpay for him. I’d like to see something starting in the $6-7M range. But what happens if someone offers a contract starting at $10M per? Do we try and top it? As much as it pains me to say, I don’t think we can.
We can agree to disagree on when we think Manu’s play will taper off. But I think we can agree that overpaying, especially older players, is not a wise decision.
Well I for one will not be drinking the kool-aid with the rest of you. Yes we have played well the last few games, but before you all get too excited you might want to check the upcoming schedule. We could easily go 2-10 in the next 12. With Golden State and NJ as the only wins. Come on people we beat the Minnesota and the Clippers and some of you think we will move all the way to the fifth seed. We will still need help just to stay out of the 8 spot with our schedule.
As far as Parker goes, we really need to look at the whole picture to get a better understanding of why it would be prudent on our part to trade him. Some times you have to make hard decisions about stars, in order to make sure you do not sacrifice your future. What I mean is simply this: If we do nothing and he walks after next year because we can’t/won’t pay him what he thinks he is worth, we will not receive anything. That will be a huge set back. If we trade him either in the off season or by trade deadline next year and get players/draft picks then we get some value for the guy. Bottom line Parker is NOT the same player he was 2 yrs ago and will more than likely continue to decline. He still has great value and we could definitely get a good deal with him included. We can find another PG. Look at the Hornets. Paul gets hurt and Collison can straight ball. You don’t think NO is already thinking of shedding Paul’s big contract to try and get more assets for their team. This is what i am saying for us to do. We have to resign Manu for less money and keep Hill in the fold. Together they will more then handle the PG responsibilities until we get another PG or draft one. As I said on other posts trading Parker will not be popular, but we can’t live in the past. We have to think about the future and what will he bring to our team next year and beyond, and the reality is he could be gone afer next year anyway.
Bonner seems to have finally found his sandwich.
I must say that I am amused by everyone talking about how much Bonner improved. He’s been doing those little drive hook shots all year long.
Every game he’s been in he works his butt off on defense. He knows the system and he doesn’t make mental mistakes when he plays defense. He’s not going to shut anyone down in the post by any stretch, but he can make them work.
@ hooptser.
Well I guess the SPURS should just stop playing then.
@JORDAN
I agree. I’ve always liked The Red Rocket and he has been playing like this all year. I still think the SPURS would have a higher seed right now if BONNER didn’t get hurt. POP started with all the rotation changes when BONNER got hurt.
I guess people forgot how he took the ball all the way to the rack and jammed on the RAPTORS earlier this season.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BAomDJMEwY
Tyler
March 15th, 2010 at 11:15 am
Hoopster
March 15th, 2010 at 11:59 am
Tyler & Hoopster: For the most part, I’m in agreement with your comments on this thread. Nice analysis. We are indeed in a difficult situation with our cap. We simply cannot afford to over-pay, even for our core stars. Some tough decisions will undoubtedly need to be made in the next 6-18 months. I’d love to keep Ginobli, but we will not be able to pay him his current market value. If Ginobli chooses to stay, he will undoubtedly have to make some concessions. Let’s hope he does.
And I would be surprised if the Spurs didn’t have someone right now in the organization taking a thorough look at ALL the possible trade scenarios they feel would help the team going forward, with an emphasis on young talent, and “diamond in the rough” strategies to allow us to keep our team salary in line.
They also may try to add a veteran shot-blocker, and will definitely be looking at what TP & RJ’s 2011 expiring’s could net them. At the same time, they will also want to try and avoid being forced into giving them away too cheaply, if possible. And even if Duncan re-signs in 2012-13, he will have to agree to cut his salary considerably, maybe in half.
In the meantime, the organization needs to work hard on developing the young people we do have. Hill could very well continue to improve considerably. I don’t think we even know where his ceiling is yet. And Blair has tremendous potential, but at age 20, and with the “height” burden, he still has a tremendous amount of work to do. Hairston is a keeper, at least through next season, and we need to do all we can do to ascertain his potential and facilitate his development.
The fact is, we could be a considerably different team next year. We have 14 players on the roster, but half of them have expiring deals before or at the end of the season (Bogans, Bonner, Ginobli, Jackson, Mahinmi, Mason, & Temple). And there is a chance that we don’t sign any of them, which would leave us with Blair, Duncan, Hairston, Hill, Jefferson, McDyess, & Parker, and then seven roster spots to fill without a ton of cap space.
I just hope the FO makes some good moves in the next 6-18 months. One thing we obviously need is youth & size on the frontline!
The question remains: can we find it, and at what cost?
If we get an amazing offer for Tony then of course we look at moving him.
Right now though he is a terrible trade option with his injuries and uncertainty over his playing future internationally.
If we don’t resign Manu though we can’t afford to move him. No Manu, no TP means we are thinner at the guard spots than we are in bigs.
@ Hoopster, Tyler, and Henderson
Finally we have some people on here that are more interested in the Spurs future than what kind of player Tony was 2-3 years ago. The Spurs glory days are at least temporarily over with. The big 3 will not win a championship with the current team and they may NEVER again win a title (at least while they are all together). However, the Spurs have HUGE trade assets and need to restock with young talent and draft picks. Good analysis, gentleman.
If Manu keeps playing like he has been since the Durant block the Spurs will be a dangerous team in the playoff.
Parker off of the bench as instant offense normally would never work b/c Parker isnt as selfless as Manu but with the current situation, coming back to the team after missing the last 20ish games of the season, I think Parker will do what’s best for the team.
Parker, Blair, Bonner, and Haiston off the bench could be a good look.
Just a quick one.
Tonys glory days are not 2 to 3 years ago. They were last year.