Notes from Wayne Winston, part 1

Interesting…

Stats and numbers speak for themselves, but if you give up as many points as you make does that still make you an essential part of the team? I love Matt’s hustle… wish some of the higher paid players would take some notes.

Knowing Matt Bonner’s outstanding plus/minus rating, I’ve been wondering if having him missing with injury has exacerbated the team’s issues for the last month or so.
Hopefully getting him back to form and Tony getting some rest will have us all very relieved. Although I never thought I’d hinge my Spurs optimism on Matt Bonner, I am optimistic.

Good analysis. It’s great to see the evidence in a format like this. I think Pop is extremely worried about the health of Duncan, McD, and Bonner and is compensating by playing only one of them at a time. He may switch back as the season ends and playoffs show up, but I really don’t want to have to win nearly every game at the end of the season to ensure a good seed. Spurs worked too hard to beat out Dallas last year and it hurt us when it mattered. I still believe we need to find a way to win the SW division and try to get a few games rest right before playoffs for Parker, Manu, and Duncan.
I guess the real problem is that there are too many players on this team needing rest before playoffs. Other than the big 3, Bonner and Dice need rest too. That doesn’t leave much to play with.

This is just an analysis of points scored with different sets in the game. It does not say who these groups played against, or how much time they played together etc. Of course Matt Bonner is going to be in a higher ranking than Bogans. Why? He shoots the ball. Read the comment from the first poster about defensive liability. Whooopeeedoo Matt Bonner hits 40% of his threes and takes 2-3 of them per game. How many second chance points, second chances, rebounds, points, penetration, etc. does he give up?

I think we’ve seen less small ball since Bonner has returned. Denver tried to beat us with small ball which allowed us to counter with our own more than we had seen in the game before that.

In terms of rotational players, let’s say we trade Dice in a 3 team trade that brings us back Thomas. Maybe others are traded too, but that is the bulk swap in terms of our rotation/minutes. Eventhough Dice is in 4 of those line-ups, Thomas could be as well. He could even make new lineups better. The bigger thing is that Thomas could be an option in the offseason, and if he’s not then we get even more cap space.

The most interesting thing to me though is that I’ve always thought the Spurs should rotate 1 of the big 3 out at all times and always maintain 2 of them on the court at any given time. Then in crunch time, you put all 3 out. Obviously, they’d play more minutes in the playoffs making for more overlap of all 3 having shared court time. Not only are they all 3 in our top 2 lineups but 3 of the top 7.

Ginobili is the only player of the big 3 to grace a top 5 man unit without one of the other 2, and he does it twice. Both times with Blair and Hill. Resigning Manu and not trading him should be a top priority. Manu is the transition. Blair and Hill have exceeded my expectations already, and a big with hands like Splitter’s will surely complement Manu next year.

Compare that to Parker’s lineups. Parker doesn’t have a single lineup without Duncan. How is he supposed to transition us away from Duncan and have it be his team if he can’t lead a top lineup without him. Even on 82games.com, Parker is in 9 of Duncan’s top 10 5 mans and Duncan is in all 10 of Parkers. It makes you really understand the trade rumors for Chris Paul. (Note: I like Parker. I don’t think he is going to run for Hollywood when his contract is up. I just doubt his ability to be a franchise type of player. He is in a fair to good contract though for his talent level.)

Thanks for sharing Tim. I can’t wait for the other entries.

Blase- Your point about Parker is legit, and one of my main concerns. Once TDs Pick N roll is on the beach drinking cocktails for the rest of his eternity, what will Parker be? A French version of AI? Which is why I dont understand the infatuation…

The infatuation is with Pop, not Parker. Amazing that blind support for this coach is so deeply entrenched. I have posters of the true Spurs warriors on my wall of fame. Bonner and Bogans will not have a spot. Am I nuts? Is 11 million daollars for Bonner a good deal? Couldnt we have gotten Tyrus Thomas and another good player for that money? and still had change? How about Jefferson. Vince Carter refused to play for this coach as many others have in the past, so they panic and go after RJ…and now they are whining about it…LMAO….These guys on our bench are guys that were willing to play for this guy…There are many players that wouldnt play for this guy, who are in the league and having great success…How long can this be ignored?

How many more good players do we lose under this FO and coach?

Also,

Even the Spurs Drug Free Youth Basketball program is indicative of who these guys are. Kids have no place to practice, so they just show up for games. They dont even give them uniforms. They give them a T shirt to play in….Sickening!

But, hey….They can only get away with it if we continue to support them…I say its time for some overdue pressure!

@BALLHOG

Please stop with the constant FO/Pop rants, it’s getting old. We won 4 championships with the players the FO/Pop brought in. How you can ignore that huge fact in order to constantly remind everyone that Scola is playing very well for another team is mind boggling. Just stop already.

@Pop haters in general

How can you claim the Spurs relative lack of success is directly Pop’s fault when 3 of his top 4 players are falling well short of their abilities? You complain about his small ball tactics and line-up changes, but how about giving him some credit for busting his balls trying to find something that works?

I’m just looking for lucid, well thought out answers from the Pop haters.

I hope all you guys calling for Pop’s walking papers aren’t the same guys who want Ty Thomas… the ONLY chance for Thomas to become a great asset for ANY team is to play next to a Tim Duncan, and for a GREAT defensive coach, otherwise he is just another Str Swift… if the FO gets him, however, it will be a sign that Pop is moving away from small ball, and vitally, back to his defense first m.o… if TT ends up almost anywhere else, we will never regret not getting him.

@BALLHOG

I disagree completely with everything you just said.

Alas, arguing on the internet…

AP, there is some merit to your post. It would be strange at best if Pop suddenly couldnt coach.

But, according to most of the posts in here, suddenly Jefferson, Parker, Mcdyess, and Mason cant play basketball anymore.

If it is possible for any of us to assume that crap, couldnt we assume the same about Pop?

Besides, who gives a crap about what he did yesterday. This is still the worst coaching job hes done in a season since season one.

He is not above reproach.

Also, @ Thatbigguy,

We may not agree, but I appreaciate that you can disagree with class….Lets heat this argument up and try to open some eyes.

To “Trade TP”

I’m re-posting this here from the comment section of the previous blog post, “Episode 2 of the 48MoH Podcast: The Trade Deadline Approacheth”

For the 1st trade, with the Jazz, unfortunately when I clicked back on the link, the trade didn’t come up. I’m not sure exactly who the the Spurs players were that I proposed to trade. But here it is again, the best from memory: Ginobli, Bonner, Ratliff, & Bogans, for Boozer, Brewer, & Mathews.

http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=yfrua7b

New Jazz starting five would be:

Williams, Ginobli, Kirilenko, Okur, & Milsap

Rotation: Bonner, Miles, Korver, Price, & Ratliff. They also have Koufos & Fesenko as additional “Bigs”.

Pros for Jazz:

1) Milsap is young and entirely capable of taking over for Boozer (35-40 minutes per game); Milsap is awesome!
2) Ginobli playing with Williams? Now that’s truly scary!
3) They get at top 3-point shooter big man off the bench in Bonner to come off the bench, oe even team with Okur on occasion. Talk about spreading the floor!
4) Bogans can help temper the loss of Brewer’s perimeter “D”, and Ratlif can give them some veteran depth and shot blocking in the paint.

Fact is, Jazz are committed to Milsap (4 years). They’re going to lose Boozer anyway, but could very well have the ability to resign Ginobli (although they’re going to need to add some size/depth in frontline this summer as well, but they’ll still have 6+ million in expiring contracts [Korver, Fesenko] to work on that).

Sure, it’s not a perfect deal (e.g., I’d rather have a better defender/shotblocker than Boozer down low), but it could ultimately help both teams.

Here’s the ORIGINAL POST:

Deals that may make sense for both teams:

http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=ygddr7o

Pros for Spurs:

1) Youth
2) Size at two-guard, perimeter defense.
3) Veteran scoring/rebounding presence/depth in the paint

http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=yf59k6y

Pros for Spurs:

1) Youth/athleticism, additional depth in front court
2) Defense/Shot-blocking around the basket, and/or weakside

What do I think? I think we need another big.

Anyone who wants to solve the spurs problems by starting the best five and only going 8-deep is being myopic.

Starting Tim with Dice leads to both of those players sitting out for the end of the first quarter and much of the second. Pop is trying to limit both players’ minutes (and for good reason) and Dice has to come out first and doesn’t get much burn at all in the 2nd q.

Blair and Bonner do just fine as the four-five, but only in limited minutes and only when the other team has benched its scary low-post threat. A great example was the nuggets game with no Kmart, where this duo stretched the lead in the second and fourth and, together, was something like +16 against the nugget bench that night. However if Pop is forced to go to bonner-blair as a regular scheduled rotation or god help us as a playoff rotation than other teams will attack it and our bench will go from a strength to a weakness.

Furthermore relying on these two to play 15+ min a night so that Dice and Tim can rest at the same time is asking for trouble. Blair has nights where he struggles with defending some huge nba guy he’s never met before or gets into foul trouble and has to be benched, and Bonner’s a jumpshooter so his game is either feast or famine. Not exactly the reliable pairing you’ll need while resting your twin towers.

Rather than starting Dice and Duncan the best move is to start Duncan with Bonner and rotate Blair in for the red rocket fairly early. Instead of having Dice come in for the small big you have him come in for Duncan more or less when manu is coming in. something like this:

early 1st q: Duncan Bonner RJ Hill Parker
transition uncan Blair RJ Hill Parker
late 1st q : Dice Blair Manu X X

This way you always have a 7-footer on the floor and you maximize the time you can keep your proven lineups out there.

Looking at it this way, the real way the spurs could upgrade their team would be to KEEP Dice and add a big man who can play a lot of minutes and makes sense as a complementary player to Tim Duncan. If neither gets traded then Blair and Bonner can be bench guys along with McDyess, who would be the first big off the bench.

Not much point in speculating I suppose, we’ll find out what the FO is planning soon enough.

Ballhog – I disagree with you on most of your points.

What players are you referring to when you say that many players in the league won’t play for Pop? You referred to VC, but I don’t remember hearing anything about that. I remember we didn’t pull the trigger on VC b/c of the huge contract extension NJ had given him.

“Players want a coach that is tough but fair and has their best interests at heart”. I take it that you believe Pop is too tough, not fair and doesn’t have the player’s best interest at heart (correct me if I’m wrong)? What makes you think this is the case?

No coach, player or front office is beyond reproach – including the those on the Spurs. Each is due criticism for the mistakes they make. Even 48MoH has criticized Pop with their small ball piece. However, I think the brunt of your criticism of Pop/FO is unwarranted. Maybe Pop turns to small ball too much, but considering the root of our struggles this season, exactly how many games better would we actually be if we went to bigger lineups? My guess is 2, maybe 3 games better if things go our way – not enough to keep us from having this conversation methinks.

Here’s my take – the Spurs’ stuggles the last few years are due more to age (injuries) and players not meshing as they (and we) expected. The front office has made a few calculated gambles that haven’t panned out. I don’t think that means they’ve done a bad job (at the time, 99% of us were applauding the RJ deal). While most of the deals they’ve done have been peripheral (except RJ), they’ve also been able to preserve cap flexibility, a must for a small market team like SA, especially considering the looming CBA negotiations.

Pop and the FO might not be getting an A like usual this year, but they’re also far from a failing grade.

Cheers.

Nice to see Boogans on the list once! I hope he keeps starting.

Mark Wylie -

In answer to this question you posed:

To those that think we should trade Ginobili, does seeing him in our top 3 and 5 of our top 7 line ups change your opinion?

NO

Please see my trade proposal to Jazz in this comment section.

As you can tell, I agree with Greyberger when he states:

“Looking at it this way, the real way the spurs could upgrade their team would be to KEEP Dice and add a big man who can play a lot of minutes and makes sense as a complementary player to Tim Duncan.” (i.e., Duncan at center, Boozer at PF – both can hit the 15-18 footer and brawl in the paint – gives us much needed youth, depth & scoring presence in the paint).

By the way, the deal consists of all expiring contracts. Gives us max flexibility this summer/next trade deadline to make some big decisions on longer term team stability (e.g. large Parker & Jefferson contracts expiring next year).

I find it hilarious how the same ignorant crowd keep shouting the same ignorant bs about Matt Bonner.

He is an excellent tool that when used by a skilled coach like Pop is productive and efficient.

THIS IS THE PART YOU NEED TO GRASP

He is efficient without having the ball, shooting the ball, or looking at the ball.

He is so deadly a 3 point specialist that having him on the wing denies teams the ability to double down with two bigs on Tim, or clog the lane with two shot blockers for Manu / Tony etc.

It’s not that he shoots one three a game and scores 7 or 8 points that makes him good.

Its the fact that he makes space for his team mates.

In much the same way a guy like Greg Oden increases his Teams Defensive rating exponentially despite not blocking otherworldly numbers of shots into the stands because he alters and intimidates, so too does a guy like Matt Bonner make his teams offense better just by being on the court.

Read & Comprehend. It’s all over the internet already, check 82games.com ballhype, nba.com for your statistics regarding player efficiency, true shooting, lineup effectiveness, PER etc.

These are the style of tools that smart Coachs & Staff within the league use to assess the team they have in front of them.

Instead of saying BONNER SUCKS HIS GUY GETS mASSIVE CAREERR HIGHS GG. Figure it out rationally and work through it.

They need to redo those stats. I don’t see any small lineups in the top 5. Crazy.

Gibes with my gut feeling about this team.