The 4-Down Podcast, Episode 56: J.E. Skeets of The Basketball Jones

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We’re so close, you guys. On Monday the Spurs host Media Day, where all the players are trotted out for photos and interviews with nerds like yours truly. It’s essentially one long media scrum. With the strangeness that is Media Day, comes training camp and the start of a new NBA season. I’m so excited I’m not even thinking about how exhausted I’ll be in January.

In the run-up to the start of the season, we’re back with another 4-Down Podcast. This week, J.E. Skeets of the wildly-popular NBA blog and show The Basketball Jones joins us to talk about the Spurs and upcoming season. Skeets explains the origins of Manu the Poo-God, tells us his story of getting “Popped” at All-Star Weekend and divulges how TBJ became buddies with Matt Bonner.

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  • Bry

    I don’t think the playoff seeding will be directly linked to how ‘good’ each team is. The Spurs have excellent depth, only two guys with age issues, had the best record in the conference comfortably the past two seasons, and have the same team returning with an addition or two. All of that points to excellence in the regular season. I mean, last year Leonard was a rookie (with no training camp), Manu missed half of the season, and Mills and Diaw missed spent most of the season elsewhere. The Lakers, meanwhile, still have an awful bench, and rely four guys in their starting line-up who are visibly fading with age. The one guy that isn’t, Howard, is coming off back surgery (Nash also has back issues) and they’ve got to integrate both those guys into their new system while Kobe continues to ballhog and ignore he phenomenal post-players. So, I figure the Spurs are a top 2 seed, again.

  • Alfred Costuna Montalvo

    The Shaq and Kobe Lakers circa 2001 are a perfect example of this. Come to think of it, so did the 2007 Spurs. Neither team had a really dominant regular season record but flattened their opposition come playoff time.

  • Graham

    A fFOCompletely agree. Not saying it translates to the postseason, but finishing in the top 2 is what I expect as far as seeding goes. Is there any reason to expect we won’t continue to roll any team that’s not top 6 in the league like were towards the end of last year? Can you imagine if we ripped off a whole season at that clip?

  • Bry

    This Lakers team reminds me much more of the 2004 Lakers. Good but aging starting 5 apart from the small forward. Awful bench. A bunch of stars and HOFers thrown together and expected to play as well in their mid to late 30s as they did in their primes. One big difference is that I don’t see them making the finals. In fact there are three teams in the West (maybe four) that I think could take down the Lakers. One injury and their done. The Spurs on the other hand can endure an injury or two, as can OKC, Denver, and to a lesser extant LAC.

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